We Met Haylie Today!!!

Well, we finally made it to the orphanage to meet our little girl. They ended up picking us up from the hotel in Moscow around 4:30 to take us to the domestic airport to fly to Novokuznetzk. We met the other couple traveling with us, Stacy and Dave. Turns out we have a lot in common as Dave is a professor and Stacy is a nurse...even our last names are similar. They are really nice and we get along well. They are from Delaware and we are gonna try and get together after all of this process is done and get the kids together.

We got to the airport around 5:30pm but our flight didn't leave until 10:05 pm so we had a lot of time to kill. They said they would be very specific about the weight of the bags, but we lucked out because ours were overweight but we didn't have to pay any extra for it. We ate dinner at a "Russian" restaurant which was cafeteria style. We both had a sausage roll and potatoes. It wasn't bad. We sat and talked with Dave and Stacy the whole time waiting. The airport was extremely crowded and there were no seats anywhere to be had so we had to stand up the whole time. We finally took off on time for a 4 1/2 hour plane ride in a 1970's vintage plane. It was kind of spooky but had no problems. Because of the crazy time changes we arrived at 6am. The airport is literally in the middle of nowhere and it was really small and dark. Luckily our baggage made it all the way this time.

Natasha, the regional coordinator met us at the airport and took us to the hotel. We got checked in and cleaned up a little before we met her to leave for the orphanage at 9am. The hotel is interesting. Old and kind of dingy but clean. The orphanage was about an hours drive away to meet the babies. It is in a small industrial town which appears to be very poor. All of the housing is either large apartment buildings or small wooden shacks with tin roofs. Funny thing is, all these little wooden houses have like tyrolian gingerbread around the windows in pastel colors, kind of reminiscent of Austria. There are lots of smoke stacks billowing black debris and there is a lot of air pollution/smog.

The orphanage is a medium sized 2 story building, kind of run down but clean. They just celebrated their 75th anniversary. They took both Rich and I and Stacy and Dave into the Directors office. She read the medical and social history about Haylie to us while Natasha translated. Nothing unexpected came up. Turns out she was an only child of a 21 year old mother. They then started telling Stacy and Dave about their baby. They had had a referral of a 15 month old boy, but tragically when we got here today, they were told that little boy had been placed with a Russian family. Of course they were very upset as they had already formed a mental bond with that little guy. But they did give them another referral of a little boy 21 months old who had the most beautiful blue-grey eyes I've ever seen. I feel so sorry for them, it just is heartbreaking. While they like the new one, they had already really bonded with the other one.

Next they brought Haylie in for us to see. Boy, was that something. She is absolutely adorable. Very bright-eyed and active. She's crawling like a champ and pulling herself up to stand and walk around the table. She can't quite walk by herself yet, but it won't be long. They had her fixed up really cute in a new outfit and bow in her hair. We took tons of pictures and videos. Unfortunealtely, I can't download any pictures of her from this hotel computer--not allowed, but I'll have tons to show when we get home. We only got to spend about 1 1/2 hours with the kids today. It was supposed to be more but the schedule was different than Natasha thought. We will go back tomorrow and see them again and hopefully get to spend more time with them. She loved the little stuffed lamb her cousin Julia sent to her and she laughed out loud whenever we played with it. We will sign papers tomorrow saying we will accept her as our child and change her name officially to Haylie Ann.

We then drove back to the hotel and took a short nap. All of us are completely exhausted and just running on adrenaline. We slept for 2 hours and then went out walking and exploring the area around the hotel. We had hoped to find some traditional Russian ware, but all we could find were clothing, shoe, coat stores, etc. Stacy and Dave did buy a cute stuffed bear for their little guy. Around 4 we decided to go find something for dinner which was harder than it sounds. Unfortunately, Russian food is not so good. We ended up going to 3 different restaraunts before we found anything that sounded edible. Turns out what Stacy, Dave, & I had was all really good. Rich wimped out and just got a cheese plate because he didn't think anything else sounded appetizing and his cheese wasn't very good. It's now 6 pm and we are all completely exhausted and are going to go to bed really soon. It's 12 hours ahead of home so jet lag has really set in. Hopefully we'll all feel better tomorrow after a good nights sleep. At least Rich and I got to sleep one night in Moscow, but poor Stacy and Dave have been up continuously since Saturday as they flew the whole way. We are really glad we chose to stay over the extra night.

Tomorrow is our last day at the orphanage and the last to see the babies until our next trip.
Maybe I'll be able to post some pictures tomorrow.
Love,
Jody & Rich