Bonding

**First – If you have personally emailed me I am having email issues, I can’t receive emails right now but I can send. Grrrr, so I apologize for not getting back to you. I can however go online and read your comments on my blog, thank you so much for commenting it makes life hear all the more enjoyable. **And a shout out to my friends in MN, where the heck are your comments??????? Slackers! Just kidding, you know that I love you, but I would truly love to see you post. Smile! Hint Hint!
**So I remember logging into family's blogs and wondering why they had to write such long entries, and now I understand. :) There is a lot to say!

Today was ‘officially’ Bonding Day #1 and, with some pleading from my translator, I was able to see little Z twice today. I am going to be honest and say that I can’t imagine that the international doctor could say all that much that would sway me from ‘officially’ becoming this little girl’s mommy. She is beautiful, and of course today, she was a complete angel. Already, at just under 9 months, she is rolling over both ways and getting up on all fours! Needless to say, I was totally impressed! She also has 4 teeth, her top front 2 and her bottom front 2. Totally cute! She giggled once tonight and smiled several times for me. She loves when I lay on my back and we do the 1,2,3 and I bring her up over my head, this is how I got the giggle. She is also a wonderful cuddler and I must admit that I am also quite impressed at her ability to hang on to what is hers. I brought in a couple toys, and one of the other little girls (she is 17 months) came over and tried to take the toy, but little Z held on for dear life, at least as long as she could before it was strong armed away from her. No worries, I stepped in as did the other mommy and she got her toy back. Nobody pushes my kid around. Hehe just kidding…..kind of! Big Smile!

This is what I know so far: She was born at 36 weeks and she weighed 5.3lbs, not so shabby. I do also know that she was born in a hospital, which was wonderful to hear, at least I know that the birth was as stress free as possible. I believe that we have both her birth mom and dad’s names too! I say ‘I believe’ because her birth mom gave this information at the hospital, so I am hopeful that it is accurate. It is also Kazak tradition to have a first name, the father’s first name as a middle and then the last name, so her birth father’s name was listed as part of her name. Smile!

Regarding the ‘selection’ process, as I knew, it was a bit tough. The day started at 9:00 am when my translator Aina and I went to the Department of Education. In Aqtobe you meet with the Department of Education and they take you, along with your translator, to the baby house(s) to meet the Orphanage Director and guide you through the selection process. In our initial meeting, the lady at the Dept. of Education asked me a couple questions (that to be quite honest I wasn’t quite prepared to answer):

*Why was I adopting?
*What is my story?
*What do I do for a living?
*Why am I adopting so young?
*Why don’t I want to deliver a baby?
*How much money do I make?

We then took off to the older baby house (it is a pink and blue building for those traveling in the future – I thought something was fishy when we pulled up in front of a pink building as I knew the baby house was white and blue, so I asked my translator why this building and she let me know that the Director was here), I believe that this building is where the children from 3-5 years old are. I met with the Director of the Orphanage(s) and then I was told that I would meet one child there. Needless to say, I was not happy about this. My paperwork indicated a girl, healthy as possible, preferably Kazak, from 6-15 months………and this was a little 4 year old Caucasian girl. I understand that they need to find homes for all of their children, older, younger, special needs, girls, boys, Russian, Kazak, etc. thus they want to open up your mind a bit and show you at least one child out of your preference, but she was quite a bit older than I had requested. My heart really hurt for her as she was so cute and it seemed that she knew the drill. She came right over, sat on my lap, played with my bracelet, I let her wear it, we read a book and when she was told it was time to go she gave me my bracelet right back. Why would they intentionally put a child through this? If I had requested a child up to 3 years of age, I could see them introducing me to a little 4 year old girl, but it was quite a long shot for me. Sad! We then went to the Ymit Baby House (the white and blue building) this is where the babies to age 2 or 3 live. First they brought in Z and she was totally bundled up, head to toe in pink, all I could see was her chubby little cheeks. When the caregiver brought her in and gave her to me, she waited about 10 seconds and then her little lip started quivering and she looked for her caregiver, then the crying started, just a little bit though. She was attached! Perfect! I held her for maybe 3-5 minutes while they told me a bit about her health and then I was introduced to a second little girl; this little one was just over a year and pretty cute too, but I just didn’t connect with her like I did with Z. Seriously you get to meet the kids for only a couple minutes at max. After asking additional questions about Z’s health, her birth, birth mother, etc. they brought in her file and shared some additional information with me. From there I asked to start bonding with this child, she was in fact just what I was hoping for! She is a little Kazak girl, just under 9 months, showed healthy signs of attachment, no ‘truly’ scary health issues. (I will talk about the ‘health issues’ in a later post as it was interesting what was shared with me about her health. I do however recommend to all that haven’t traveled yet to study up on the Russian medical terminology before you travel, it will make your selection process much less stressful. Some of the terms they used and ‘conditions’ that they say she has sound really big but in reality, they are quite common diagnosis in an orphanage setting and in the Russian culture. No worries really.)

Yesterday I started some of my paperwork and Monday I meet with the head of the baby house to get more information on Z’s health and birth history. I will then send off photos, video and her health records to my International Doctor in Minnesota.

A couple tidbits:
*I love the LMI staff here in Aqtobe and in Almaty so far – very impressed!
*My Hotel and the Grocery Store takes Visa, so I could have paid for my entire hotel stay via a credit card if I had wanted. They also took Visa at the Almaty Airport.
*I heard that I could have also possibly brought traveler’s checks for some things, so do ask your coordinator before you order money! I hear that it is easy to work with traveler’s checks in Astana and Almaty and some additional regions too.
*You can smoke nearly anywhere here. Yuck! Very common, so get used to it when you are eating.
*Pay a little more to stay at a nice comfortable place, it will make your trip so much more enjoyable. To have some conveniences of home, a clean bed, a working toilet, etc. is a total bonus when you are this far from home………..especially if you are traveling single!