Russian Adoption Journal

Final Russian Adoption Journal Post

2009-02-06T07:10:00.003-06:00

I’ve decided to make this the last post in our adoption journey blog. My plan is to convert this blog to a book for Liam and the one year mark of "Gotcha Day" seems like a good place to end it. Liam is so much a part of us now, only those who have followed our journey would ever even suspect he hasn’t always been with us. And we don’t really think of him so much as "adopted" anymore — he’s just our little boy.

Below is a picture of Liam on his "Gotcha Day" in Podolsk and the same pose a year later. Isn’t it amazing to see how much he has changed?

So, now I’m returning back to our main blog, 2Dolphins, which Rob has been maintaining mostly solo since I started this one. You can rest assured that I’ll post plenty of Liam updates there! I hope you’ll continue to follow our journey on that blog and please don’t forget to leave us comments so we know you’re still out there!

Gotcha Day Anniversary Celebration

2009-02-01T14:01:00.002-06:00

Although we officially became parents on January 21st, 2008, today marks our first anniversary as (hands-on) parents. February 1st was Liam’s "Gotcha Day" — the day he left the baby home in Podolsk and became our son forever. That was an emotion-filled day for all of us as we started off our new lives together.

While his actual birthday is still several weeks off, this is, in many ways, a birthday of sorts. A year ago today, Liam was "born" into our family. And here he is today, ready to dig into his "Gotcha Day" cupcakes!

Rob & I feel as though we got Liam at just the right time — he was just starting to make that subtle transition from infant to toddler. So, while we weren’t there for some of the baby milestones, like taking first steps, cutting new teeth, or going from bottle to solid food, we’ve been fortunate enough to be here for so many of the others. He hadn’t started speaking any Russian words yet, so the transition to English was very easy for him. We were concerned about if/how we’d communicate with him so we had purchased a baby sign language book and been studying some of the basic signs. Liam quickly picked up on a few of the signs (food related) while we were in Moscow and even now, every once in awhile he’ll still sign "more" while saying it when eating.

And a special "Happy Gotcha Day!" shout goes out to Anna, who joined Chris & Teresa’s family just 3 days after Liam joined ours, and all of the others we met in Moscow. Rob & I hope all of your anniversaries are just as special!

Court Anniversary

2009-01-21T06:02:00.003-06:00

One year ago today in a Russian courtroom, Rob & I officially became parents!

I remember the bundle of nerves we were entering the court building in Solnechnogorsk District of the Moscow region. Everything we had been through for over 2 years all came down to that one day and a foreign judge’s decision. Fortunately, our judge was pretty straight-forward with the hearing and she didn’t ask any questions that we weren’t expecting (thanks in no small part to the great prepwork from our CSS translator, Tanya).

Here we are one year later but it feels like we’ve had Liam all of his life. We’ve finally settled into a regular routine and are feeling like we’re getting a grasp on this whole parenting thing. It’s been a challenge starting off with a toddler rather than an infant — where most new parents have time to ease into and develop all of the needed parenting skills, adoptive parents just sorta have to jump right in with both feet. But the upside is that we’ve had more of an instant reward instead of having to wait a year or two before our child could talk & fully interact with us.

What a year it has been! We look forward to each day and the joy that Liam brings to our hearts.

Thankful For Attachment Problems

2009-01-20T06:30:00.003-06:00

When our adoption journey began, we set out to educate ourselves to get a better grip on the whole parenting thing. Neither of us had spent any great deal of time caring for children before, so we were understandably nervous. Among some of the conditions of the contract with our first agency, we were required to read 2 or 3 parenting books from a list of suggested titles. Jumping in with both feet, we went straight for Deborah Gray’s widely-acclaimed Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents.

Gray’s book is considered the must-read for dealing with attachment challenges but, honestly, we felt it painted an incredibly bleak picture of what laid ahead for us. We didn’t want to go into adoption with blinders on, but at the same time, many of the extreme attachment disorder examples in this book were very disturbing. Attachment disorder, for those who — like we certainly were — may be unfamiliar, is a broad term used to describe mood, behavior, & social relationship issues due to a failure to form normal attachments to primary caregivers during early childhood. These problems often stem from early experiences of neglect, abuse, abrupt separation, or frequent change of caregivers. Well, we were determined that we would rise above all of this. We were certain that we could provide enough love & stability for our new child to sidestep any attachement issues. My, how wrong we were...

Oh we’ve got attachment issues, all right, and they’re pretty bad at times. But it’s not what you think. The "problem" is, Liam is attached at the hip!

Yup, he’s firmly attached. Oh sure, it’s incredibly gratifying that he wants to spend time with me and share in all that I do. And when he’s "helping" with some task and is all filled with pride over his accomplishments, our hearts overflow with joy. But, y’know, sometimes you just need a few minutes of alone time & personal space. Sometimes you need a little privacy in the bathroom. And every time you pick up the phone, it’s not necessarily an invitation for a group call.

I’m joking of course! We’re so blessed that Liam doesn’t seem to have any lingering scars from his time in the orphanage. And of course, our hearts go out to those families who really are struggling with attachment issues. We’re so appreciative & delighted to finally be able to share our lives and see him experiencing all the little daily wonders that we so often take for granted!

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-17T07:32:00.000-06:00

Ok, I know I’m running a little behind but better late than never!

I hope everyone is having a great year so far. Mine got off to a rough start. I was sick in bed all day New Year's and ended up going to the E.R. the next day. I had the beginnings of what turned out to be sore throat and my tonsils were swollen shut. I couldn’t even swallow water without the pain being unbearable. Needless to say, there was no champagne toasting for me!

I thought I was on the mend but about 5 days after that, I broke out in a rash. At first, I thought it was an allergic reaction to something. I took some Benadryl and it helped some with the itching but the rash stayed there. I got home from work, took a shower and the rash was still there. I had a miserable night of itching and then went to the doctor the next morning. He informed me that I had a scarlatina rash. Fortunately, I got some more antibiotics and calamine lotion for the itching and all is well now and by some miracle, neither Rob or Liam got sick.

The year has been off to a rocky start but hopefully we’re back on track now. We took the first step on one of our New Year’s resolutions last week to start going to church. It was our first time with Liam at church and he seemed to really enjoy it. Here’s a picture of us all dressed up and ready to go to church:

How about you? How’re your New Year’s resolutions going?

More Christmas Photos

2008-12-30T20:57:00.004-06:00

Whew...I’m finally getting around to posting the rest of our Christmas Day photos. We had a wonderful Christmas this year and felt so blessed to have Liam here with us on Christmas morning. He is the best present in the world!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas too!!!

Click here to view our Christmas Day photos.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T22:27:00.002-06:00

Santa was good to Liam!

Post-Placement #2

2008-12-21T21:43:00.003-06:00

We had our 2nd post-placement visit yesterday and everything went well. Liam was his usual charming self and Allison the SW was impressed with his communication skills. We had a nice, long visit with her and she didn’t see any problems and thought he was well attached to us. Of course, we are always impressed with his progress but it’s always nice to hear it from a professional.

The First, First Anniversary

2008-12-03T01:00:00.003-06:00

On this date, one year ago, we met Liam for the first time. This year has really flown by. It seems like only yesterday we were sitting in the MOE office in Moscow anxious to hear about our referral.

We nervously sat across the table from the MOE agent staring at an upside down file folder trying to get a glimpse of the only photo they had of him. When she finally turned the photo around for us to look at, we understood why our agency had warned us to pay no attention to the photo because they were always bad. The photo was indeed bad and it looked like they had snapped a bright flash in his eyes while he was sleeping (see photo below). He was also about a year younger in the database photo so we really had no idea what he’d actually look like.

We left there, rode for over an hour to Podolsk, and waited nervously in an office at the baby home there for the caretakers to bring him in. They told us they were waking him up from his nap so we expected a cranky, screaming child. To our surprise, a kind older lady walked in with the most adorable, happy child that we immediately fell in love with — and that was that.

Fast forward one year and here we are with our happy, healthy, adorable son. We feel so blessed to have been chosen to be his parents.

I thought you might like to see a photo from each month of the past year to see how our son has grown in oh so many ways!

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T07:30:00.002-06:00

Liam's First Visit With the "Big Man"

2008-11-15T22:10:00.002-06:00

We started our day with "Breakfast With Santa," an event that our employee activity committee does each year. With a 150+ kids all in one room awaiting Santa’s arrival, you could literally feel the excitement in the air!

I’d been prepping Liam for the past couple of days for his meet & greet with the "Big Man" so his first picture with Santa wouldn’t be one of those Bad Santa photos you see on TV. I think I started the prep work a little too soon because he’s been looking and asking for Santa for a couple of days now so we were both happy for today to finally arrive.

Ol’ St. Nick made his entrance "rock star" style (through the back door of the building) with a build-up that you’d normally only see at a concert. All the kids cheered wildly when they saw Santa making his way to the stage.

Liam wasn’t too happy about having to stand in line to wait his turn but he managed to amuse himself running back & forth to us in the line. When his turn did finally come, he didn’t seem as interested in Santa as much as he was the candy and toy they gave on the way out. As you’ll see in the video below, he went straight for those first!

Even though Liam is 2½ years old, we think of this as his first real Christmas so we’re trying to do everything we can to make it a special one without going too overboard. (Of course, just having him makes it incredibly special for us!) We’re also looking forward to Starbright Village at our McKinney Park this December.

What events do you have planned to make this holiday special for your new little one?

Click here if the embedded video above doesn’t play properly in your browser.

(Big thanks go out to Shawna for taking the great video!)

9 Months Later

2008-11-09T20:14:00.001-06:00

Nine months. For obvious reasons, that’s an important period of time for bio-parents but it seems like it’s very symbollic for adoptive parents too. In our case, we didn’t wait 9 months to have Liam — our "paper pregnancy" was 28 months long — but now that he’s been our little boy for 9 months, we’ve had lots of opportunities to reflect back on all the things we never expected that parenthood would bring:

We didn’t expect to be singing happy birthday to Liam’s favorite stuffed animal just because a fresh batch of muffins came out of the oven and he thought it was birthday cake.

We never realized how nice quiet time was before and how worrisome quiet times can be now.

We never knew how much preparation little things would take. Leaving the house is not so much a departure as it is a deployment and even a quick trip to the store is now a major event.

We had no idea that taking out the trash could become a huge recreational activity for a 2 year old.

We never realized how reading emails & blogs could become such a rare luxury.

I never knew my Mom could dance, but Liam convinced her otherwise.

We never expected that milk could be a projectile object or how magical macaroni & cheese could be.

We never anticipated how quickly someone could go from ecstatic to heart-broken — and over such trivial things as a plastic cup.

We didn’t realize just how tough it would be to arrange for a simple night out. We don’t have the built-in family babysitter situation that most new parents are fortunate enough to have.

Most of all, we didn’t expect how much the love of a 2 year old boy could melt our hearts and bring such boundless joy into our lives!

For those of you still waiting on your kids, hang in there, it will happen and then you’re in for the ride of your lives!

First Halloween

2008-11-01T13:12:00.005-06:00

Liam had a great time monkeying around on his first Halloween. He loved wearing the costume even though it was kind of heavy for our 70+ temp. When I first pulled his costume out of the closet, he got so excited and said "Halloween" and couldn’t wait to get in it. The whole time I was dressing him, he was saying "I’m excited."

The Halloween activities were centered more around jumpers and riding choo-choo trains than trick-or-treating but he did manage to get a few goodies. We would practice the whole trick-or-treat thing on the way up to a door but by the time they opened the door and he saw them, the excitement of the candy overtook him and he would forget his lines.

There was a tearful ending to the evening’s festivities; which is always a sign that he had a great time and didn’t want it to end.

For many of those of you who read this blog, this was probably your first Halloween as a parent too; was it everything you thought it would be? Did you learn things that will make next year go smoother?

Texas Birth Certificate

2008-10-17T20:47:00.005-05:00

Back in August, I did a post about our tele-hearing for Liam’s Recognition of Foreign Adoption. Yesterday, we finally received the Texas birth certificate in the mail. This was quite a bit longer than the 1 week estimate we were given.

A couple of weeks ago, I started to wonder why we hadn’t received it yet and I called the state office. The lady there told me that there was no problem with the paperwork but they were still working on it and should have it mailed out soon. I’m not sure what took so long. Susan got theirs within a week by going in person. I guess they can’t handle to face to face pressure. ;-)

Anyway, it’s all done now and we can now move on to applying for a passport. We were not in any rush since we don’t have any immediate travel plans out of the country but I wanted to let any other Texas families know about the wait time in case you do have international travel plans in your future.

6 Random Things About Me

2008-10-06T19:02:00.003-05:00

I’ve been tagged by Ana to post 6 random things about myself, so here they are:

AC/DC is my favorite band so I’m really excited that they have a new CD coming out this month!

I work at the same hospital where I was born.

I’m kind of a germiphobe, which makes my work environment a bit of a challenge (see item #2).

I spent Christmas in Australia in 1992.

I started my current job on November 3rd, had my first date with Rob on February 3rd, and we were married on August 3rd. Everyone thought we were crazy to get married so quickly, but that was 12 years ago and we couldn’t be happier!

If I wasn’t so afraid of being underwater, I would’ve probably pursued a career as a dolphin trainer.

Now it’s my turn to tag:

Mary

Cindy

Marsha

Stephanie

Gretchen

And here are the rules!!!

Link to the person that tagged you.

Post the rules on the blog.

Write six random facts about yourself.

Tag six people at the end of your post.

Let each person know they have been tagged.

Let the taggers know when your "6 Random Things" entry is up.

Company Picnic

2008-09-20T21:36:00.000-05:00

Our MCH company picnic was today and it was awesome to finally have our kiddo to take to this annual family-oriented event! He lit up as soon as he saw all the jumpers there. Have I mentioned before how much he LOVES jumpers? They had other activities for the kids like balloon animals, train rides, and face-painting, but he was only interested in the jumpers. We had to pull him away to go eat and after lunch he was pretty much wiped out and asked to go home and take a nappy. You know it’s been a good day when your kid asks to take a nap!

I recently downloaded the new Picasa 3 beta program and I wanted to play around with the built-in movie mode so I made a mini-video from the picnic photos. Enjoy!

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Click here if the embedded video above doesn’t play properly in your browser.

Birthdays & Playdates

2008-09-15T19:36:00.000-05:00

Saturday, Liam took Grandma out for lunch to celebrate her 80th birthday. Uncle Whit joined us and the Tex-Mex food was delicious!

Later that day, we met up with Brad & Marsha, Cindy, and Mary for our first official playdate at McDonalds.

You’ll recall that Brad & Marsha’s oldest son, Sasha, is from Tomsk, deep in Siberia. Cindy & Mary both have daughters from Russia and had contacted me through our blog about a get-together with other families in the area who’ve adopted from Russia. We finally made it happen and all of the kids had a GREAT time. Valerie & Kenzie are both just precious little girls!

I’m sure we’ll be doing this again!

Labor Day Weekend Adventures

2008-09-04T19:25:00.001-05:00

We put Liam’s traveling skills to the test again last weekend and he did GREAT! We drove to the Austin area to do some extensive shopping. The drive was about 7 hours each way and he decided that sleep was optional so needless to say, we are very familiar with the ABC song now!

We traveled in a caravan with our friends Brenda & Barney and Clems & Sophie. With each of us having small kids along on the trip — Siena being the youngest, at just 4 months old — there were lots of stops for diaper changes & feedings.

Our first shopping stop after arrival on Saturday was at the Round Rock location of our favorite store Ikea. We didn’t have major purchases to make there this time but we did manage to find a lot of little things. Among them was another suction bowl/cup/bib/spoon set for Liam like the one we bought at the Moscow Ikea. He had long since tore up the bib from that trip.

On Sunday, we headed out to the Outlet Mall for what was supposed to be a 4 hour shopping event but turned into an 8 hour event. We found lots of clothes for Liam on sale and he got 2 more pairs of Chuck’s. He loves those shoes and calls them his Alex shoes because one of the little boys at daycare (Alex) wears them all the time.

We tried to limit our time at the Outlet Mall so we’d have the whole afternoon at the lake to visit with Susan, Randy and Artem. Since the shopping got in the way, we didn’t get to the lake until about 6:30 P.M.

We had a wonderful time at the lake with Susan & Randy and it is was so nice to finally meet Artem in person. He is a precious little boy with so much expression in his face and he looks just like his daddy. As Susan mentioned on her blog, getting the boys to sit still and both look at the camera for a picture at the same time was tough but with us both doing double-time shooting we were able to capture a few shots.

Randy’s mother played a fun game with the kids having them feel how cold the watermelon was and then touch their face. Here’s a picture of Artem really getting into it:

After the watermelon eating, it was time for a swim to clean up the mess!

I think the boys had a good time with each other and it was wonderful to reconnect with Susan & Randy again. Thanks for the invite!

We headed back home on Monday but not without stopping off for some more last minute shopping along the way. I found the perfect Halloween costume for Liam but you are going to have to stay tuned to find out what it is; I’m not ready to reveal yet. Liam was the perfect little traveler again on the way home but I think he had enough. We didn’t get home until 9:30 P.M. Monday night and as we were turning off the interstate towards our house, he said all done with the car now, ready for home. ;-)

Our Little Texan

2008-08-19T19:55:00.000-05:00

When we first brought Liam home, I immediately went to work on getting his Social Security card and other documents for him. When I inquired about getting him a U.S. passport, I found out that the process would require me to send in his one and only original Russian birth certificate. I was willing to make the 10 hour drive to Houston or wherever to show the birth certficate in person but I was told that it would have to be mailed on to another agency no matter what. This is something that I refused to do since it is the only certified copy I have or can ever get.

So we began searching for a local attorney who could help us do a readoption so Liam would have a Texas birth certificate before we applied for his passport. After lots of phone calls, we quickly found out that there are no attorneys in this area with experience in this sort of procedure. So, back in July we talked to an attorney in Austin about doing the readoption and she informed us that the state of Texas only requires a Recognition of Foreign Adoption unless we felt for some reason that our international adoption was not leagal. This was great news especially since the cost was less than a readoption.

The paperwork process was pretty easy (especially compared to the mountain of paperwork we completing for the actual adoption). We sent all the forms in and copies of documents they needed to get us scheduled for court. The attorney talked to the judge and arranged for our court hearing to be over the phone so we wouldn’t have to make the drive to Austin.

So, this morning from 8:45 to 9:00 a.m. we had our court tele-hearing and now our little man is not only an American, but also officially a Texan. We’ll be receiving his Texas birth certificate in about a week. Woo hoo! Another thing to check off the list!

Happy Birthday, Momma!

2008-08-16T21:42:00.000-05:00

Liam helped me celebrate my 29th birthday again today! Here we are getting ready to blow out the candle.

Spending my birthday with my 2 favorite boys is the best present I could ever wish for!

Now I Know My ABC's.... Sorta

2008-08-15T22:46:00.003-05:00

I think I’ve mentioned before how much Liam likes to sing. We hear him singing on the monitor when he goes to bed and he will wake up and sing until we go get him. His repertoire of songs include Twinkle Twinkle, E-I-E-I-O, Thumbkin, and his personal favorite right now is ABC.

Normally, when I pull out the video camera he gets more interested in the camera than whatever he was doing that I wanted to film but tonight he was very cooperative and sang his ABC song for me. So without further ado, here is Mr. Liam singing his rendition of the ABC song and not quite knowing how to end it. ;-)

Click here if the embedded video above doesn’t play properly in your browser.

Better Late Than Never

2008-08-10T08:28:00.007-05:00

We have been home for 6 months with Liam and I just now finally found some time to get our Moscow pictures from trips 1 and 2 posted online. Whew, there were a bunch of them but I weeded through them and put captions on some of them so you would know what you are looking at.

Moscow Trip 1 - Dec. 2-8, 2007

Moscow Trip 2 - Jan. 18 - Feb. 9, 2008

Also, I’m including a video of the coldest day we spent in Moscow. I’ll take an afternoon on our new veranda in the triple digit heat over the harsh Moscow winters anyday.

Enjoy!

Click here if the embedded video above doesn’t play properly in your browser.

6 Months Later

2008-08-01T06:52:00.002-05:00

Today marks our 6 month anniversary with Liam. It’s hard to believe that much time has already passed. It seems like just yesterday that we were in Moscow getting him ready to leave the baby home but at the same time it is amazing when we think about how far he has come in such a short time.

I can’t say that I miss the late night blogging that I did from our apartment on Novy Arbat or the brutal winter weather but I do miss seeing the friends that we made there: Susan & Randy, Carlos & Sally, Sinziana & Mark, Kathy & Doug, Teresa & Chris (happy anniversary Anna), Pasche, and of course Ron & Dinia.

Can you believe how much Liam has changed?

Party Animal

2008-07-27T14:40:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was packed full of festivities. We started our day with what seems to be becoming a traditional Saturday morning Target shopping event. Since we got started a little later (Liam slept until 9:00 a.m.) than usual, it ran into our normal lunch time. Liam was trying to fall asleep in the shopping basket before we finished but we managed to keep him awake until we got him home for lunch. Poor little guy was literally falling asleep while he was eating his lunch.

After naptime, we had birthday party #1 to attend at Chick-Fil-A. Our friend Shawna’s daughter Hailey turned 4 years old and there were lots of other little girls there. Living up to his initials L.M. (aka Ladies Man), Liam was working the room with his charm. He seemed a little distressed that there were no purple crayons (I guess that’s our new favorite color of the week) and blue just wasn’t going to cut it but he managed to suffer through with just the blue, red, yellow and green ones that were available. Of course the singing and the cake is his favorite part of birthday parties and Shawna made sure that he got purple icing on his piece so it was just win-win for him. After cake, all the kids went to the playroom. The bigger kids helped Liam climb through the plastic tubes and go down the slide, which of course he loved. Here’s a picture of him coming out the tube:

After Chick-Fil-A, we rushed home to change into our swim clothes to get ready for birthday party #2. This party was for our friend Clems' nephew Ethan, he turned 1 year old. It was held at a local aquatic park. The party started at 7 p.m. and it had been overcast for most of the day so the water was a bit cold. Here’s a picture of Liam after his inital slide into the water:

As you can see, he was a bit shocked but that didn’t stop him from going down the water slide a few more times. Once again, he proved that he truly is fearless and not afraid to tackle anything. Good thing or bad thing...I’m not sure!

Potty Award

2008-07-21T18:11:00.003-05:00

I guess it’s getting to be potty training time for quite a few of us in bloggerland. I read recently that Iliya and Andrei have had a few celebrations. Now it seems Liam has joined the ranks!

We have tried to encourage him for the past few months to sit on his potty but he really had no interest so we didn’t push it. Recently he’s become more open to the idea and last week he received an official potty award (shown below) from his learning center.

This past weekend, he used the potty about 5 times at home. I figure we still have a long way to go before he completely gets it but for now we’re just so proud of our little guy for his efforts!