Shame on ME

Last night as I start organizing the paperwork to take it to Atlanta today, I notice that 2 of the notaries we used did not sign the documents the way that their notary seal says their name. Such as if I were a notary and my seal said Cara M Suttles, then I need to sign with the M, not without. So today we have about 10 documents to get redone. Most of them Gary will have redone at work, they are docs that need to be signed by people there. I need to go to the pediatrician's office and beg them to have them done today.
So of course I pitched a fit last night, I was throwing papers, yes throwing papers people! Which are not very satisfying to throw, they don't go far, unless you crumple them up first. I have a temper, for those who don't know. Anywho...........
Of course I was upset, so tired of this stinkin paperwork. Not looking forward to another day of driving around town gathering paperwork, and begging people to do it ASAP, as they look at me like, "what is the big deal, and why do I have to fix this one tiny little thing."
So, this morning I wake up with a new attitude, my attitude was ugly last night, much uglier than I am typing.
I got up early so that I could redo the docs and send them to work with Gary. Notice I never mention Gary getting upset or throwing a fit. Yes, that is because we are complete opposites. Which usually makes me angrier, as I'm throwing things, and he is as calm as can be just looking at me, calmly gathering the things I've thrown, and telling me that even though it stinks, we can fix it. Sometimes his lack of emotion translates to me as lack of caring about the matter at hand. But he is always the calm after my storm.
That is not why I feel ashamed. My husband likes my fiery side!!
As I'm fixing my coffee, a thought pops into my head. Do you remember when I posted about the man at the Apostille office who said it was his 12th time there. I was so grateful that all my paperwork was acceptable to be apostilled, since it is a 4 hour round trip. But when I was eavesdropping when the lady was telling him why she couldn't apostille his document, it was because the notary had not signed with her middle initial, as it appeared on her notary seal!!
Had I not been there to "hear" that I would have never known to check my documents for that very type of error. I should be thankful God gave me that gift. I could have driven all the way to Atlanta not knowing that tidbit. I would much rather have discovered those errors now, then after a wasted 4 hour round trip to the apostille office.
So, I am going to drink my coffee, get all of us ready to head out of the house to get our paperwork done, then enjoy the rest of the day with my boys. Hopefully we can go to the apostille office tomorrow.
If you open this post today, can you please say a quick prayer, that our paperwork will come together. I believe God is listening.

Where Have I Been?

Well, doing paperwork of course! And enjoying my family, trying to keep a healthy balance.
I don't want to speak too soon, but Gary just has to go to the Police Dept. to pick up 2 corrected documents, and we are done gathering paperwork! I will drive to Atlanta on Monday to have them apostilled and then send them off to Russia!!
(Insert Paperwork Happy Dance Here)
Then we wait for court date. They expect it to be mid-late May if we have no big paperwork Boo-boos.
I can't really remember what I have blogged about lately. In the beginning of June is a huge tourist time in Russia, due to White Nights, where it stays light most of the day and night, you know like in Alaska. So, we pray to sneak in before that, but oh we are cutting it soooo close!! Plus if we have to take a 3rd trip, guess when we would go if our timeline is as expected.
As far at the 2-3 trips goes, it will mostly likely take 3 trips, but it is slightly possible that it could just be just 2 trips, with our next trip being a long one, how long, you ask, well I'm not certain, but maybe 2-2.5 weeks? OMGoodness, we really must have faith in God, right? Truly, I have never trusted so much in God, I am not a person who likes uncertainty, though I've had my share, I do my best to avoid it, I am a planner. This journey has given me new patience and a stronger will, for sure. And never, never, have I felt this close to God before. I feel like he is holding my hand, cheering me on, not sure how people who don't have faith in Him do things like this, where do they get their strength? At every stage when I have doubted myself, our ability to do this, how do we know she is the right child for us, he has sent signs, yes signs people!!! I believe he does this, and he has done it abduntly through this process, and I feel Anastasia could no more be ours if we had concieved and birthed her, it feels that miraculous.

So, how would it be possible for us to have only 2 trips. Well, there is a chance that we could get the "mystery judge", who, upon receiving a letter from a Dr. here in the states, would consider waiving the 10 day wait, due to the fact that it would help Anastasia tremendously to have surgery and recover before school starts.
We have gotten the letter, that's not the issue.
There is a 50/50 chance we will even get this judge and then if we do only a 50/50 chance she would consider it enough to waive the 10 day wait.
Do I have faith this could happen? ABSOLUTELY!!!! Am I banking on it? No, we can't bank on anything. It would save us A LOT of money, and stress, but either way our goal is to get our daughter home, and whatever that path looks like we will take.

Oh, you must be thinking, look how optimist Cara is, so stress free, so thankful. Well I have not been so thankful and optimistic lately. I have been mostly stressed about the money side of things, feeling heavy hearted about the amount of debt we are taking on to do this. Not doubting wether or not we should be doing this, but wondering why in the world did God lead us to her, when this has lead us to so much debt. Debt does not feel Godly to me, I have a new optimism today about it. IF I am to trust Him with this, then it needs to be a complete trust. It's not like we are goint to be out on the streets, my husband has one of the few reliable jobs there is right now. And I am happy to go into debt for this, despite my wondering why sometimes, does that make any sense?
Don't feel sorry for me, it is no different than having a car payment, not in THAT sense, I'm not comparing her to a car, but some people spend this much on a car, you've heard me make this comparison before.
Have I mentioned how excited I am to be almost done with the paperwork, and well on our way to having her home with us?
YIPEEEEEEEE

Will some Pictures Tide You Over

Right now we are gathering the rest of our paperwork to send to Russia, we are doing this as fast as we can, but we also need to make sure to be accurate. We have to get it submitted, so we can get our court date.
The last few days have been very taxing, we have been dealing with some very difficult people. I am not at liberty to explain, but one day I will be;-)
People have been begging for more posts, I'm trying, but I'm tired,happy, but busy and tired, Leave me a comment by clicking on the little envelope!!
The second one is of her and her music teacher putting on a little concert for us. Anastasia played the triangle and sang!
Her music teacher spent some time with us, she was so sweet and loves the children very much. She was one of the people who told us how lucky Anastasia was to be getting such young parents. Funny.

Pictures

Here's a few pictures from Wednesday. On Wednesday morning we had to do our Medicals, so we had an afternoon visit instead. When we were leaving the rest of her group was outside, so we stayed while she bundled up, then walked her outside to her friends. We met a charming young boy, who proclaimed to be her husband! Very darling children. Anastasia proclaimed as she walked us outside, "This is MY Mommy and Poppy, NOT Karina's!!" She was so proud. It made me sad for the other children though.

We are Home!

Got in yesterday evening. All our flights were on time and smooth. Just feeling the jetlag today and emjoying being back with my boys!
We've got lots of paperwork to do this week, the sooner we it done and sent to Russia the sooner we will get our courtdate. If we can do it quickly they believe our court date would be mid-May.

Fast Forward

To today. I want to post about today right now so I don't forget anything, and when we get home I will rewind and post about Wednesday and Thursday.
Right now it is about 11:00 pm here, we leave our apartment at 3:30 am, our driver will pick us up and take us to the airport.
This morning of course was our last visit with Anastasia, it was surpisingly upbeat, she is just so happy that she will be part of our family.
When we got to the orphanage this morning her teacher said she would like for us to see how much Anastasia knows, so she took us to the "school room", and she sat with her and showed us how she works problems, does her alphabet, spells her name, etc... Her teacher is beyond sweet, she truly cares about the children, and it shows. She had our translator take a picture of the Gary, myself, Nahstya and her together and asked that we bring her back a copy when we come back.
We got to see Nahtsya's bed, and her group area, the one we saw before was not hers and we were not sure if we were going to be allowed to see hers. They have many toys and it is extremely nice and kept very clean. They have 3 little sinks and toilets in their bathroom, and to my surprise they have toothbrushes and cups.
Every time we would see anyone that worked at the orphanage she would beam from ear to ear and tell them very proudly that this is my Mommy and Poppy. We went back up to the music room and played hide and seek her favorite game, amongst others. She was aware that this was our last day to visit this time, and she said she would not cry because she knew we were going to come back just as Karina's parents had. (the little girl who was adopted from the same orphanage by the couple we know from Atlanta) It makes me feel good that she trusts us. Things are very easy with her, the affection is not dramatic like it was sometimes before, like she was trying to win us over. She no longer ever called me Mama, like she would have before on and off, I am now Mommy, and she calls Gary mostly Poppy. We did not expect her to speak much English while we were here since we could rely on the translator, but boy were we wrong!! Wednesday she just started to bust out with the English, even our Translator was amazed. She would just pop out these sentences, "Mommy sit down, Poppy go." She would also use "you", and "me" in the right context which children don't usually do for several months of being home. She would talk, and then hear the translator tell us what she said, then later use the words that she had the heard the translator use. Such as monster, noone told her, such and such word is monster, she just figured it out, and would say, "you monster, me go" (game).
There was also a lot of mixed Russian and English, like our favorite, "go ta da", basically go to there. Or, "Poppy, carry me, ta da!"
We went downstairs for her to eat her lunch, then we had about 30 minutes to spend with her. She called Poppy into the room while she was eating and asked him to "up 10 times", it's a tradition they have he throws her in the air. She was showing off her Poppy to the other children. Little stinker.
She then came out and sat on my lap and talked until we had to go.
She asked again for an explanation of about how long it would be till we came back, and that she would go home with us the 3rd time. She also wanted to make sure that if she was too scared to ride the bus that I would drive her to school. She asked again why we decided to keep her, and we told her again what we told her before. She said ,"Oh, so you wanted 3 children" I said, "yes, but not just any third child, we wanted you." She said, "because you love me?" "Yes, we love, and we always will," I told her.
She had many questions. And we tried to answer them the best we could.
One of the funniest things she told us was that when she was in America that she saw the Christmas paper in the garage, and that she thinks that Mommy and Poppy bought the presents, and not Santa. Ah, we tried our best to work our way out of that one, but she was not buying it! She said next year she would stay awake and see if there really was a Santa.
She told us that she lived with her mother until she died, then stayed with her Granpa and Grandma until they brought her here. She said her mother's name and that she remembers her.
Our goodbye was good, I started to choke up, and she looked up at me and said, "Mommy your face has turned all red" I told her because it made me cry to leave her. She said, "Because you love me very much?" "Yes," I told her. She told us how much she loved us and that she would be patient and brave until we came back, she did not cry. I am thankful for this. The lady in charge of paperwork and several others walked over to tell us goodbye and told me not to cry. I had our translator ask again about the Grandpa. She said that he has been to visit, but not only several times, well that certainly is different than never!! And that he is with another woman, not Anastasia's biological grandmother, she is an alcholic and not involved. So this whole time Anastasia has right, she considers that woman her grandmother, and obviousily they have visited her. The paperwork lady thought I was crying because I was afraid the grandfather would prevent the adoption, but she said not to worry that he has signed away his rights and wishes for Anastasia to be adopted. She sais she feels Anastasia is lucky to have us as parents, we are very young and have good life to offer her. I thanked her, and she also said that Anastasia is a very good girl.
I better go to bed now, and sleep for several hours before we leave for the airport. I cannot wait to kiss those boys of mine, this is the longest we have been away from them.

Compliments of the Chef

Tuesday we took a nap, then woke up and took a walk to find a place to eat. We came upon a fancy restaurant that had their menu posted in English also, a very small unique place, so we decided it would be our one splurge. I will post a picture of the place. Gary ordered duck, and I ordered chestnut soup and a pasta that had cheese, sundried tomatoes and this round ball type things that were mooshy and tasted like wine. It was all very good, Gary's came with a sauce and also a roasted chestnut and some sort of of applesauce type thing that had lavendar in it I think. But the really funny part is after we ordered the waitress walks up with the fanciest clam appetizer I've ever seen, I was a HUGE clam on a bed of sea salt, with the clam still in the shell, but with some sort of special sauce. She puts it in from of Gary and says "Compliments" I could tell she was very proud to present it to him. He smiled and thanked her in Russian, but I could tell he was terrified, he hates to eat anything like that. So the waitress walks across the room, which is not far at all, to watch, which is not unusual. In Russia they sort of watch you to see if you ask for anything, but they don't approach your table so much. I tasted the sauce and told him it was yummy, and that he had to eat it. I mean it would be bad manners not to. So he's trying to get up the nerve to eat it, and she starts walking across the room to the table near us, and I whisper, in my best ventriliquest way-"She is walking this way, just eat it." So he took the fancy little fork then lifted up the clam, which was HUGE, and sucks it down, oh the look on his face, I told him that watching him eat that clam was worth the money we spent on the meals.