The most important meeting yet!

Tom Says:

Yesterday was a very, very long day (so long Mary didn't finish her Blog post.)  As Mary mentioned we got in early and sat at the pub for few hours, after that our facilitator came and picked up us and our stuff.  She gave us a 20 minute tour of the downtown, and like a bunch of other people told us to go to the opera.

 ...Military Hardware, always a cool picture to post...

 ...I'm not lost (my webfoo needs much practice danielsan)...

After that She took us to the Government office and we met our lawyer (S) who took us in for our local referral.  The boss who had to sign our paperwork was out, so we waited for awhile, Ok, it was a long while; after getting the necessary Hancocks, we jumped in the little 4-door sedan (2 of us, facilitator, & agency rep,) went to pick up our translator,  now 5 people in a tiny car with Luggage and no AC, but actually quite good as we were on the way to see our baby Alina.

We’d seen pictures of the orphanage on another family’s Blog and Mary recognized the gate before I did.  The Staff were very friendly and we had no more troubles about the paperwork.  The Doctor gave us a rundown on her medical condition (V our translator was very good, how impressive to hold two conversations in two languages simultaneously).  They told us she has allergies, I told them that since I do too, it must run in the family, this made them laugh.  And then we got to meet her…

She was brought in by one of the staff, walked up to Mary, and jumped right into her lap.  The Doctor and Staff all started talking real fast, we weren’t sure what was up, then the translator said they were excited as this was atypical behaviour for Alina (remember we were told that she was picky) and it made them happy to see her like this.  Mary says that this is because she knows that we are her Mama & Papa   

I held her for a few minutes but she did not react the same way.  They told me it was because all the Staff  are female, but I’m pretty sure it was my beard (did I mention the beard)

After  meeting her we had to run across the city (literally all the way across the city) to a Notary’s office, it was about 3:30pm by now and the notary called our Facilitator to make sure we were on the way, got there, signed our formal petitions for the court and couple of other documents, and then drove back into the city to check into our apt (about 5pm.)  After that we walked four blocks to the supermarket, did the grocery shopping (bought too much, remember, you have to carry your groceries the whole way back), went back to the apt, cooked dinner, skyped for a couple hours talking to family and friends and then did the Blog (well, Mary did, I was playing spider solitaire) and went to bed entirely too late.  But it was a great day and well worth it as we got to meeting our daughter.

Today we started our regular visiting schedule but more on that later.  Well, one more pic

...I fixed the beard!...Happy Baby!...

Next…Adventures in Transportation…