Bringing Ella Home - Part 1

We did it!  Ella is home!  But before I get into how she is doing here, I want to go back and tell you the whole story.

My good friend Julie and I left for Russia on May 19. We had 3 big suitcases, 2 carry-ons, and an umbrella stroller. I called Julie my sherpa because she was constantly wrangling luggage.  I was very thankful she had been doing CrossFit.  And in our defense, not all the luggage was for us. About a suitcase and a half were full of orphanage donations and gifts for Russian friends.

We got to the Vlad Motor Inn on May 21st.

 Julie in front of the hotel.

We were incredibly exhausted, but Julie talked me into going for a walk so that we wouldn't go to sleep too early and could get on the Russian time schedule.  I am sooo glad she did because, wow!  Russia is so incredibly beautiful in springtime!  The other two trips were drab and gray, but everywhere we looked were flowers in bloom.  I am a girl who likes flowers, so I took a lot of pictures.

We stopped at a convenience store to pick up pickles, sausage, cheese, and milk.  Ya know, the essentials.  And then we headed back for a quick bite at the Vlad Motor Inn Restaurant and then went to bed early.  The next day was a big one - running tons of errands and picking up Miss Ella from the orphanage!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep.  I'm not sure if it was the time change or if we were just excited for the day, but we were ready to go!  Sveta and Dasha arrived at 8:30 to pick us up.  Here's me and Dasha:

We hit a snag our first stop of the day.  The notary we were going to use was out sick, which not only meant we needed another notary, but it also meant we had to redo the paperwork because it had that specific notary's name on it.  But never fear, Sveta to the rescue.  We made a detour to her friend's apartment to reprint the paperwork.  This was a huge apartment complex with a great view of Vladivostok.

Woman hanging her clothes to dry.  We were afraid she was going to fall out the window!

View of Vladivostok

Then we were on our way to what must have been 6-8 more appointments.  I lost count.  Every time we thought we were done, Julie would ask Sveta if we were on our way to the orphanage to pick up Ella, and Dasha would say, 'No, more errands.'

Julie couldn't resist taking a picture of this woman's pants.

More lovely blooms

Here I am registering our adoption.  Marriages are also registered here. 

Sveta is a woman who knows where she's going! I'm glad someone did!

On our last stop, we went to the passport office to submit Ella's passport forms.  We got there before it opened, and there were only a few people ahead of us.  But as time went on, more and more people showed up and just walked right in front of us.  We thought we were going to spend the rest of the afternoon waiting in that line.  Sveta, on the other hand, seemed totally unconcerned and made a few phone calls.

Soon we found out why.  As soon as the door opened, everyone rushed in ahead of us.  Sveta hung back and then walked right up to the desk and handed over our paperwork, not bothering to stand in line.  The woman waived us right back.  We couldn't believe it.  Sveta obviously has connections, which makes sense considering all of the adoptions she assists with.  So we waited only 2-3 minutes.

And then... it was off to the orphanage to get our girl!

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here I am unloading all the orphanage donations.  In all, we left them 3 gallon ziploc bags of desitin, 1 gallon ziploc of toothbrushes, 1 gallon ziploc of baby wash and lotion, and 1 gallon ziploc of hairbows.  Plus, I brought scarves and Reece's peanut butter cups as gifts for all of Ella's nurses.  It was nice to get rid of all that extra weight!

And then the moment we had waited and prayed so long for... they brought our daughter down the hall.  And she was really ours!

She had just woken up from her nap, so she was a little cranky.

I started putting on her new duds.

Her sister wore an identical dress on resurrection Sunday.  I thought it was fitting since it was the start of her new life.

While I was putting her new clothes on, she kept saying, 'Oy! Oy!', which is the Russian equivalent of, 'Oh! Oh!'  She was surprised and confused about what was happening.  It would be days before we would hear her make another sound other than crying.

And then we walked out the door for the last time... She was all mine, an orphan no more.

As soon as we got in the car, Ella started crying.  She had never been in a car before.  But she quieted down and let me hold her the whole way.

Back at the hotel, we had some dinner.  Don't let the crib in the background fool you. She slept next to her mama that night.

And then a bath.  It was at this point we discovered that Ella is petrified of having her clothes off.  And we realized why.  She had 3 nasty bite marks in various stages of healing on her back.  One of the other children at the orphanage was using her for target practice.  Poor baby girl.  She was not happy about the bath, squatted the whole time, but I think her main aversion was the fact that she was naked.

After the bath, we were all exhausted and went to sleep right away. She slept pretty well for her first night away from the orphanage, snuggled up next to me. She was a little fitful but nothing too horrible.  It was an end to a long and satisfying day, the day we had been waiting for.  I couldn't believe she was mine and kept checking next to me throughout the night to make sure she was there.

Tune in for my next blog post where we fly to Moscow!

Preparing a Place

"In my Father's house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." John 14: 2-3



This Mother's Day, we are preparing a place.


A place at the table.

A place to dream sweet dreams.

 Right next to her sister.

A place to put her hairbows.

A place to put her clothes.

A place to go places.

A place in her brother and sister's hearts.

A place to be silly.

A place in a family.  A place to be loved.

We're coming, Ella.  Only 6 more days.

Court Date!!!

The night before court we were sooo nervous!  Well, Ryan was nervous.  Strangely, I was not.  Maybe it's because I knew Ryan would have to do most of the talking or maybe God was giving me his peace that passes understanding.  But for whatever reason, I was not nervous at all.  Ryan went over and over the list of questions previous families had been asked, and I went over it once or twice and then slept.

However, once we got dressed the next morning and were waiting for Sveta and Dasha to pick us up, I started to get nervous.  By the time I got into the court room, I was feeling very shaky and thought I might forget my own name (and I almost did say my maiden name).

The court room was about 15 X 15, not that big at all.  And we all sat down at regulat desks around the room that had microphones mounted on them.  We had a court translator sitting next to us who gave us the rundown of how things would work, when we would stand, and the basic procedural questions they would ask us that we would just have to respond with Da or Nyet (yes or no).

This was our judge's first international adoption case, and we knew she had been preparing extensively for it.  We weren't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  When she walked in, everyone stood.  She looked a little bit like Roseanne Barr, only nicer.

Court lasted an hour and a half.  For comparison, there were two other American families holding court in the next courtroom, and they started after us and were done before us.  So they asked us a lot of questions, mostly related to whether we were sure we wanted her, if we were informed of her medical history, how we planned to raise her, how our families felt about the adoption, and why we wanted to adopt when we already had two biological children.  Ryan stood first to answer questions and then me.  Ella's social worker and Dr. Zoda from the hospital also testified in support of us and to speak about her medical diagnoses and social history.  Apparently 3 Russian families had been offered to meet Ella and be her parents, but they all denied to meet her.  She never had one visitor at the hospital. This was painful to hear, but at the same time, I was thankful that God had saved her for us.

Once the questions were over, we were all ushered out to stand in the hallway while the judge deliberated for about 5 minutes.  Since there was nothing negative said about us in court, we knew this was just procedural, but it was hard to still not be nervous.

They called us back in and proceeded to deliver the most drawn out, lengthy court decision ever.  Halfway through, when I was pretty sure they were going to grant our petition, I started to bawl.  The relief we felt after months and months of worrying and wondering if we would ever get to this moment was just overwhelming.  It was as if a brick house had been lifted off our shoulders.  We wanted to celebrate!  So we all went and ate at an awesome sushi restaurant within walking distance of the courthouse. 

We ordered a platter for all 4 of us, and they brought it out in a boat!!! I can't imagine a more quintessential Vladivostok meal, eating sushi on the coast of Russia.  It was amazing.  We toasted to Ella and our new family and basked in the knowledge that she was finally ours.

After lunch, we headed to the orphanage to see our new daughter.  She was napping, but they woke her up for us.  Here is our first picture with our new daughter.

See the crazed look in Ryan's eyes?  That's because he can't believe it really happened!!!

Here are some more pics from our visit with Ella after court:

Sleepy after her nap

Playing ball with Daddy

This was one of her many self portraits.  She was playing with Ryan's phone and took a bunch of pictures.

It was an amazing day!  The next morning, we flew back to the U.S.  We will be back in 30 days to take her from the orphanage for good!