Day 4-New Plan of Attack

After going to the notary's office, to the Department of Education, back to where we were staying, again to the notary's office and the Department of Education, we headed out to the orphanage again. A new caregiver was on duty and Anya was terrified again. She asked me all kinds of questions about my ability to care for her, about our family and finally softened a little at the end. Basically, the three caregivers are "talking smack" about adoption (that's "bad" for you older people). One of them was basically chewed out by Vika and the social worker and are in for it from Ekaterina (the lady in the white coat on the right in the picture of the three women). They won't show her the album we left or talk positively about adoption.

New plan...(Dave was coming up with great ideas left and right, he thrives in challenging situations. Ask him to find a napkin in the kitchen on an average day and that is a different story...) We'll bring Matt over for 5 days prior to going to court and hopefully that connection she has with him will overpower her fears. I did ask the caregiver to let Anya know that I have no intention of replacing her mother. I know I am not her mother and never will be, but I'd like to take the role of care giver and love her. Hopefully with that info and Matt telling her that we are safe, that she can come back someday to visit and her seeing how much Matt trusts me, all will be great. But what an adventure it has been!!!!!!!!!!!!

We left for where we were staying at 5:30pm, ate dinner there at 9pm, left to change money at 10:30 (where I had to move the BMW in a highly populated parking since Andrei parked in front of a gate and they all left me in the car!) and headed to Moscow (2.5 hour drive).

The next morning at 8am (fully packed none the less) we were off for our "8 Doctor Exam", blood tests and chest X-rays. THAT is a whole other story-Dave likens it a Seinfeld episode and me to a Jerry Lewis movie. We were rushed through all that and basically thrown on a train to the airport since the freeways were so clogged and Andrei feared we'd miss our flight. Glad to be home!

 Our Russian hosts.

 Andrei, Dave and Vika