~GOTCHA DAY~
The day after our last post (the one where we went to Gabby's birth region), we had GOTCHA DAY! We woke up very early on Saturday morning, went and picked up the official RED passport for Gabby, rushed to the market and bought lots and lots of candy, cookies, and diapers for the kids at the orphange and flowers and chocolates for the caregivers and orphange staff. Then we finally went to the orphanage at around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday Nov. 6th and got our precious baby girl out of that orphange for GOOD! Typically, the majority of the staff we were use to seeing on a daily basis at the orphanage would not be there on a Saturday but they ALL came in on the Saturday to have us a going away party and to see the most precious girl in the world off to a new life. I gave the bag of clothes we had brought to the orphange for Gabby to wear to a caregiver and she took it to the groupa room to get Gabby prepared to leave with us. We then had to sign some last minute paperwork and show the orphange the court decree that declared her officially our child. As we were sitting at a table in one of the rooms having cake and tea with the staff and director in comes the most precious looking little girl in the world. Before I go any further I need to explain why there are no pictures at this point of gotcha day or the last week in Ukraine. I tried to upload pictures as often as I could while in Ukraine and in order to do that I had to place the memory card in my camera into the slot on the computer. Oddly enough somehow the memory card quit working in my camera and stopped being detected in the computer. I don't know if te compute formatted it or what but I am going to do my best to fix it somehow because it has some very precious pictures on it that we must have! Anyways....back to our princess. She was dressed in a white and pale pink dress with pale pink leggings and little pink shoes. She had a pink handband with a bow on the top, which she kept on for all of about 30 minutes before tearing off, haha. She immidiately held her arms out and came right too me and to be honest I am pretty sure she knew something was up! It could have been because everyone kept hugging and kissing her and giving her soooo much attention but she was very reserved. She just hung right on to me and didn't want to let go as if she didnt want me to leave without her. The director told us multiple times that we were the youngest couple ever to come to Gabby's orphange to adopt and possibly to come to the country to adopt (esp. me). The minimum age to adopt in Ukraine is 25 and I am 26, Jason is 29. The director said she really admired us being so young and taking such a huge leap of faith and adopting Gabby. She said that it was amazing how well Gabby had bonded with us and that she new she was ment to be part of our family. She also stated that she as well as other caregivers and spoken many times on how much Gabby was progressing and growing during our visits in Ukraine. She gave us her contact information and made us promise to always stay in contact with her and keep her updated with pictures of Gabby. She said she couldn't wait to see us again when we came back for a second baby and we agreed! However, we must get this one a little older and more independent first, haha. Before leaving, Gabby's favorite caregiver came in to the room to say goodbye to her and it was so sad because the caregiver had tears in her eyes as she was saying bye to Gabby. I am sure they were tears of joy but there must be a part of her that will miss caring for our precious girl. I know it would be very hard for me. FINALLY, for the last time, we marched down the hall, down the stairs, and out of those doors...ONLY THIS TIME WITH OUR DAUGHTER! As soon as I cleared the doorway and felt the air with Gabby in my arms my eyes were filled with tears! *By the way, also on the memory card is a video that Jason took of me carrying Gabby down the hall, stairs, out the door, and getting into the car....so I have to fix this memory card somehow! When we got into the car and drove out of those big green gates we all looked back and waved goodbye to orphanage. It was VERY emotional! We drove straight to the apartment and stayed there for the rest of the day and night. Gabby did surprisingly well and needless to say, bedtime was sooo much sweeter that night.
~Traveling back to Kiev~
The next day after Gotcha Day, we had a driver (not our usual driver) but a nice driver to drive Jason, Gabby, our facilitator/translator, and myself back to the city, Kiev. This was around an 8 hour drive but I was not complianing because it was alot better than a 13 hour, miserable, train ride! Again, Gabby did really well! She is such a good girl! She did began to run a slight fever on that morning though but we were able to control it and bring it down with meds that we had brought from home as well as plenty of cool fluids. When we arrived in Kiev late that night we were surprised with a really nice, BIG, apartment. We LOVED it and it was exactally what we needed for our last week in Ukraine with Gabby. We were starving when we got there and our facilitator was nice enough to call us in a pizza from the Ukrainian Papa Johns! Which by the way was awesome!!! Apparently the day had went to smoothly because before going to bed I realized that I had left my iPad in the driver's car that brought us to Kiev and he was on his way back to Kherson! We called our facilitator and she called the driver (who was at this point a couple of hours into the drive back to his region) and he said he had it. THANK GOD for an honest driver! He said that he would ship it to us by train and he did. We picked it up at the train station later on in the week and everything was fine with it....by the way it only cost $3 to ship it to us! WOW!
~The last few days in Kiev Ukraine~
Sunday: Being that we arrived in back in Kiev on a Saturday, we had Sunday to basically do nothing before we had to start going to all of our appointments to go home. That Sunday was possibly one of the best days of my life! SERIOUSLY. We were in our daughters birth country, with no work to do, and nothing to do but spend genuine, quality time with our baby and ourselves and it was wonderful. We basically lounged around all day long in our jammies playing with Gabby and just being happy and thankful. There was one point in particular when Gabby was sleepy and I played music from the laptop to get her asleep while rocking her and I looked over and Jason was crying. Now, let me say...he probably wouldn't have this be told but it is too precious not to share. Of course I was fighting back the tears long before that but when I seen him I couldn't hold them back anymore. I can still remember everything about that day and the way everything looked and seemed so perfect. I remember the songs, the smell of the apartment, the gimmer of sun that was shinning through the curtains from the balcony and the way that it reflected off of the floor, the look on Jason's face as he watch me rock his baby girl to sleep, and most of all the feeling I felt inside as I held her in my arms and felt her heart beat and watched her sleep. Its something that I know no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to explain...so I will leave it at that.
Monday: On Monday we went to the medical appointment and thankfully we were not surprised with any new information! However, she was developing a cough and the fever was still hanging around. Thankfully I had read enough blogs to know that most of the younger babies around Gabby's age, do experience some type of illness (usually fever) when they leave the orphange. This is due to all of the changes. Overall the medical visit went really well, although she didn't care much for it, haha.
Tuesday: On Tuesday we went to our first Embassy appt. The appt. took around 20 minutes if that. We got to jump right ahead in line because we had an appt. and had a baby so we went straight through to talk with the necessary people responsible for issuing Gabby's visa. The ask questions about Gabby and our adoption process and then told us to come back the next day to get her visa :)
Wednesday: On Wednesday we went to the Embassy again and this time it took around an hour. We had to complete some paperwork and answer more questions but then we were given Gabby's visa that would allow her to enter into the USA. *By the way, as soon as she entered the USA she was considered a legal citizen due to the type of adoption we did. *NOTE: while we were at the embassy we met a father who just adopted a little girl...who by the way was precious and guess where he was from????? Right outside of NASHVILLE, TN! Not to far at all from where we live in KY! Esp. considering we met him in Ukraine! The little girl loved Gabby and she just kept saying "Baby" over and over :) When we went back to the apartment, I began to get a bad cough that night. I ended up not sleeping at all on this night due to coughing!
Thursday: FREE DAY....no appts. just packing and trying to rest up for the next day. On this day, I felt like total crap because I had no sleep at all due to coughing all night long the night before and plus I was still coughing! That night I ended up getting around 2 1/2 hours of sleep because I was coughing and my nose was completely stopped up and nothing was clearing.. I could hardly breath. My eyes were watering horribly and I ended up getting what I am pretty sure now was the influenza A.
Friday: We woke up at 1:00 a.m. in the morning (Ukrainian time) to begin getting ready and to gather up the last of our things. We were picked up at 3:00 a.m. by our facilitator's husband (which by the way, was extremely nice and helpful) and we went to the airport. During this entire time I was feeling so many things! Excited to be going home, scared of the trip home (I hate flying), sad because I knew we may never get to see Gabby's birth country again (although we plan to adopt in the future again), exhausted, sick...basically you name it and I felt it. We boarded the first flight in Kiev Ukraine at 6:00 a.m. We arrived in Munich Germany a couple of hours later and then had a couple hour layover. Everything went smoothly on the plane from Kiev to Munich. Of course we had to pull out our paperwork 10 million times to show that we legally adopted Gabby and we didn't come to Ukraine to kidnap her, haha. We then boarded the next flight to Washington DC...this would be the long one (around 9 hours and plus you can pretty much add on an aditional 6 because of thetime difference). This flight was extremelyyyyyyy long, boring, and just flat out exhausting. When we arrived in Washington I was soooo happy but that quickly went away when I seen the line to go through customs. This took over an hour to do and then another hour or so later we boarded yet another flight (destination Knoxville, TN). This flight was short ( almost 2 hours). Let me just say that Gabby was an angel on all of the flights and the layovers. She was alot tougher than us! Everyone on the long flight was bragging on how well she done. When we hit the ground in Knoxville I was in so emotional and happy. Again..this was until we realized the day we told mom to come and pick us up had been mixed up because the time difference in Ukraine and home. Needless to say, after a phone call and a nearly 2 hour wait we were in the car and on our way home. After nearly a three hour drive home and two worn out adults (one/me very sick), and a worn out baby we arrived home. This would have been great if we had had electricity! Thats right...we had no electricity! I had paid (or thought I had paid) our electricity in Ukraine online, however...it didn't go through because it was out of country and the fraud department detected it! Soooo..back in the car and back to town to try to find a hotel. We spent our first night back in America in a hotel! The next morning our electricity was back on and we were home...FINALLY!!!!
The next few days: The next few days were filled with lots of visitors and adoring Gabby. Gabby took up very well at home! She played with all of her toys and enjoyed having space to crawl around in and be a baby.
*Note: Not even a week after we were home, Gabby was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. She had started getting sick in Ukraine but there wasn't much we could do there except for symptom mangement. A couple of days after being in the hospital, her swab came back and tested positive for influenza A. Long story short....she was in the hospital for 4 days. She recovered very quickly with no complications of any sort and she is now better than ever. For the first time since we have met her...we are actually hearing clear lungs!
Now, for the most recent of updates....
We are really just now starting to settle in and establish a routine. I do think its gonna take a while because I have to figure out the ins and outs of running two offices from home (the majority of time) and take care of her and all of the typical duties of keeping up a home and so forth. I'll update more as we try to perfect the routine :)
We have been on basic shopping trips and things with Gabby and she does really well. Tomorrow we are taing her to Johnson City and Bristol, TN to do some Christmas shopping and to see the speedway in lights (which we have done nearly every year for the past 7 years or so.
The intentions of this post was just to get everyone caught up. I plan to continue this blog with a minimum of weekly updates...maybe every other day or so. I want to keep this going in hopes that it might inspire someone else to adopt. God knows the children need everyone reading this desperately!
Our local newspaper learned of Gabby's story and they have done an article on her. I thought this was great because it really helped shed a glimmer of light on the subject. Hopefully, it will make a difference or inspire. This blog was posted in the article so if you are reading this now because you read about us in the paper then here is a tip for you. You can click the link "older post" at the bottom of each post to go back to all of the older posts. You can also view the titles of all of theposts on the left side of the screen. The right side of the screen is our adoption timeline and the details from beginning until returnin home.
Now for what you all have been waiting for...PICTURES! Here are some pictures we have taken since she has been home. Not nearly all of them but quite a few :) Enjoy...
Gabby, her cousin Claire, and aunt Sasha
Jason, my papaw & mamaw (Gabby's great grandparents), Gabby's 1st cousin...Claire, and her aunt Sasha (Jason's sister). She was loving all of the attention!
My papaw (my mom's dad) and Gabby. I adore this picture :)
My mamaw (mom's mom) and Gabby
My sister (Gabby's aunt) Tasha, pushing Gabby in a toy box :)
Jason, Gabby, Ryley, and Claire. (Ryley & Claire are Gabby's first cousins). For some reason Gabby was loving playing with the clothes racks haha.
I learned that if this child was gonna have spaghetti...it had to be in a diaper and bib, haha.
Early one morning (around 4 a.m.) when all of our time schedule was still messed up.
She is amazed haha.
Aunt Tasha and Gabby :)
My teething angel :)
This is Lashay & myself. Lashay is my baby cousin, whose birth I missed while in Ukraine. She is so precious and beautiful!
Jason & Lashay
My little cousin Henry (Gabby's second cousin)..she took up with him quickly! Let me just say...we practically helped raise Henry and he means the world to us. This should really be Gabby's brother :)
Jason, our peekapom (baby), Henry, and Gabby. As you can see, Gabby wasn't too thrilled about meeting our first little girl lol.
Although it looks like she is sleeping...she is not. She is trying to wake daddy up :)
Gabby & my mom...a very proud "nana"
Drinking out of the sippy like a big girl :)
She is worn down in this one, haha
This is what she does when she is thinking hard lol
Trying to get her asleep but it wasn't working as you can see....
I love that little face!
She spotted chocolate in daddy's plate and started doing her little begging thing she does...hehe
Adoring the Christmas tree...
Ma ma stealing lovins...awww
More adoring the tree :)
Helping ma ma cook....
I love this one :)
One of the many faces she makes that lights up my day!
I really adore this picture. I symbolizes a whole new world for Gabby to me....She is on her very own bed...gazing out of her very own bedroom window into her very own yard!
Doing what she does best....pulling everything out of the drawers and cabinets. Baby gate is up and secured now though haha.
Although, someone needs to remind da da that it has to be shut to work haha.
First pizza hut trip..she loved it.
After getting out of the hospital...she was feeling good to be home!
Love it!
Our precious angel and her precious smile
Miss cutie pa tootie
Can you see the difference in her since our first post. I SURE CAN. She is approximately 6-7 lbs heavier (at a healthy weight now), she has alot better color, she is more than an practically an inch taller, although not detectable by picture (she has clear lungs)....thank you american health care, her hair is shiny, thick, and longer. These are just a few of the many changes.
She is sooo sweet
Playing on her bed..
I told you she loved the tree :)
She looks like she is posing right? haha. She actually did this all on her own. I just kept snapping pics and lucked up with this one.
Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks :)
Our Ukrainian Princess
Love, Love, Love this one :)
Hope you enjoyed. More to come...I promise, haha..
