We arrived yesterday (Wednesday) morning at 9am in our son's "region". We had a whirl wind day-- We had to go to a notary and get some papers notarized, then we went to child services office here in this country and she came with us to our sons orphanage.
It was late, we were tired and nervous, but here is 1/2 of our train cabin (1st class, the lower classes have 4 beds in 1 room!) You can see my legs sitting there to see how small it was. The luggage went UNDER the beds.
We then sat in the directors office going over our papers and well-- to be honest I have very little knowledge of what was said, from the notary until now probably covered 2 hours and 1 hour 45 minutes of that was 100% in their language!! ??
So finally they told us we would meet xxxxx. They were not going to make a big deal out of us coming to be his mama and papa (what they refer to parents here) but just some nice people who came with a toy (the night before we went to a toy store near the train station and bought him a BIG red radio controlled car). So we walked into the room and he was already there, sitting and probably very nervous (poor little guy). We walked in and he looked at us-- but I can't help believing he was REALLY checking out Jason. I saw him a few times smiling BIG and looking at Jason out of the corner of his eye and smiling!! :) Of course-- I am and will be very happy if he bonds so very well to daddy- all his brothers are very much bonded with daddy as well.. it is a little boy thing. We are not adopting a baby who bonds with mama first-- we are adopting a little boy-- how needs his daddy!! :)
So we went in-- he LOVED the truck-- they told his 1 day a week he is learning English so he was able to say "hello" , "goodbye" "swing" and "My name is xxxx". So cute!! So so cute!
At the end of our 45 minute meeting (in which so many people were there, 2 principals, child services director of the region, orphanage director, orphanage nanny, our facilitator and us and who knows who else, there were a LOT of people present) they asked him if he was excited about "this" and he said "ya". We also showed him our photo album of our family, our home our our "animals" he smiled SOOO big when he saw the family picture.. it was an eyes wide open, eyebrows raised BIG ol' smile!! LOVED it.
Then we went for dinner (it was near 4pm and we had not eaten all day) I also kept my drinking to a BARE minimum because bathrooms are VERY rare here-- in all seriousness you cannot use a "public" restroom in a gov't office or many other places, I'm not exactly sure of the reasoning....I do know at the train station before we started our day I thought I would try to go to the restroom we had to pay $2 (of their $) to go!! And that was crazy! Thankfully our apartment has a very nice bathroom so I am just sure to go before we leave!!
After dinner they took us to exchange some more money so we could pay for the weekly apartment rental and also for our driver for all day.
Then they took us to our apartment. It is a very nice apartment (on the inside) and near the river and main street so we will have lots to explore here as well.
Today (Thursday) our facilitator is running some errands for us (paperwork) and she said we did not need to be present--- and our driver will pick us up around 1:30pm to head to the orphanage to meet our son again!! Really hoping for lots of pictures today-- and more interaction with less of an audience. Jason and I did not do very well yesterday under all that pressure. Our first meeting was nothing like what I thought it would be like, but each day will get better.
No comments:
Post a Comment