JOURNEY TO BECOMING A FAMILY

Wednesday, November 17 5:22am

Hello Friends and Family!

Well, our little Dimitry looks great! No more mosquito bites. He doesn’t appear to have grown. In fact, he seemed a bit thinner to touching his chest and legs.

However, he does have more expression. He smiled more and turned more to noises. He was extremely interested in his 6 month old buddy from the orphanage who was also in the room with his adoptive parents from Medina, OH.

Little Dimitry loved the attention that we were able to show him for a whole 40 minutes today. Our court time is tomorrow at 10:00am (10:00pm Wednesday night Detroit, MI time). On this trip 3 couples are traveling together in Kemerovo. We had breakfast with them, and we’ll have dinner with them as well.

Alexa – really, really, really, you will love little Ricky and really, really, really, he will love you. I have a strong sense of this. But, just remember that he is small, not even turning over yet. But, he sure has come to love sucking his left thumb since we saw him 6 weeks ago.

God blessings to all.
Richard and Joanne M.

PS. We have not been capable of making a call back to the US out of the region again. We will call once we return to Moscow.

Wednesday, November 17 9:32 pm

We have to make this quick!

We are off to court this morning! We got up at 5am as we couldn’t sleep. More because of the time zone issues than any anxiousness; however, we’re very excited today and expecting a positive outcome.

We’ll try to email later today/tonight to let you know how things went today!

Love,
Richard and Joanne

Thursday, November 18 5:45am

Greetings from Kemerovo, Russia!

Great news! We are proud parents of a baby boy, Richard Dimitriy M!

We went to the courthouse this morning with two other couples. We were the first couple to go before the judge. Total time was 35 minutes. It was more of a formality proceeding. We felt confident that everything would go our way; however, it was still a bit nerving during the proceeding.

Unfortunately, the couple from OH had a setback. There was a document that the court here in Kemerovo did not receive yet from Moscow. This delayed their court date until tomorrow. They need 24 hours to process passport, which means they will have to spend the weekend as they won’t be able to receive the baby’s passport until Monday. We feel for them very much.

After the court proceedings, we processed the birth certificate, adoption certificate and passport paperwork. We will pick up the passport tomorrow and then we get to go to the orphanage to pick up our new son!!! We were disappointed we couldn’t go get him today; however, we will certainly have him by this time tomorrow! We will stay in the hotel here in Kemerovo one more night and then will be flying to Moscow on Saturday. Visit US Embassy and medical on Monday, pick up final paperwork on Tuesday and will be flying back home on Wed!!

We’ll try to send an update to everyone again tomorrow!!!

Love,
Richard and Joanne

Thursday, November 18 9:51pm

Good morning everyone!

Today is Friday IS. Today we celebrate Ricky’s 7 month birthday and this is the day we get to pick him up and he stays with us forever!!!

Sorry for some of the dis-jointed comments in the emails. Some of you know everything that we’ve been through and some do not. I’m just trying to hit important highlights. Some apply to some of you and others may not understand.

Rich and Cindy received the document they needed yesterday at 4:45 pm. Too late for court, but at last they have it. They are both in court this am as I write this. We are with the other couple at the hotel waiting for them to finish. We’re all praying and hoping for them that they can get their son’s passport processed today so that they won’t have to spend the weekend waiting for it on Monday or Tuesday; however, we’re told they have only a 10% chance of that happening. The passport office is normally open until 6pm, but it closes at 3pm today because it’s Friday. The good news is that if the judge rules in favor of their adoption, they will be allowed to pick up their son today at the orphanage at the same time we do!!! At least they can spend the weekend with their son!

We are anxious to get to the orphanage today!

Debbie, please communicate to Alexa how much we love her and miss her. Joanne woke up in the middle of the night last night longing to be with Alexa and missing her so much. It’s been 6 days now since we’ve seen her and we have 5 more days yet before we see her again.

We’ll try to email again after we get Ricky.

Love,
Richard and Joanne

Friday, November 19 6:32am

Hello Everyone!!! It’s Thursday evening 6:15pm.

Well, today we picked up our little boy and have him in our arms! God is so good!
I have very good news that God answered our prayers for Rich and Cindy. They had their court this morning with a positive outcome and AMREX was able to pull the right strings to get the passport for their little boy today!

About 1pm local time, we were picked up to go to the orphanage to pick up our children! We stopped at the local grocery store for diapers, formula, baby food etc. We also each purchased cakes for the orphanage. We were told it is customary to provide a cake. As the interpreter said, “You give cake, they give you baby!” I said “if we had known it was that easy and that was all we had to do earlier”. Ha!

After we picked up our children, we came back to the hotel for the mom’s to take care of them while the fathers went back to pick up the passports and airline tickets for the children. We are going for a major celebration dinner tonight at our favorite Russian restaurant down the street.
We will be picked up at the hotel at 7AM and we’ll be off to the airport. Our flight leaves at 8:55AM. We will arrive in Moscow around 9AM (four hour flight with 4 hour time difference).

The only thing we didn’t get completed her in Kemerovo is the color photo of each baby for their visas. However, we were told we can do this tomorrow (Saturday) morning in Moscow.

We learned more that the medical exam will be Monday morning by a Russian doctor who speaks English. We will be at the US embassy around 1PM to be interviewed for the children’s Visa. If all goes well, we will have them before the end of the day on Monday. It was such a busy day today, so I forgot what we have to do on Tuesday. As you all know, we’ll be flying home on Wednesday.

This will be our last email from Kemerovo. We’ll try to send another email or two once we are back to Moscow! We’ll be able to make some phone calls once again as well.

Take care and God bless!
Richard and Joanne!

Monday, November 22 11:18am

Hello again,

Well, I know it’s still Monday morning for all of you, but here’s our Monday evening update as it is now 6:45 Moscow and our day is done.

We went to the US Embassy today to get the baby’s visa. There were many parents and children there today. Joanne counted about 20 babies in total waiting for visas. We were told by other parents that Russia now has over 170,000 children in orphanages to be adopted and there are about 5,000 adoptions of Russian children per year. I’m not sure if this is accurate information as we’ve learned information that isn’t always accurate spreads on the internet and I would rather rely on the information from our adoption agency. Nevertheless, these are pretty big numbers.
Some interesting information as a “just to know”.

Ricky is still a Russian citizen. His visa allows him to enter the US. Once he goes through immigration at JFK airport, he will automatically and officially become a US citizen. His birth certificate will still be the Russian one we received (written in Russian!) We will get him a passport, as we can get that in six weeks, which will then allow us to get him a social security number, etc. His immigration papers may take up to six months for us to receive.

Ricky will have dual citizenship (both Russian and American) until 18 years of age. At that point in time, he will have to make a decision as an adult, to be an American or Russian citizen. We were told his some time ago by our adoption agency; however, some parents seemed not to know or didn’t remember this and seemed concerned. My feeling is simply that as an infant, Ricky will only know the English language, only know his childhood experience growing up in America and has no relationships/connections to anyone in Russia, so I’m sure his choice would be to become an American citizen. However, it will be his choice along to make when the time comes.

The funny part is that if we traveled back to Russia as a family, Jo, Alexa and I would have to get visas to re-enter Russia, but Ricky would come back as a Russian citizen and therefore require no visa. When we return to the US, even though he is Russian, he would not be required to have a visa as he can then use his US passport as a US citizen to re-enter the US! That’s pretty wild, huh?!

We’re staying until Wed. We checked on the flight changes and the change fees just didn’t make sense cost wise vs. just staying another night/day at the hotel + meals. So tomorrow, if it is nice weather (today was quite nice); we may go to the Kremlin! Joanne and I went there the first trip; however, only the armory was open (Putin was in the Kremlin and some big wigs were in town that week). The armory was pretty cool as we saw many artifacts from Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, etc but we really want to go back and walk around the Kremlin and visit the various churches/chapels, buildings, etc.

We’re tired tonight! I think the time change and crazy Saturday travel ordeal has caught up with us. So, I’m going to sign off and get some sleep.

I’ll write again tomorrow and try to share some thoughts on our experience with Ricky these past few days and my adventures we may get into tomorrow.

Have a great day!

Love,
Richard, Joanne and Ricky

Monday, November 22 4:39am

Hello Everyone!

We’re back on-line and ready to fill you in on the past three days! We really missed writing all of you and sending you our updates! Thanks for all the email replies. Sorry for not responding to each one of them individually, but we are receiving and reading each one with great joy!

I just can’t tell you how overjoyed we are with our new son! What a wonderful gift that God has given us! You may be thinking, as we did, how much we will be able to give to this little baby boy and yet, you can’t even imagine how much he instead has given to us already in just he short time we have been together. Words can’t express the feelings I have for this little boy and the depth of love that has already bonded us together. I already can’t imagine life without him in our lives!

Our travels for Saturday were quite the adventure. Not what we had planned, but Ricky was a real trooper! We left the hotel for the airport at 7Am on Saturday. The flight was to leave at 8:55Am. We got on the plane and the flight was delayed for about 40 minutes waiting word from Moscow due to weather conditions. We took off 40 minutes late. What was supposed to be a 4-4.5 hour flight ended up being almost 6 hours.

Moscow had a very big snowstorm that moved in which also turned into an ice storm. (Later our interpreter in Moscow stated they usually have 2-3 bad storms per year and this was the first storm they had this year and he stated it was the worst he had seen in the past three years!)
We received word that Moscow airport was totally closed and that we would be flying to St. Petersburg and await word on the status of the continuing the flight. We sat on the tarmac in St. Petersburg for **6 hours**!!! On the plane and never got off! (Have a US airline try that in the states – ha!) No food, only water. The babies were fine and did really well-we had plenty of food and thankfully diapers – ha! We were on Airbus A320 – wide body (vs. a Russian-made aircraft that we flew from Moscow to Kemerovo that we all swore was held together with glue and tape ha!) The flight was not full, so there was room to move around and stretch out.

After the six hour wait, we were told we were given the OK to fly to Moscow, but they had to get approval to refuel the plane with the passengers on board. It was a 1hour and 20 minute flight to Moscow. So, we were supposed to get in around 9AM or so; however, we didn’t land into Moscow until 7:30!!

Everything was covered in ice and it was very windy. The plane tipped right then left (scary!) and we hit the runway and when we turned off the runway, the plan slid! They say that only the Russian pilots know how to land in this type of weather! We got out of the plane and made our way down the ice covered steps (no jet ways here!). Ricky was really crying and scared. Remember, this is all new to him as he has never been outside the orphanage or their little playground area his whole life! A couple Russian gentlemen were very helpful. Even though we can’t speak the language, the Russians always take care of babies and helped me with my hand luggage while I helped Joanne down the steps and to the bus.

Once inside the terminal, we had to wait over 2 hours for our luggage. First they couldn’t get it the cargo truck out to the plane due to the icy conditions, then when they did finally get it out to the plane, the cargo doors had frozen shut since the plane sat so long! The adoption agency people were great and took the moms and babies to the hotel and the fathers stayed behind to get the luggage.

I didn’t get to the hotel until 11:30PM, which was really 3:00am for our bodies because of the time change! Joanne already had the baby fed and in bed sleeping when I got to the hotel. She had ordered room service for us, so we ate and went to bed. So, thus went our Saturday. Where we thought we’d have some time for relaxing or sightseeing, we spent the whole day on a plane. I think it was something like 16 hours in total from hotel to hotel.

Sunday we just rested and spent most of the time at the hotel. We went to the grocery store to buy some more baby food, diapers and that good stuff. Ricky was OK, but he didn’t’ like the windy, -8 degree C weather. We had him bundled up well with his clothes and TWO winter snow suits! Anyway, it was nice to have some down time. We called our Alexa and parents to check-in as this was the first time we have been able to make phone calls.

Monday AM we were picked up at 7 and went to the clinic for the medical exams. Without getting into a lot of detail, I’m glad to say that Ricky is a very healthy little boy! Time with us with better nutrition, playing, holding etc will build up his motor skills and muscles which the doctor said is normal with orphanage children. We were very happy with the overall exam/report/discussion with the doctor.

We then filled out a bunch of paperwork for his US Visa and then had color photos taken of the babies for the visa as well. It is currently Monday around noon and we will be picked up about 1:15pm to be taken to the US Embassy for the interview and get his visa to get back into the US.
So, I have good news and bad news! The bad news is that we don’t have the two days required to register Ricky with the Russian consulate; however, we can do this via mail in the US. The good news is that this means we don’t really need to be here on Tuesday, so we are working on seeing if we can get our flights changed from Wednesday to Tuesday and return home one day early! We’ll see! We will contact those involved with our arrival back home to coordinate if it works out. Otherwise, we will have a rest day on Tuesday and fly home Wednesday.

We are currently at a Marriott and just like last time, it sure is nice to be in a hotel that reminds us more of home (US) vs. the hotel in Kermerovo. All the families and children that we’ve been traveling with on this trip are doing well and we met a few adopting parents at the hotel here in Moscow.

This has been a very positive and wonderful experience; however, we are very much looking forward to coming home! We love you all and look forward to coming home! We love you all and look forward to all of you meeting our wonderful son very soon!

I’ll try to write again before we leave Moscow for home.

Monday, November 24 1:18am

Hello everyone,

Sorry for not writing yesterday.

It’s 9:00am on Wednesday morning and we will be picked up at the hotel 10:00am to be taken to the airport for our final flight home!

Ricky is doing well. It is just amazing how he has changed in his behavior since he’s been with us. He is happy, laughing, smile, no longer clinches his fist nor curls up his legs all the time. He slept 10 hours Monday night and had two power naps on Tuesday AM. I think the time change is catching up with all of us, but we’re still waking up at 4:30-5:00Am wide awake!

We went to the Kremlin yesterday to do some sightseeing and purchase some things. I bought one of those mink fur hats the Russian gentlemen wear here in the winter. When I put it on I teased Joanne that I had just purchased a new head of hair.

We love you all and thank you for sharing your return emails of congratulations, etc. We are looking forward to being with our family during Thanksgiving weekend and getting home and having things back to normal (if you can really do that with a new baby!) Most of all, we can’t wait to be with our dearest Alexa again! Alexa, we love you soooooooo much!!

Pray for us to have a safe trip home.

Love,
Richard, Joanne and Ricky M