Home again

We're now back in Florida, and trying to catch up on emails, bills, laundry, phone messages, etc. Things get piled up even when you're only gone for a week!

Thank you to those of you who so faithfully checked our blog while we were gone. It was a joy to be able to share some of our stories with you. Many people have asked how we've been feeling. It's hard to say. Of course we enjoyed our time with Samuel so much, and it was difficult to leave. But we knew from the beginning that we'd have to come home without him, and so our hearts were prepared for that (as much as they can be). I did shed some tears on the flight from Moscow to London, knowing that we were leaving our son's country. But we are confident that these next few months will fly by, and that we'll be reunited with him before we know it.

I do want to share a few pictures with you. Sorry that you can't see his face yet, but at least you can see a piece of our bonding time with him. It truly was a time that we'll treasure for the rest of our lives.
Yes, this is our son with a pink bonnet. I also gave him water from a pink bottle. I think they're not fussy as long as the stuff works!

Sam and Daddy, reading a book (actually Sam chewing on the book is more accurate).

I guess chewing is the theme here...now it's my necklace!

OK, this looks a little more like Dad and Sam reading.

This is the only picture of the three of us I can show you for now...more to come in a few months!

Two visits went by so quickly!

We enjoyed another wonderful time with Samuel this morning. It is so hard for me to believe that already our vists with him are over until we return to bring him home. This morning, Julia picked us up from our hotel again, and we went to the notary. We had to sign several documents saying that we do plan to adopt Samuel. This will begin the process with the courts. Then we returned to the hospital.

Yesterday when we were with him, there were 6-8 other people with us, observing. It was a little strange. But today, it was just us and Julia. SO much better! We got to play and have fun with him, and she took lots of pictures. (She called herself our paparazzi!) He loved to play with my necklace again, which I plan to wear often now to remember him. We tried to read him a few books, but he just wanted to chew on them--including the family photo album we brought. We also got to see him crawl and stand up with our help. At first, he was quite reserved, but by the end of the time, we were making him laugh and loved to see him smile. We got a lot of great pictures which we will treasure until we are able to come back. We got to pray with him in the room too, which was a blessing. After about 45 minutes, the nurse returned to get him. She said she could tell that he didn't want to leave us...I don't think he gets much personal attention in his room. He was obviously soaking it all in from us. It made it even harder to leave, knowing that he would pretty much be alone until we return to bring him home.

Julia told us that the judge here will be on vacation for the entire month of May, so that changes our timeline a little bit. If we get the rest of our documents completed as soon as we return, Julia is hoping to turn everything in before the end of April, and will try to get us a court date in early June. But, it will depend on the judge's schedule completely. Our visas will expire on June 15, so if we don't get the process completed by then, we'll just have to apply for new ones. We are hoping we'll be able to be with him on his birthday in early June, so we can celebrate together. God has a good plan for when to bring Sam home, so we'll be waiting on Him.

This afternoon, we are going to go out walking around town again, even though it's snowy and quite cold. Tonight we take the train back to Moscow, and will do some sightseeing there on Friday and Saturday. It will be nice to have something to take our minds off of how much we already miss our son!

Live from Nizhny

We made it! We have just returned from the first meeting with our son, and it was absolutely incredible. Already, we are looking at the pictures and finding it hard to believe we were really with him just a few short hours ago. Let me back up a bit and tell you about our trip so far...

On Monday evening, we left Atlanta for an 8-hour flight. Neither of us slept great on the plane, but it was OK. When we got to London Gatwick, we had to get our bags, go through customs, and then take a 1 1/2 hour bus ride over to Heather. Then we had to check in and go through security again. We both took a nap on that 4-hour flight. We were greeted in Moscow by Max, our taxi driver. He was so nice. Our taxi ride into the city took over two hours, but we enjoyed looking at the city and trying to read the signs in Russian! Around 9:30pm, we enjoyed a special treat. We met a Natalie, a friend from Tver, for dinner at TGI Friday's. It was nice to eat a real meal, and Max waited for us outside. Then all four of us went to the train. We were so thankful they were both there to help us get settled into our little room. We had a small cabin to ourselves with two beds (pictures to come). We both slept great! We woke up this morning, and were greeted by Denis. He took us to our hotel, and we had just an hour to shower, eat, and get ready for our appointment this morning.

At 8:45, his wife Julia picked us up at our hotel. We went directly to a meeting with the Ministry of Education. It only took about 5 minutes, but we were still required to be dressed up. She told us his birthday and a little more information about him. Then we were invited to visit him at the hospital. So, Julia, Dimitri (our translator), and we went to pick up the social worker. She went with us to the hospital.

We were directed into a room with many people in white coats. They were doctors of various specialities. They said they would tell us more information about him while they brought him in. All of a sudden, he was in the room with us! It felt like a dream. I think I was even holding my breath. He is SO adorable, even more than in his picture. He made great eye contact with both of us right away and was looking all around the room. They undressed him for us, and then took him away before we could hold him. Then they went over his medical and family history, and answered a lot of questions. It was great, but hard to concentrate because we wanted to see him again! I took notes to help me remember, but there was nothing worrisome. He will need a minor surgery when he comes home, but he will have no lasting problems. Praise God that there is no permanent damage to his kidneys!

After the Q&A session, they brought him back in, and he lit up the room. You could tell that all of the doctors (mostly women) loved him. They admitted so later. :-) We were both able to hold him and play with him for a short while. We got to give him a bottle with water, and he made eye contact while he was drinking, which was great. After just a few minutes, we told them we did want to proceed with adopting him, and so we signed a few papers. Julia took some pictures of us. I was wearing a new necklace that he loved to chew on, so we got some precious pictures of that. The doctors loved the Build a Bear and the photo album I made, labeled with Russian words. They promised to go over this with him, and to keep his new toys with him. All too quickly, we were kissing him goodbye and he left.

Tomorrow, we will visit a notary to sign more paperwork, and then we get to return to the hospital to visit him again. We are grateful to have two visits, and hope that tomorrow's will be longer than today's. But any time we have will be a blessing. Then tomorrow night, we'll head back to Moscow on the overnight train again. Hopefully I'll be able to post more after our visit tomorrow.

Can't wait until we can post pictures for you all to see! Now we are off to give ourselves a tour of the city and buy some souvenirs. Should be fun!

Our our way!

I am just sitting down for a quick update before we head out to the airport. Yesterday, we drove the five hours to Ben's dad and stepmom's house. It was nice to do that drive on the day before the flights. We had a great evening with them, and were able to sleep in and get some good time with the Lord this morning as well.

Now we are grabbing a quick lunch together, and then heading into Atlanta and the airport. Our flight leaves tonight at 7:25...so soon! We hope we'll be able to meet Samuel on Wednesday afternoon, which is early in Wednesday morning here in the States. We'll write again as soon as we're able.

Thank you Lord that this day we've prayed for for so long has finally arrived!

Just wanted to share the good news...

...that our visas just arrived! I was sitting at the computer and saw the DHL truck pull up. My heart started pounding and I was so happy to see him walking up to our door. The visas look great. What a relief to have them here early, so we didn't need to sit around on Monday waiting for them to be delivered before leaving for our flight. God is so good!

Now, if I could just get myself to quit procrastinating and start packing...

A bear and a name for our son

The most common question we've gotten since announcing our referral is, "Do you know what you're going to name him?" We have been talking about baby names for years, but even once we saw our son's picture, neither of us were 100% sure. So, we looked through some baby books, and talked about names almost every day. We had it narrowed down to two for awhile, and I was so ready to decide! Because of Hannah's amazing story of asking God for a son, I really liked the name Samuel. I actually started calling him that just to see how it sounded. Then, last night on the way home from Navs, we were talking about it again in the car. We both agreed that we'd like to decide by this weekend. And then, out of the blue, Ben said, "His name is Samuel." I screamed and couldn't believe that such a big decision had been made so casually! :-) So, we'd like to share with you that our son's name will officially be Samuel Benjamin Evgeniy Nugent. We're calling him Sam. I love it!

This afternoon, on the advice of our agency, we went to Build-a-Bear to make a bear to leave with Sam in the orphanage while we're gone. We were able to record a 10-second message to put inside the bear, so every time he presses its paw, he'll hear our voices. Since you can't listen to a picture, this is what we recorded. (Me) "Hi Sam, it's Mama. I love you. Daddy and I are praying for you. We'll see you soon." (Ben): Hi Sam, it's Daddy. I love you. I can't wait to see you grow up." We'll be sleeping with the bear until we leave, so it will start to smell like us (hopefully in a good way!). That way, when we return to pick him up, hopefully he'll recognize our voices and maybe even our scent. I love this idea!

Here are some pics of our adventure:

Ben with the bear we chose (before stuffing). We named him Sammy Bear, because Ben had a bear named Benny Bear when he was little.

Me using the foot pedal to help stuff Sammy Bear (though the employee is doing the work!).

The finished product. We can't wait to bring you your bear, Sam! Love, Mom

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (Literally!)

We have our travel itinerary! In two weeks, we'll be getting on a plane and traveling half-way around the world to meet our precious (yet-to-be-named) son. Amazing! On Saturday, I called the airline to schedule tickets using some frequent flier miles donated by some dear friends. I anticipated being on the phone a long time while she searched through all of our options. After about five minutes on hold, she came back and let me know she had found tickets that would work! If we'd had to purchase these tickets out of pocket, they would have cost $2500 each. We are so grateful to our friends for providing in such a clear and helpful way. (A side note: our family coordinator told me today that we are her first family that's actually been able to use frequent flier miles to get tickets. Because of the short notice, no one else has been able to make it work. Thank you Lord!)

So, here's our crazy schedule:

March 17
five-hour drive to Atlanta
7:25pm Leave Atlanta (8 hour plane ride)
March 18
7:25am Arrive London Gatwick
take shuttle across town to London Heathrow
12:25pm Leave London Heathrow (4 hour plane ride)
7:30pm Arrive Moscow
go through customs, take one-hour taxi ride into town
11:50pm take overnight train to Nizhny (8 hour train ride)
March 19
8:00am Arrive Nizhny
hopefully find somewhere to freshen up :-)
appointment with Ministry of Education
first visit to orphanage if there is time that day!
March 20
visit orphanage
take train back to Moscow
March 21
in Moscow
March 22
8:55pm Leave Moscow (4 hour flight)
10:15pm Arrive London
March 23-25
Celebrate 10th anniversary early in London! Because they're frequent flier tickets, it didn't cost any more to stay in London for a few days. So we decided to spend a few days enjoying the sights and having one last vacation before we bring home our son. I recently learned that this is called a "babymoon." :-)
March 25 5:25 pm Arrive Atlanta
five-hour drive home
crash!

I imagine we'll be coping on very little sleep on running mostly on adrenaline! But it will all be worth it when we get to lay eyes on our precious son and hold him in our arms for the first time. Bring on the travel! (Oh-and please check out the updated prayer requests on the right.)