More meetings

We have Internet on Josh's phone. It isn't the greatest, but I am so happy to have access to the outside world. The picture I sent the other day was from Gary Hagler's phone, so it wasn't the greatest picture and I wasn't able to write anything with it.

We met our sweet little girl yesterday, she is so perfect. We first met with the social worker, I was so nervous, I had to pee like 5 times :), it wasn't as bad as I expected though, she asked us several questions, like why we decided to adopt a child with special needs and how will I be able to take care of  a child with so many needs when I have two little ones. It was hard to answer them, just cause I didn't have time to think about them. After, we went to the orphanage and met with the director, the social worker also came to observe. The director asked us the same questions plus a few extra. One that took me by surprise was "Don't you think this will be a bad influence to your children", I said "no, exactly the opposite, they will learn to love people of all kinds for who they are and what they are." Then she told me not to be offended by her question, but she has to ask it, because others will ask her. People are very different here in what they think of children with special needs, they don't understand why we even bother. The director was very nice and seems to understand. 

After this they bring Irina in. I jumped up to go get her, but they told me to sit for a while. So she was sitting on a nanny's lap for about 5 minutes while we had to sit across the room. I was very emotional and cried several times, I just couldn't believe we were finally here and this is really happening. She was so beautiful and so happy.

Finally she let us get her, it was one of the happiest moments of my life. she was so happy and smiled and laughed the whole time. We only got to see her for about 15 minutes or so, then they asked us if we wanted to move forward with the adoption. Of course we did. Then we took her back to her class and had to go to the notary's office to make the documents to go forward with our adoption. We were there FOREVER. The notary is more like a lawyer here. They had to create the documents and they don't use computers because they are afraid they will lose everything. 

We get to visit Irina 2 times a day for two hours each time. This morning we didn't have long to visit, because we had to go back to the notary. So we stayed inside about 15 minutes with her then had to leave. After the notary we still had about an hour left of visiting time, so we went back. But they wouldn't let us see her, we were sad, but we were able to play with some other children outside. They called us mama and dada, they were so cute. 

This afternoon we took the kids with us for the first time. Malika couldn't stop smiling, she was in love. She wanted to hold her, but they stuffed her in a snowsuit, it was hard to hold her or interact with her when she can't move. It's not even that cold here, it is cold but not cold enough for that many heavy layers. Justus had a really hard time, I really didn't expect it. Please pray for him, I'm hoping he will adjust soon.

We hope we don't confuse all of you, but we have decided to change Irina's name to Kaylee Irina. We will call her both names for a while until Malika is used to it, then we will drop Irina. I will explain later why we chose that name.

Kaylee is so tiny, but yet a little chubby. She weighs about 17 lbs, but is about 6 inches shorter than Justus. She can sit up really well, and can pull up to standing. She tries to walk a little bit, if I hold her up, but tires very easily.

I will try to write more later and post some pictures. Sorry for the book, again :), it is so hard to write everything, there is so much I left out.