We Met our Daugther!

Where do I start?!? Ok, from the beginning! We had breakfast at hotel cafeteria, nothing special, but we needed something more hearty than the oatmeal we brought and then we headed out! Weird enough, after been checking the weather forecast for days before arriving here, yesterday we didn't and it as -6 Celcius (from where I am from, it rarely goes below 18 C). After 1 hour walking around and not finding the souvenir place we were interested, we headed to the hotel with our noses half frozen!! We usually try not to be wimpy when we travel, but it was crazy cold and we really don't want to risk getting sick again, so we stayed inside and watched the documentary "Super Size" in the computer.

At 1:30 pm we were picked up by Nadia, Margarita and Vladimir and headed to the Baby Home. They didn't mention the MOE at all, so we really don't know when or if we are going there at some point!?! Entering the baby home brought some memories back of Podolsk, but this baby home seemed bigger, even though they take care of about the same number as in Podolsk. We waited in a hallway before the feeding/hanging out area for the babies up to 1 year old and few minutes later she was right in front of us!

Now, as you know, in Kaluga you get some pictures, brief medical info and sometimes a video before you travel. We had all that, so the super exciting moment of seeing your child for the first time had already happened at home. However, it was quite thrilling to hold her and look at her eye to eye from the first time! She looks like a very sweet baby, smiling when people talk to her (mostly when people talked to her in Russian), following every single movement of the toys or other things around her and she made amazing eye contact! She didn't cry when they put her in my arms and few minutes later we went to the gym room, where we met Dr. Togoyev.

She is 9 month old, but because she was 8 weeks premature, she is considered to be 7 months developmentally. She hardly has hair, but the little she has looks like light brown or blond, has blue eyes, very fair skin and already has 6 teeth. She is 65 cm long, 17.5 pounds and her head circumference is 44 cm, so she was within the growth charts for every single measurement! Not that this was something super important for us, but I know it can be a little worrisome when the baby is super tiny, but she is not! She even has rolls in her legs and arms and big cheeks! Dr Togoyev explained what was expected for a 7 months baby, and she mostly did it all: sitting by herself, standing with some help, following and finding an object thrown next to her, etc.

All of this was happening within the gym and we had with us also our translator Nadia, Margarita and the social worker of the baby home - yeah, a full room of people! After the medical check she left for her nap and then we all moved to another room to meet the main doctor. Oh My, it felt like here in Kaluga they do a LOT of monitoring and tests to the kids, way more than in Podolsk - but supposedly it is just protocol and routine tests which is great, the earlier that medical things are found the better for the kid! Well, the problem is that sometimes the results are not "conclusive" or things are abnormal but not positive, so then they redo and retest like crazy! So, even though it sound like our girl has been tested for tons of things, she seems to be in good health. There are few things that we will need to follow up and monitor in the future, but nothing that can not be fixed in the near future!

We left the baby home at almost 5 pm, said good by to Dr Togoyev and headed back to the hotel. At 6 pm we went back to the baby home and spend more time with her. This time, we finally were able to be in the gym just the three of us, and even though it was for only 40 minutes, it felt great! She is teething, so every time we showed her a toy, it would go directly to her mouth. We then decided not to do anything with toys, but to sing songs to her and continue creating situations when she would look at us, and when she did, it was directly to our eyes! When we met Diego, he was very interested in the toys and less in us; so this time we focused on getting her attention and start getting her to make eye contact with us. She even warmed up to Mark; she seemed a bit apprehensive of him, but after pulling his beard and hair few times, she was right on his face and she even pulled off one of Diego's moves: grabbing Mark's glasses!

We were exhausted by the time we came to the hotel; but all overall it was a great day! We met our daughter and we heard from Mark's parents and Diego is adjusting a bit better to not having us around! Thank you, God!! And now, a little sneak peak of our baby!