Meetings and Sam

There are not many words to describe today. Surreal, amazing, exhausting.

This morning we met Andre, our driver, and Julia our translator at the hotel and started the drive to the Ministry of Education where we met Irina, the coordinator. They told us that we were going to meet with the Regional Director for the Leningrad region and that she may ask us some questions before giving us the referral. Irina then proceeded to tell us that we were a special case because of our age and the length of our marriage combined with the fact that we can have biological children. They pretty much think we're nuts and have no idea why we're doing this. So we go up to the Director's office and sit outside while she talks to Irena.

At this point I begin furiously praying that God would speak to her and that she would be easy on us. We go into her office and she proceeds to ask us not one single question! She just read us the referral and gave us permission to visit the orphanage.

Then we got back in the van and started the loooong drive to the orphanage. We thought it was in the city but it's not. It's actually about two hours north and to get there you just drive through miles and miles and miles of forest. We stopped at a large store (think wal-mart) and picked up stuff for tea including cakes which is traditional.

Finally we got to the orphanage and it's nice. They just moved to this building a few weeks ago so everything looks nice and new. We met with the Custody Director of the Orphnage along with some of the other women who work there. The proceeded to tell us everything they could about Sam including his birthdate and some information about his parents. They also told us that because of his health he's been at the sanitarium for a long time and only comes to the orphanage occassionally but that he's going to be there all week to visit with us.

Right in the middle of the conversation one of the women walks in with our Sam and that room instantly became the size of that tiny little boy. The women kept trying to talk to us but I don't know that we heard one word they said.

He's very shy but Julia asked him to come sit down next to me and do a puzzle. He was very focused on the puzzle and would let us help him but wouldn't look at us aside from small glances. He did however keep shooting furtive glances at the cakes sitting at the end of the table. Finally we decided to eat and I have never seen such a small person each so much so quickly. In the space of about five minutes he had eaten five cakes, had four glasses of apple juice and was covered in chocolate. I think if we hadn't stopped him he would have eaten the whole box.

After the cakes he started to warm up to us more. I think someone told him that we brought the cakes and that seemed to help. We had also taken out the hot wheels cars we brought with us and it was so funny because he carried the cars around with him everywhere and wouldn't let anyone take them for long.

We started getting smiles and giggles and at this point we took out the video camera and he loved that. Tim had a video of the cats that he really liked and we found out while trying to get him to smile for a picture that he is very ticklish (just like his mama!) He has the most precious laugh and I want to spend every day from now on hearing it. It was a wonderful, too short couple of hours but we go back tomorrow and there won't be so many people in the room so hopefully we can all be a little more relaxed.

We're going back tomorrow in the morning so we don't have to interupt his nap time and have been commanded by our little man to bring him a banana and some cookies.

All in all it was not at all how I imagined it but it was perfect none the less.

One last thing we found out that really tells me this was meant to be. Sam's father's name was Stanislov. Sam really is a son of Stan.

P.S. The picture is the sunrise from our room.