One of the longest days ever!

From Moscow!  10:30 PM Moscow time; 12:30 AM Ekat time -

As I write this, I have 3 sleeping beauties behind me settled in for the night - or at least for the time being.

It has been an incredibly long day with so many things happening all at once - Not enough time in the day to feed any of the girls or myself so I think everyone went to bed hungry tonight.  But, from the beginning . . . 

For me the process of adopting from Ekaterinburg has been so different then adopting Katy from Chelyabinsk and, today was a fitting end to my association with Ekaterinburg.  The only important thing is that the girls are with me, are legally my daughters and will very soon be US citizens to boot.  But, the Ekat process makes it difficult to remember what is important at times because you get so wrapped up in the process and rushing to get documents, rushing to so many doctor appointments, rushing to meet deadlines and beat vacation dates, etc.  Today should have been all about picking the girls up from the orphanage - but that was the smallest part and the most simple part of the day!  So, rather than having the time to rejoice in the joy and completion of that it was a mad dash from one thing to the next to the next.

Olga picked Megan and me up this morning at 9AM.  Just like on the court date, Katy chose this day to have the painful parting.  She did not want me to leave her today and screamed so loud that she wanted her mama as Angela was taking her away.  It was another day of listening to her screams lessen as the elevator went down.  Very painful for me but I'm sure she was over it quickly - I hope anyway.

Megan slept most of the way to the orphanage (it's amazing to watch her sleep in a car as her head bops all over the place but it doesn't wake her).  She woke up just as we entered Nizhny Tagil.  She was so excited and she even began shedding a few tears.  I was really happy to be able to share the moment with Megan as it held so much meaning to her.  We stopped for diapers, got to the orphanage and met with the doctor for a few minutes.  She left to go get the girls and we watched so many cute little kids playing in the fall weather outside - they look so lovable and to see them all and to know they don't have families to love them is so sad.  So, that was very sad for Megan to see and she shed some more tears!

We were told we only had 1 hour to be in and out of the orphanage so we were going to have to hurry.  Olga had to run out to the social workers office to pick up a last piece of paper and so our day of delays began . . . We dressed the girls and played with them for about 1 hour waiting for Olga.  Megan got to know them both very well and confirmed that Camryn is very similar to Katy in her unlimited energy.  Courtney is a little more cuddlely which is very nice.  They both were little parrots and as we named things they were quickly repeating them.  They were very happy to see any of the orphanage staff that walked by us and they beamed big smiles and waved to them.  

It took Olga much longer than any of us anticipated so we rushed the girls into the "machine-a" and headed back to Ekaterinburg to pick up the passports.   Before even getting out of NT, Camryn opened the passenger door so we had to work with her on not doing that.  The orphanage did not feed the girls lunch as they were concerned about car sickness so we gave them a few snacks and then they both slept the rest of the way.  It was a very easy drive back.  

Olga pulled into a little neighborhood and told Megan that she was going to get lots of experience with the girls and we then left Megan and both girls in the car while we went to get passports.  That was suppose to be a quick 5 minute deal but I think we were probably there around 45 minutes making us even further behind schedule.  Megan did great with the girls and when we finally got back we found them playing with leaves and birds perfectly content of course.

We raced back to the hotel to meet up with Angela and Katy and quickly loaded luggage into two cars.  Now that I had passports I could purchase tickets for Camryn and Courtney so Katy and I went in one direction while Megan, Angela, Camryn & Courtney went in another.  I had to keep reminding myself that I would have plenty of time with the girls at home so the task right now is just getting them there safely.  I was a little jealous of Megan and Angela and the time they were getting with the twins but, Katy needed my attention this afternoon as did the business of tickets.

Lydia and I went to the Aeroflot office and we were already running late.  There were lots of people in line and she totally cut in front of all of them saying something in Russian.  Then when a desk opened up she made a run for it and one man tried to cut her off!  She said that she needed a favor (in english for some reason) and she made it to the desk first!  I just let her take control as there's nothing else I can do here in Russia any way!  Then, the agent couldn't find the reservation so we ended up sitting there a good 30 minutes.  The other group were at the airport before we even left Aeroflot but we did eventually get the tickets worked out and got out of there.  They called the airport staff and told them we were on our way.

Lydia flew out of there, jumped in the car and took off so fast I was really worried that we weren't going to make it at all!  She pulls behind a little silver car thats sitting waiting to get across 4 lanes and she starts laying on the horn.  The guy finally goes and - yep, a car crashes into him!  Lydia just pulled around him and kept going - you should have seen the passengers glare aimed at us.  But, she got us to the airport and we were the last ones checked in on the flight.  Everything was cleared for us and we got to the gate where everybody had already boarded the bus and took off for the plane.  Even better, someone made an announcement that those with kids get to board first so we got to bypass the mob at the bottom of the plane stairs and quickly board - very nice.

We made it to the Marriot at around 9 PM Moscow time I think.  We quickly bathed all three girls and put them to bed.  Katy really wants to sleep in a crib too and cried herself to sleep tonight so it was a little tough getting them down but it's all good now thanks to Angela and Megan.

So tomorrow Katy gets left behind again - I feel so bad doing that to her but the girls have to go the doctors and to get pictures taken and they've asked that just the twins and two adults go.  It becomes too difficult otherwise.  Megan will stay with Katy while we get things done and then hopefully we'll get to all spend the day together on Friday waiting for visas.

The twins did incredibly well on the plane - throughout the whole day they were happy as can be.  They've already shown some affects of the orphanage such as not crying when they get hurt but they do look for help when they hurt themselves.  They just look at Katy when she's crying about something and don't bother to join in which is so nice right now.  Katy is the one having trouble right now but she's overtired with this huge change so it will be difficult for her.  But, she was very happy to see the girls when we all met up at the hotel this morning.  Camryn seems to be a little protective of herself around Katy  -  didn't want Katy touching her shoes (which are actually Katy's shoes - I think their feet are also bigger than Katy's) and she screams at her.  I have little heart breaks every time I see one of them being mean to another.  It's going to be a hard transition for all of us I think!  

Hopefully the girls will sleep through to 7 AM tomorrow and we'll start our day.  And, maybe tomorrow I'll have time to post some more pictures - we have taken thousands I'm sure.

3 days more and we'll be home!