Moscow Mayhem

Sorry for the late update - the world class business center in St. Pete took a dump! So, here we are in Moscow and all is well. We survived our first night as parents with no major problems, although we are still anxiously awaiting our first "poopy" diaper...no movement as of yet. I'll let you know how it goes...should be a bomb from hell! We've been feeding him nothing but fruit and eggs....
OK...backing up a bit. We had a wonderful visit in St. Pete and were able to get all of our paperwork done in time to stick to our original travel itinerary, which put us into Moscow last night. We got up early, paid our bill to our agency staff in St. Pete, had a big breakfast, checked out and then went to go pick up Jax. We arrived at the baby house feeling excited and ready. We presented all of our gifts, which were greatly appreciated and well-received (apparantly the orphange staff are getting more and more picky about the type of gift they get...they have become privvy to name-brands, and are easily offended should you choose a lesser one! Thank God I'm a big spender!!!!)then made our way to the music room to await Dmitri's caretaker. She came in and we gave her a bag filled with his new clothes, hat, snowsuit and Reebok's. She left. The baby house doctor came in and gave us his feeding and sleeping schedule (up at 7AM, breakfast 8AM, play time until 10AM, nap 10-12, lunch 12:30, playtime until 3, nap 3-5, dinner 7PM, bedtime 8PM). Also, she let us know what foods he's been eating and basically, the kid eats it all, just like his mother! When the doctor left and it was just Darren, Marina and I sitting and waiting for the big moment, I swear, I almost had a panic attack. I just wanted to get up and run out into the snow and start screaming!!!! I couldn't believe this was the moment of truth, at last. I have been so careful thru this to not get too attached to any thought, idea or notion of a successful adoption and then all of a sudden, here we are, just waiting for our son to come into the room and be taken away from all he has ever known. Well, luckily I calmed down (thank you Lord Jesus) and when that door opened the flood gates opened. I tried to keep my head down so Darren and Marina couldn't see the tears...I did a good job! The caregiver came over to me carrying the most adorable little blue snow baby you've ever seen, complete with his little ear flap hat, all tucked in and cozy warm in his little blue snowsuit that matches his eyes so perfectly. She handed him to me and I melted. Jax was smiling at us and looked ready to go. Darren was running the video camera and we were very fortunate to get Jax's caregiver on tape, giving me advice and wishing us the best with our new son. She was wonderful, as was everyone we dealt with in St. Pete. Then, we all got up and headed for our van outside. Darren got great footage on camera of Dmitri leaving his baby house in his new mother's arms, and entering the outside world as Jaxon. We waved goodbye to the baby house and headed for the airport.
The flight to Moscow was FANTASTIC!!!! Smooth sailing all the way and great seats! It was about an hour and 15 minutes total flight time and Jax slept thru the whole thing. He is VERY on schedule with things....Once in Moscow we were greeted by our wonderful driver, Viktor, who promptly helped us out to the car with our slew of luggage. We then headed out into the first truly nasty snowstorm Moscow has seen in some time, and when I say nasty, I mean, N-A-S-T-Y!!!!! The airport is app. 30 minutes from the hotel, and 5 hours later, we arrived. Let me just say that Darren and I were tested as parents for the first time in one of the absolute worst possible situations, and we all did fine. D and I didn't eat anything since breakfast but I had packed baby food for Jax, diapers (which never got changed...no poop so I figured I'll just wait rather than try my luck in this poor man's overstuffed car in the dark on the freeway, as an unexperienced diaper changer...) and water and juice. I gave him a sippy cup and he had no idea how it worked. They never use bottles or sippies in the orphanages - all the kids drink from glasses. So, off with the top and the sippy cup becomes just a cup, spilling apple juice/water all over the place, but hey, at least he got some liquid in him. Well, we checked in o.k., had breakfast this morning (awesome Russian style...) and used a highchair for the first time (loved it!) and just finished our emabassy physical (passed with flying colors...delayed development of lower limbs...needs some good walking time with mom and dad). We have our appointment with the emabassy at 2:00 (in 3 hours) and then we are completely finished with everything! We are staying over until Saturday to get out and see Moscow a bit and to rest and continue bonding with our baby before the long journey home. I'll write more tomorrow about the wonderful city of Moscow - can't wait to share pictures! Love you all and God bless...

PS - there is no spell check on these computers unless you're using cyrillic, so sorry for all the errors!!!