We were able to spend one day in Seoul, South Korea on the way to Vladivostok. We flew Delta from Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta, and Korean Airlines from Atlanta to Seoul. The Atlanta to Seoul flight was 15 hours. The seats were as comfortable and roomy as any economy seats we have been in, better than Vlad Air or Aeroflot. The attendants were excellent and the service was superior. The entertainment center had about 20 on demand movies, several video games, some TV shows and a music venue. Each seat had its own entertainment center. Even though I got up often to stretch, by the end of 15 hours we were miserable. That is a long flight I hope to not repeat any time soon. Seoul airport was fairly easy to navigate thru immigration and customs and many people in Seoul speak English. Most signs are in Korean and English. We found our bus to the hotel. We were able to stay at the Hilton Millennium using David’s American Express points. We had dinner at the hotel and went to bed. We got up early to tour the city. We took a city tour bus. It circles the main sites in the city every two hours with busses running every 30 minutes. You get on and off the bus at any of the sites you want to visit, then get on the bus, visit another site to two and circle around to your point of entry. We were able to visit two sites, the Changdeokgung (Palace from the Chosun Dynasty) and the Seoul Tower in Namsan Park. We would have loved to visit more sites, but time did not allow, we were very happy with our day and two nights in Seoul.
We really miss our son David, we try to call him every day. We called him Tuesday morning before we went sightseeing in Seoul and it was just about bed time Monday evening. He was really missing us. That is the hardest thing we have had to bear in this whole adoption journey.
Wednesday morning we boarded a flight on Vlad Air from Seoul to Vladivostok. All I need to say about that flight is, we made it here safely. After flying Korean Airlines, it will be difficult for any other airline to impress us. We got to Vlad about an hour late. Irina and Lana were there to meet us. It was good to see them again. They really do work hard to get us all here as soon as possible. I know some things may get lost in translation somewhere between Vladivostok and Moscow, then from Moscow to St. Louis and finally from St. Louis to each of us at home. Be assured they are continuously working on our behalf.
Today we were able to visit with Danielle for the first time in 4 months, 3 weeks and 4 days. It also may have been a while since Danielle has been in the large gathering/music room where we first met her. The music room has been under renovation as well as almost every room at the baby house. There was another court family from another agency doing their pre-court visit with their little girl in the room. Danielle came into the room and was very frightened, too many people, a room she visits rarely and all dressed up in a stiff unfamiliar dress. She was in a very pretty taffeta dress, soft cream with tan/yellow circles. Her hair was French braided in a circle around the back of her head ending in a pony tail at one side of her head. She was very cute. She did not remember us and cried when she saw us. It took her a little longer than last time to allow me to hold her and she cried for a while. In hopes of sparking her memory we tried all the same activities we did on our first visit but she did not want to participate as quickly. She did like the treats from the Easter Eggs and she did eventually play with the lighted gears an eventually seemed to remember them. Danielle was very distracted, one of her classmates was in the room being visited and Danielle seemed to want to go play with her friend rather than be with us. She liked it when I tried on the shoes we had brought for her. All the shoes I had brought were too big. The other couple meeting with their daughter had brought a duffle bag of shoes to donate to the baby house. We were able to trade two pairs of shoes we brought with two pairs they had for donation. Thank you Jeff and Jennifer. We had two hours to visit with Danielle today. She did not want to go to papa. She cried each time I tried to hand her over to him. If we had had just another 30 minutes he may have won her over. She did let me sit her in papa’s lap to change her shoes just before it was time to go back to her room for lunch. We were also able to get her to hug papa by doing a big group hug. I am sure she will warm up to us on the next visit. We go to Court tomorrow and have been briefed by Irina and Lana about what to expect. Lana said “it is a just a formality, but a serious one. Get some rest and do not worry.” We will see tomorrow if we can have custody during our ten day wait. It is very unusual but it could happen. We just pray that the best thing for Danielle is what happens regarding custody during the wait.
Thank you all for your prayers.
Debbie and David, Danielle’s Mama and Papa
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Ready to Leave for Court
We are almost packed and ready to go. We leave tomorrow morning at 8:00, we go thru Atlanta to Seoul, we will stay two nights and one day in Seoul for our last mini honeymoon for a while. Then we will arrive in Vladivostok on Wednesday, visit our daughter on Thursday and go to court on Friday. That's the plan, lets hope and pray all goes well with plans and weather.
The week has been very busy. We were visited by Tropical Storm Fay for two days. We fared very well, but I know she has flooded many communities in her path and is continuing to flood new areas, my prayers go to those affected byFay. We live on the hurricane dart board so part of our preparations was to make our home hurricane ready. So a good portion of our go to court plan has been bringing in lawn furniture and putting up shutters.
Little David is taking his nap right now. When he wakes up we will finish his packing and take him over to where he will be staying for the next 25 nights. Although he is excited about getting a new little sister and getting to stay with his best friends, he has been melting down several times a day since he found out we were leaving and just told me he does not want me to leave him. It is very hard for an almost 4 year old to understand the complications of international adoption, but he has been a real trooper. He will be very well cared for by our friends Vicki and Greg and their three children (all from Kemerovo thru CHI) aged from 3 to 6. We met and discovered the bond of International Adoption and God has put our two families together and allowed us to become friends. God is in every detail of this adoption. I hate to leave our son, and I am very excited to be bringing Danielle home soon, it is bittersweet.
We plan to be in Moscow from September 11th through the 16th at the Marriott Tverskaya if any other CHI families will be in Moscow let us know.
I will try to post as often as possible and will post pictures around September 9th, GOTCHA DAY. Thank you all for your prayers. Please also pray for Cindy (Cindy's Adoption Journal), Mama Sarah (Miracle in Russia) and one other family that has waited longer than we have for their court date. We hope to see these families arrive in Vladivostok before we leave.
Thank you all for your prayers.
Debbie and David
The week has been very busy. We were visited by Tropical Storm Fay for two days. We fared very well, but I know she has flooded many communities in her path and is continuing to flood new areas, my prayers go to those affected byFay. We live on the hurricane dart board so part of our preparations was to make our home hurricane ready. So a good portion of our go to court plan has been bringing in lawn furniture and putting up shutters.
Little David is taking his nap right now. When he wakes up we will finish his packing and take him over to where he will be staying for the next 25 nights. Although he is excited about getting a new little sister and getting to stay with his best friends, he has been melting down several times a day since he found out we were leaving and just told me he does not want me to leave him. It is very hard for an almost 4 year old to understand the complications of international adoption, but he has been a real trooper. He will be very well cared for by our friends Vicki and Greg and their three children (all from Kemerovo thru CHI) aged from 3 to 6. We met and discovered the bond of International Adoption and God has put our two families together and allowed us to become friends. God is in every detail of this adoption. I hate to leave our son, and I am very excited to be bringing Danielle home soon, it is bittersweet.
We plan to be in Moscow from September 11th through the 16th at the Marriott Tverskaya if any other CHI families will be in Moscow let us know.
I will try to post as often as possible and will post pictures around September 9th, GOTCHA DAY. Thank you all for your prayers. Please also pray for Cindy (Cindy's Adoption Journal), Mama Sarah (Miracle in Russia) and one other family that has waited longer than we have for their court date. We hope to see these families arrive in Vladivostok before we leave.
Thank you all for your prayers.
Debbie and David
Monday, August 11, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Expecting the Unexpected ..... Form
Just checking in. Any news from Vladivostock? Any new families receive court dates? How long have they waited? We are still waiting for the second form from Irina pertaining to the health. It was two weeks ago today we received the court petition.
Documents in Tallahassee being apostilled this week should arrive at CHI first part of next week are:
David II and David III Medicals and Doctors Licenses
Vlad Article 127 HS Addendum
(2) Updated Home Studies
Social Workers License
(2) HS Recommendation Letters
The remaining documents to be complete for court are the Health Acknowledgement (waiting on form from Irina) my medical currently scheduled for 6/27, will move up if we receive Health form earlier, and our combined Psych Eval, scheduled for 6/18.
We sent a letter on June 11th to USCIS to request our one time free re-fingerprinting. The 171-H fingerprints will expire on Sept. 11th. Hoping to be back home before then, but we will go ahead and get the form updated.
Then we are set, till our medicals begin to expire September 5th.
Of course we are expecting the unexpected, inevitable, frustrating, last minute, stress inducing, must have, newest requirement, impossible to get, unnamed, document to be requested, by the powers that be, the week before court.
Thank you,
Debbie Metzger
Documents in Tallahassee being apostilled this week should arrive at CHI first part of next week are:
David II and David III Medicals and Doctors Licenses
Vlad Article 127 HS Addendum
(2) Updated Home Studies
Social Workers License
(2) HS Recommendation Letters
The remaining documents to be complete for court are the Health Acknowledgement (waiting on form from Irina) my medical currently scheduled for 6/27, will move up if we receive Health form earlier, and our combined Psych Eval, scheduled for 6/18.
We sent a letter on June 11th to USCIS to request our one time free re-fingerprinting. The 171-H fingerprints will expire on Sept. 11th. Hoping to be back home before then, but we will go ahead and get the form updated.
Then we are set, till our medicals begin to expire September 5th.
Of course we are expecting the unexpected, inevitable, frustrating, last minute, stress inducing, must have, newest requirement, impossible to get, unnamed, document to be requested, by the powers that be, the week before court.
Thank you,
Debbie Metzger
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Last Visit with Danielle
Today is the last visit with Danielle. David has full blown cold symptoms. We told Irina and asked if we can stop to purchase a face mask and cold medicine. Irina stoped about a block away from the baby house, ran into the pharmacy and brought back two medical paper masks and a Russian version of Theraflu. We are very grateful, this will allow us to visit Danielle and not be afraid of passing on the cold. We arrived in the morning and Danielle was very happy to see us. We again spread out the toys and snacks. She ran to us and gave us big bear hugs. The medical mask David was wearing did not scare her at all. We did notice that several of the care takers wore them from time to time, so whenever there is a cold this must be common practice.
We were able to play with her for about a half hour alone while Irina left to get Danielle's social worker(sw). The sw will appear in court to represent Danielle's best interst. We sat on the floor and continued to play with Danielle during our interview. We reviewed the family history, the medical history and were asked if we were ready to accept a child with the family history and medical issues as presented. We told her we were very happy to accept Danielle and would love her. God had whispered a thought to me and I shared it with the sw and will share it now. "Danielle has been our daughter since conception, it just took us a little while to find her." Only God knows the reason for the amount of time it has taken for us to be together.
During our visit, Danielle continued to play back and forth between David and me. David and my attention became split between the sw and Danielle. So Danielle occupied herself and was now so comfortable with us, she had begun to go to the duffle bag and pull out the toys and snacks she wanted. The sw commented about how pleased she was with Danielle's comfort and attachment to us. The sw said it is very rare to see a child of her age become this attached/comfortable in such a small amount of time. She also commented on how prepared we were to test her development and could see we would provide Danielle with the necessary love and teaching toys to help her fully develop and grow. With a big sigh and thank-you we said bye to the sw. Irina left again to drop the sw back at her office, we only had about a half an hour before we would have to say good-bye to our Danielle.
This had been a big week for all three of us. We had spent eight hours over four days with Danielle. She became very tired and decided to sit down in papa's lap, wiggle herself into a comfortable position, layed her head back on papa's chest and went to sleep. Wow!!!! This little girl could not have said I LOVE YOU any louder than in her quiet trust of papa. I slipped over to take a picture and then we woke her up. We did not want her schedule to become messed up, her nap was coming up in about a half an hour. We laughed and got really playful with her to help her wake up. Then it was time to say Good-Bye, she had to go eat lunch. My comfort is knowing that God has known her from the foundations of the earth and the fact that she is being well cared for. She seems happy at the baby house and for now it is her home. I know God's timing is perfect and I must trust in Him.
Thank you all for your prayers,
David II, Debbie, David III, and Danielle Metzger
We were able to play with her for about a half hour alone while Irina left to get Danielle's social worker(sw). The sw will appear in court to represent Danielle's best interst. We sat on the floor and continued to play with Danielle during our interview. We reviewed the family history, the medical history and were asked if we were ready to accept a child with the family history and medical issues as presented. We told her we were very happy to accept Danielle and would love her. God had whispered a thought to me and I shared it with the sw and will share it now. "Danielle has been our daughter since conception, it just took us a little while to find her." Only God knows the reason for the amount of time it has taken for us to be together.
During our visit, Danielle continued to play back and forth between David and me. David and my attention became split between the sw and Danielle. So Danielle occupied herself and was now so comfortable with us, she had begun to go to the duffle bag and pull out the toys and snacks she wanted. The sw commented about how pleased she was with Danielle's comfort and attachment to us. The sw said it is very rare to see a child of her age become this attached/comfortable in such a small amount of time. She also commented on how prepared we were to test her development and could see we would provide Danielle with the necessary love and teaching toys to help her fully develop and grow. With a big sigh and thank-you we said bye to the sw. Irina left again to drop the sw back at her office, we only had about a half an hour before we would have to say good-bye to our Danielle.
This had been a big week for all three of us. We had spent eight hours over four days with Danielle. She became very tired and decided to sit down in papa's lap, wiggle herself into a comfortable position, layed her head back on papa's chest and went to sleep. Wow!!!! This little girl could not have said I LOVE YOU any louder than in her quiet trust of papa. I slipped over to take a picture and then we woke her up. We did not want her schedule to become messed up, her nap was coming up in about a half an hour. We laughed and got really playful with her to help her wake up. Then it was time to say Good-Bye, she had to go eat lunch. My comfort is knowing that God has known her from the foundations of the earth and the fact that she is being well cared for. She seems happy at the baby house and for now it is her home. I know God's timing is perfect and I must trust in Him.
Thank you all for your prayers,
David II, Debbie, David III, and Danielle Metzger
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Her Name will be Danielle
Hello Family and son,
Today we went to see N*** again, she came out running to see us. We were able to play for about 2-1/2 hours before she had to go eat lunch. We were able to talk to her caretaker today. A nice lady who knows her well. We gave her caretaker extra toys for the children in N***'s group, she was surprised and very happy to have the toys. She only wanted to be sure that I would not want them all back when we come back for N***. I told her they were gifts. N*** has been getting one gift per day from us and now all the children in her group have a new toy. When I took N*** back to her group yesterday, I saw shelves full of stacking cups and stacking rings. I will not be leaving the rings and cups because it looks like every adoptive parent brings those two toys, I am glad I have some other toys to leave with the group. I told the caretaker the only things I would like back are N***'s blanket I will be leaving for her and two disposible camera's I left today. I told her I would appreciate if she could go through the pictures with N*** on a regular basis. She seemed to understand completely the importance of the blanket and cameras and agreed to go through N***'s picture book with her. The rest of the toys belong to the group, unless N*** chooses a favorite. We had so much fun with N*** today. She added a new twist to our hugging game. She began to walk around our backs and play a type of peek-a-boo/hide and seek hugging game. She loved when I drew around her feet, so I did it twice. I also did her hands.
After we left the baby home, we went into Vladivostok to have our acceptances notarized and apostilled, then off to the MOE to drop off the forms. Now that we have signed her acceptance, we will start calling her by DANIELLE, the new name we will be giving her. We hope to see Danielle for our last visit tomorrow. The social worker will be interviewing and observing us play with Danielle so she can make a favorable submission to court. My only concern is that David has just come down with full blown cold symptoms and I have a scratchy throat. I hope we will be able to see Danielle, we video taped todays play time, so we can show the Social Worker the tape if necessary. We want to see Danielle again.
David we love and miss you very much. Hugs and kisses to all the kids.
See you soon,
Debbie and David
Today we went to see N*** again, she came out running to see us. We were able to play for about 2-1/2 hours before she had to go eat lunch. We were able to talk to her caretaker today. A nice lady who knows her well. We gave her caretaker extra toys for the children in N***'s group, she was surprised and very happy to have the toys. She only wanted to be sure that I would not want them all back when we come back for N***. I told her they were gifts. N*** has been getting one gift per day from us and now all the children in her group have a new toy. When I took N*** back to her group yesterday, I saw shelves full of stacking cups and stacking rings. I will not be leaving the rings and cups because it looks like every adoptive parent brings those two toys, I am glad I have some other toys to leave with the group. I told the caretaker the only things I would like back are N***'s blanket I will be leaving for her and two disposible camera's I left today. I told her I would appreciate if she could go through the pictures with N*** on a regular basis. She seemed to understand completely the importance of the blanket and cameras and agreed to go through N***'s picture book with her. The rest of the toys belong to the group, unless N*** chooses a favorite. We had so much fun with N*** today. She added a new twist to our hugging game. She began to walk around our backs and play a type of peek-a-boo/hide and seek hugging game. She loved when I drew around her feet, so I did it twice. I also did her hands.
After we left the baby home, we went into Vladivostok to have our acceptances notarized and apostilled, then off to the MOE to drop off the forms. Now that we have signed her acceptance, we will start calling her by DANIELLE, the new name we will be giving her. We hope to see Danielle for our last visit tomorrow. The social worker will be interviewing and observing us play with Danielle so she can make a favorable submission to court. My only concern is that David has just come down with full blown cold symptoms and I have a scratchy throat. I hope we will be able to see Danielle, we video taped todays play time, so we can show the Social Worker the tape if necessary. We want to see Danielle again.
David we love and miss you very much. Hugs and kisses to all the kids.
See you soon,
Debbie and David
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
God Answers Before Question is Asked
Hello Family,
This one will be a short praise. I ended my last email stating that we would ask for HIV and Hepititus C Tests to be updated for N***. We would petition for her adoption when the tests came back negative. We met with the doctor to get N***'s full health report and updates. As a normal part of N***'s schedule of testing she had HIV, Hep B & C testing completed on 3/5/08 and was negative for all the tests. Praise God, he had orchestrated our answer before we asked the question. We met the doctor and then were able to meet with N*** for about 45 minutes. This little girl has stole our hearts, we want to take her home with us now. We will wait for the LORD and pray for a quick return to Russia for our court appointment.
Thanks for the prayer, God is moving
From Russia with Love,
Debbie and David
This one will be a short praise. I ended my last email stating that we would ask for HIV and Hepititus C Tests to be updated for N***. We would petition for her adoption when the tests came back negative. We met with the doctor to get N***'s full health report and updates. As a normal part of N***'s schedule of testing she had HIV, Hep B & C testing completed on 3/5/08 and was negative for all the tests. Praise God, he had orchestrated our answer before we asked the question. We met the doctor and then were able to meet with N*** for about 45 minutes. This little girl has stole our hearts, we want to take her home with us now. We will wait for the LORD and pray for a quick return to Russia for our court appointment.
Thanks for the prayer, God is moving
From Russia with Love,
Debbie and David
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