One Year Ago Today - July 6 - GOTCHA!

One year ago, I posted this from Vanya's apartment: (I added some notes in yellow.)

"Today went great so far!!! Right now, we're hanging out at Vanya's apartment (since he conveniently lives in the same city as the passport office and the train station) while we wait to leave on the overnight train to Kyiv in a few hours. So, yes, that "we" is Vanya, me AND Jonathan!!!!! Our day went great with obtaining the court decree (This took a bit longer b/c we needed about 10 copies, and they only made seven. Thankfully, Vanya usually requests the court decree to only have 2 sides, thus one piece of paper, so they don't have to sew the 2 sheets together. If you've never been to Ukraine, you are laughing. But it's true - any official document containing more than one sheet of paper is sewn together with a string. No, I'm not joking!), his new birth certificate, closing out J's bank account and getting the one-day red passport! Praise God!!!! The Lord worked out all of the details with everything. He is SO good to us. Oh ya, the "Gotcha" part of the day went great too. We got photos of his crib and his play area, as well as group photos with the nannies and one with the director. The Lord also gave us favor with the director to let us see and take photos of one of the very special little ones here, so I'll be passing those on to his mama as soon as I get home. 

Jonathan is doing well. He wasn't too crazy about his bottle at first, but managed to drink down 6 oz of it. Right now he's laying on the couch next to me, cooing and smiling at me. He's a little love. :-) I'm going to try and give him some cereal here in a bit before we get on the train, so I'd best sign off and get back to being a mommy. I'll post photos when I get home too. (While I typed this, Vanya had run to the grocery store to buy some baby food for him. Love it! Vanya went way above and beyond. I couldn't carry any over as I didn't check any luggage, and I had no opportunity to stop at the store. Vanya did a great job with his selections, as I think this may have been the first time he bought baby food. :-))

Thank you to everyone for praying about this day. God is faithful and has blessed me tremendously today. Please continue to pray for a smooth train ride tonight, smooth processing at the embassy Thurs and Friday, and of course, a quiet, uneventful trip home with no cancelled flights! Love to you all!!!"

Ok, here's the photos! (This post is a bit picture heavy as I nearly lost all of these photos shortly after we arrived home due to an "operator error". But we recovered them and I'm SO thankful!)

A shopping mall near the apt

Outside of the HUGE market

Front of the city Social Worker's office

J's "locker" just outside the main grouppa room.
I'll give a special gold star to the first one to  leave a comment  with the English pronunciation of Jonathan's last name. :-) I'll give you a hint - his first name was Kiril, thus the initial K at the end. Oh, and it's Russian, not Ukrainian...

The nannies working this day. The lady on the right was the "head" nanny as we usually saw her doing paperwork and bossing around the young one in the red. :-)

Every single time we came to visit Jonathan, we was laying in this play pen - flat on his back - if he wasn't eating. :-(   There is no padding, it is just hard wood. :-( :-(  No toys to play with, just the ones hanging in the air to look at.

The wall of toys...

It was actually nap time when we came, so you can see the babes in  the cribs. J's was in the back left corner. 

Jonathan's crib!

As I mentioned above, the director gave us permission to visit this precious little one...his story is not mine to tell, but his mama tells it so very well here - http://savenathaniel.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-year-ago-today.html . My heart breaks completely in two for him...I debated about posting these or not. But I feel it's important for us to be reminded of what the lack of medical care for orphans really means...his condition is VERY treatable..

Ok, it was time to pull it together and sign off with the director (right). I have no idea who the lady on the left is, this was the first time I saw her.

Leaving Antoshka!

Oh...my poor baby's eyes...you know, once he got home and they cleared up, he's never had a single problem with them since!

This is how we traveled via taxi to Donetsk. Yes, no carseats...just LOTS of prayer! This is still his favorite cuddling position.
Some of you Ukrainian veterans may have noticed how big this car looks, and it was. Funny story...when Max came to visit us, this same taxi brought us to Celetano's. The driver was astute enough to give Max his number in case we needed a taxi again. :-) He pointed out he had AC. Sold! We saved his number and Vanya called him for our trip back to Donetsk. I can't remember exactly what we paid, but we figured it barely covered his gas, esp since he had to drive back 1 1/2 hours to Kramatorsk. Nice guy!

 Cuteness!

On the train!!!
When I look at this photo, I'm shocked at how skinny his legs look. His legs are NOT skinny anymore!

FREEDOM!

He conked out like this shortly after we got on the train about 8pm I believe. By the way, he still sleeps exactly like this - always the first 2 fingers on his right hand - in his mouth. I figured he would wake up in a couple hours for a bottle. Nope! He slept like this until 2 or 3AM. I tried to sleep with my legs around him so he wouldn't roll off. Have I ever mentioned I hate sleeping on the train??? But a sacrifice WELL worth it!

Tomorrow - our first day in Kyiv!