Mar 31, 2010

Introducing...Samara Hope Megerle

Not feeling very good.....so fussy...Poor little Girl
Just precious.....I LOVE MY BIPPY!!!!! Just like my BIG brother did.....

Happy Girl....At least in this picture...:)



She usually likes her hats




Hello World.....My name is Samara Hope....


So pretty...

Gotcha Day...In the car!!!! Daddy was so happy and me too....

Wow, what a whirlwind this trip has been....we are so happy yet very exhausted. We have wanted to post so many times on the blog but do not have internet in our room..it's $40.00 a day and free in the lobby....so it's free for us...too rich for my blood.
She has been very fussy and not feeling well. She is sick and teething...not a good combination, and her world has been turned upside down. She is with two new people, car rides which she has never had, plane ride , living in a hotel room and all new food. Whew, I would be fussy too.
Gotcha Day was crazy....we left Sergei's at 10 am and then a three hour drive to the orphanage and the entire way we were nervous, excited,anxious and happy. Our stomachs had a million butterflies. When we got there we went over her schedule for eating and sleeping...which by the way has been all messed up...another reason to be fussy.
Anyway, they brought her too us in another crazy outfit and we were told to change her into her clothes that we brought. We were being rushed to do it quickly, so we could leave. It was so strange. I wanted to get a bunch of pic's but there was No time, however we pretty much video taped the entire event, so not a total loss. It kind of sucked to be rushed so much but at least we got to leave with her this time, which was so strange and yet so cool.
We got into the car and drove straight to the airport for our flight back to Moscow. What a crazy drive that was. Sergei was speeding and driving like crazy. We were so car sick by the time we got to the airport. On the flight Samara did ok.....she had some fussy moments but all in all was a good girl..she never napped by the way, the entire drive or flight, and needless to say was so cranky by the time we got to Moscow when Val our driver picked us up. She did finally fall asleep in my arms on the way to the hotel...but woke up once we got there. We tried to give her a bath which did not work. She was absolutely petrified and started shaking and crying..so we gave her a sponge bath instead..oh well, we will try again. She does not like the stroller either...scared of it as well, so what a waste it drag it over here. Oh well you never know until you try. I will say though that we have met alot of other adoptive parents and all their kids like the stroller. LOL Oh well, for those of you who know Ethan well at all, he was never like any other kids in things he should like or didn't like, so we have another one. LOL
I have so much to tell but poor Justin has been trying to console our little pumpkin butt since I started typing this and just keeps walking around because if he sits she crys...oh lord she is quite the little miss priss already... I guess calling her princess was a good call. We had her Medical checkup on Monday which went pretty good. Boris was her doctor and he said she is not very delayed on her motor skills, but does have Rickets (which is very common) and he did make mention that he thought she was probably a favorite in her orphanage because of how well she interacted with him and she wasn't afraid of such a hairy scary man. LOL
Yesterday was our appointment with the US Embassy and we recieved her Visa to come home on!!! YEAH!!
We also met Kevin and Amy from CA who have court to adopt their cupcake on Friday. We had dinner with them on Monday and they were so great. It was so nice to talk with other couples who know what you are going through. I cannot wait to see pic's of their cupcake....actually they did show us some from their first trip and she is such a cutie. I wish them so much happiness. Can't wait to read more of your blogs!!!
Thank You all for your prayers and thoughts. We have felt them and needed them. We are so homesick. Today and tomorrow are FREE days here, meaning we do not have any other appointments....we are waiting on the consulate to register her. We will get it back Thursday afternoon so we can leave on Friday.
We will try and post again ......Sorry I had high hopes of posting everyday but hasn't been so easy.
















Mar 29, 2010

Spending the night "True Russian Style"

I'm not going to share all the details about our night that we stayed with our Driver Sergey and his wife Luda's nice Russian home, who were so nice and very accomadating. They fixed us an absolutely wonderful dinner, Chicken, Fried Potatoes (these were excellent), Russian coleslaw (which I actually liked), vegetables from Luda's Garden that she had jarred from her Garden.. Tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles...YUMMY!!
It was all really good. Then after dinner Sergey took Justin for a "Real Russian Banya" (Shower) ( but I am sworn to secrecy from Justin) LOL, so he will have to tell you all about it if he will ever speak of it again. After Sergey showed Justin how to shower Russian style...Justin showed me...Oh LORDY...Poor Justin.
The next morning they made us a huge breakfast...Eggs over Easy, something like cottage cheese but not really, bread, butter, cheese, fruit, summer sausage, bologna....and of course coffee and tea. They were so nice and so very sweet. We will never forget this experience or their hospatality.....After breakfast we headed to go pick up our princess......to be continued.....

Mar 17, 2010

Trip #3 Details......Bringing our daughter home

We leave March 26th from CVG at 1:55pm and fly through JFk and then onto Russia.
We arrive in Russia on the 27th at 10:10am. We have a little bit of a layover and then our next flight is at 3:00pm to Samara.
We arrive in Samara at 5:50pm and we are staying the night with Sergei. Not sure how this is going to be, but we are up for the experience.
We will get up early Sunday the 28th and drive the 3 1/2 hrs to the baby home to pick up our daughter!!!! I can't even believe it! It feels so surreal.
We then will get back in the car (without a car seat which still disturbs me) to drive straight to the airport to catch our flight back to Moscow. We arrive in Moscow at 7:30pm on the 28th.
We will then head to the Courtyard Marriott in Moscow where we will stay for 5 nights. We will be there having Samara's Medicals done and our meeting with the embassy. The really cool thing is we will be in Moscow at the same time another adoptive family that we have exchanged e-mails and blogged with, Amy and Kevin who live in LA, so we will all get to meet. They have Court in Vlad the day we leave.
We will leave Russia for the last time on April 2nd, but this time with our daughter in our arms forever. April 2nd is Good Friday.....this will forever have a different meaning for me!
We leave Moscow at 12:05pm and arrive in JFK at 2:25pm where Samara will hit US soil for the first time and become an American citizen. It will be quite a cool thing! We then arrive home at CVG at 7:35pm on April 2nd. Remember there is a big time difference here...
Not too bad...I can say that now.....not sure how I will feel after our 18 hrs of travel with a new little one. :)

Mar 12, 2010

Welcome home......

Well, we're back home now for what will be I'm sure a very hectic and rushed couple of weeks before going back to bring the princess home. Our trip home was both exhausting and exciting, and of course very long! I'm not really sure who missed us the most though, Ethan or Quinn, but I'll go with Ethan.

One really cool thing that happened though, is once we made it through all of the security at the airport in Moscow Leah ran into 2 couples who were taking their adopted sons home. One family was from Dayton OH, and the other from Florida. One boy named Maxim was 4, and the other boy was 23 months old. Both families were very happy and were quick to share their stories with us, and this of course helped to reaasure us that the grueling court session earlier in the day was not only worth every minute of it, but not nearly as tough as at first it seemed.

Our flight from Moscow to New York was filled with children who were all in the back of the plane near us, and all of whom which played together very well the entire flight. Not only did this make us miss our little redheaded monster even more, but filled us with anticipation for our next trip. It was a great reminder of how lucky and blessed we've been over the last 8-9 months and how much fun we'll have when the princess gets home.

We were greeted at the airport by Leah's mom, Ethan, Dylan and Evan as our flight arrived early at CVG. Timing was great and we went right from the baggage claim to the van and on the road home. Upon getting home we made a little dinner and spent some time with Ethan before I finally gave in to the exhaustion (did I mention Leah slept for almost 4 hours on the way home from Moscow?) and passed out on the couch.

Ok, now for the one not so cool thing that happened...........we made the decision to let Ethan sleep with us last night as a treat (more for us than him) for being a good boy while we were gone. I'm not sure how many times he told us he missed us soooo much, and loved us sooo much before he went to sleep, and to show us just how much he missed us he woke us up at 3:30 to give us our wlecome home present...............................a belly full of a 3 year old's vomit!!

Disgusting.............the poor kid puked all over me, the down comforter (which was destroyed and went immediatley to the garbage can), the bed and himself!! A bath for Ethan, a shower for me and and a hasmat unit treatment for the bed lasted about an hour before we retreated to the living room and the couch and blow up bed to resume our sleep. So after that extremely long day of travel and fatigue, we were given our gift of love from Ethan!! Welcome Home :)

Mar 10, 2010

It's Official.......The Judge said YES!!!

After almost 2 1/2 hrs of grueling questions and alot of questions we were not prepared for, the Judge finally said Yes. Thank You GOD!!!
The day before when Svetlana was preparing us for court we went over the article about the little boy who was killed by his adoptive parents in Pennsylvania and other questions that would be asked of us, she also said court lasts about an 1 hour. We were nervous but felt prepared. Poor Justin has known all along that most questions are asked to the man and Svetlana even reiterated that to us this morning, and well that was true.
Justin did get most of the questions but neither him nor anyone else was prepared for some of the questions that were asked of us. Even Svetlana herself was shocked and we could see that everytime the judge would ask a question that Svetlana was not prepared for ...her eyes would get as big as saucers when she would start to translate it to us. I have to hand it to Justin. He did very well considering all of these questions, that even Svetlana and everyone else for that matter, were suprised about. I was freaking out a bit when the questions seemed to never end. Sometimes the answers we gave were not detailed enough and she would ask for more. This is funny because when prepping for court we were told to answer the questions but not too much detail. LOL....We felt so confused!

So here is the funny part...do you all remember the psychology evaluation we had to take when we were here on our first trip? Well, apparently Justin and I didn't pass it all that greatly. LOL.....The psychologist recomended that we seek phsychologicl counseling. I wish you all could have been in the court room when the Judge asked Justin "Why the phsycologist would reccomend this"...Poor Justin..He was like...UHH...UHHH...I don't know???? LOL....
My jaw was on the ground when this happened.....Anyway, the really funny thing about it is that Tatiana, the Minister of Education that we spoke with on the first trip, stood and said that she herself had not passed such a test and that people they would not expect to pass the test did. So she was basically saying that the test was a joke. Anyway, to make a long story short there were three people there on our behalf along with our translator. The Minister of Education Director, the social worker and the orphange doctor.

All three of them had nothing but wonderful things to say about us and how we bonded with Samara and what a great relationship we had, and they all did not understand why the phsycologist would have such a reccomendation.
Even the orphanage doctor made a statement that she believed that Samara felt our love for her from the first visit, because in the three months we were gone she had grown more quickly in a short amount of time than usual. Gaining 2lbs and growing 1 1/2" taller. I was so choked up over that and I am so glad that they saw how much we loved her even though we had just met.

The hardest part for me to listen to was hearing that in the entire time Samara was in the regional databank, only 11 Russian families had looked at her file/Medical records and nobody wanted our precious angel. It made us sad but we believe there is a reason for this and that reason was she was meant to be with us.

So now we wait out the 10 day waiting period from home and we will be flying back here on 26th of March to bring our beautiful princess home forever. We will get to Samara on the 27th and stay one night (Sergei has offered us to stay with him).....before driving to the baby home to pick her up. Wow, we thought this was so nice and such a sweet gesture, and how cool will it be to see how an actual Russian family lives. We will pick her up on 28th (Sunday) and drive straight to the airport to fly back to Moscow where we will stay all week finishing up all the legal processes. We will fly home on Friday April 2nd, two days before Easter and Samara will be an American citizen as soon as we land on US soil. We are just elated about this....We will be home for Easter....Another prayer answered. Thank You God!!!

We are in Moscow now and I am down in their business center typing this because the internet is not free, and well...we are being frugal...so I cannot upload any pic's and I know I said we would but I promise we will once we get home.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and wonderful words and thoughts....We are just in heaven right now.

One more thing...this means that if you have e-mailed me, I am not able to get your e-mails at this time. By the way Britt....we could not get onto see the video you made of our boy. What a bummer, but we can't wait to watch it. Thanks for doing this for us!!!

Mar 9, 2010

Sack of limp potatoes

This will be my second official post here in Leah's world, so with that said I'll keep it short! The time change has been tough on my wife and her sleeping habits have been........well, let's just say messed up and I feel really bad for her. Today after the medicals we had about the most amount of time on our hands that we've had on both trips, so we decided after lunch to take a walk through Samara while the sun was actually out!

Between sticking out like a sore thumb or two, mostly because of my choice of headgear, and the bitter cold our trip didn't last long. We stopped in a couple stores looking for something to bring home for Samara, but couldn't find anything other than a great big language barrier! Our walk was shorter than anticipated before retreating back to the frindly confines of the AZIMUT!

I've become intrigued by the language used over here, and so I've spent a better portion of my day studying the russian alphabet. While doing so, Leah, in all her exhaustion of time changes and mental fatigue, decided to take a 45 minute nap! She told me to wake her up after the 45 minutes so we could work on a few things for court, and when I went in to do so she told me that she felt like a "sack of limp potatoes" :) :)

Not sure what that meant, but apparently she was going to explain it to me right then. Leah was so groggy at that moment that you would have thought she had taken some serious sleeping pills and was having a dream, but that just goes to show you just how exhausted my poor wife was.

Needless to say that she ended up sleeping for a little over 3 hours and I watched a movie that I can bet nobody reading this blog has seen for a VERY long time.............the Goonies! Oh yeah, the explanation for the potatoes, well, all I can say is that the most I got out of that answer is that potatoes are hard before they are cooked! LOL

Having a little fun with my wife right now, but in all honesty I would just like to say what a wonderfully strong woman she is and what an amazing job she has done preparing for this adoption and being committed to it's success. I'm truly a lucky and blessed man for having this beautiful woman in my life and I can't think of anyone I would rather experience this journey with!!

What happened to short???????

Medicals...They said we are healthy!

Funny, funny day....things around here are quite funny at times.
Sergei was about 35 min late picking us up this morning and then I felt like we drove around in circles for about 45 minutes or more. LOL
Then we stopped and picked up Svetlana (our translator) and drove to a building where she took our chest xrays that we brought from home to be evaluated and we sat in the car with Sergei while she took them in.
It's funny because sometimes it makes you wonder if they really even looked at them. She also gave us an article to read while she was away.
It was about the little russian boy that was killed by his adoptive parents in Pennsylvania. This tragedy happened in August but they just arrested the parents in February. It's a huge uproar over here, Svetlana was preparing us for the questioning we will most likely get from the judge about it tomorrow during court. It's such a sad, sad thing. I only hope it doesn't cause problems for the families who are waiting for court dates, referrals etc.

So the next place we went was to a psychiatrist to be evaluated.... we were like uhhh we didn't know about this. Anyway it was a breeze....Only there for about 10-15 min.

Then it was off to the hospital for examinations. There were approximately 5-6 doctors in the room with us both...it was a little intimadating! Lots of questions and and undressing behind a curtain. Don't ask. LOL

Anyway after that then we had to stop at another place to get another stamp on our documents. Whew then we were deemed healthy! :) LOL

We have the rest of the day to ourselves but I am really tired asI did not sleep very good last night. Justin on the otherhand slept a long time and is now asleep again snoring on the couch next to me. I don't know how he does it. I wish I could sleep like that.

Say a prayer for us...court is tomorrow and Justin and I are nervous....Probably won't be ab;e to e-mail about court until we get to Moscow tomorrow night.

I'll try and post some pic's later today...I know I told you guys I would

Mar 8, 2010

Let it snow

Greetings from the frozen tundra that is Samara, Russia! This will be my first official blog post, however I will not call myself an official blogger so bare with me as Leah looks over my shoulder to make sure that I DO NOT jeapordize the integrity of her blog. For those of you who don't know me, or my humor, that was just a small joke, but on a serious note we made the trip to Syzran to see our princess today. When we woke up this morning (for the 5th or 6th time) we were greeted with snow, and the ride to the baby home was filled with snow covered roads and crazy driving. You would think the amount of white death covering the roadway would have slowed Sergei down, but that was not the case. I really didn't know that cars could go that fast that safely when you couldn't even see the pavement, but Sergei mastered it.

After breakfast we were greeted by Sergei at 8:30 am to begin our grueling 3 hour trek through the snow to Syzran. Actually, we were a little concerned about how much the ground was covered and how quickly it was coming down, and thinking that perhaps there might be a chance we would get cancelled. But a little snow doesn't stop the people of Samara!

Upon arriving at the baby home we had to wait for the princess to eat her lunch, and during that wait Leah was able to go upstairs and see her bed and even help feed her, while I was banished to wait in the Dr.'s office with two people I had absolutely no way to communicate with. I'll be honest, there were a couple times I thought they were laughing at me, but that could just be a little paranoia. When they brought our princess down she still had a mouthful of the mush they were feeding her in her little mouth, which I was able to see when she sneezed half of it on my clothes. We took her out in the hallway where we had the absolute pleasure of playing with her for the next hour and a half.

She was dressed in another pink outfit with a little white hanky tied around her head, and she had these cute little red shoes on her feet that were quite mismatched, but oh well. We began playing on the floor with a few of the toys that Leah brought with us, and she really liked the stacking cups and Leah's earring. She was able to stand by herself and was taking some steps while being assisted by us holding her hands. She enjoyed the walking as she giggled alot while doing so. I'm not sure if she remembered us or not but there were no tears or fear when they gave her to us, and she enjoyed playing with us which was apparent by her giggling and smiling.

An hour and a half of your life goes by on a normal day and you don't even miss it, but when you have such a small amount of time to build a bond with a beautiful little girl that will soon become your daughter and a permanent part of your family........that hour and a half is gone in an instant! The only solice we have is knowing that in a couple weeks we will get to make the journey again to bring her home once and for good! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

Off to dinner now, so we'll post tomorrow after our medicals.......and perhaps there will be a couple teaser pics for you!

Mar 7, 2010

I almost forgot....tomorrow is Woman's Day here

Tomorrow is Woman's Day in Russia...Similar to our Mother's Day but you don't have to be a mom here just a woman. LOL
I got a Rose from a very pretty girl at the airport who worked for Nestea and they were giving away red roses and a can of nestea to all the women. Then while waiting for our flight to Samara there was this little old precious Russian woman who took a liking to us and tried so hard to communicate with us but we had NO idea what she was saying...finally a young russian boy who spoke English translated a bit for us. We found out that her daughter had died today and she was flying to where she had lived. It was so sad, but the sweetest thing is she gave me a rose for Woman's Day and said she thought we were a good couple and told us to hold on tight to each other. So Sweet!!! So different from how we were treated by everyone before. :)
She also tried to give me her shaw that she had knitted so pretty but I told her No....she looked like she didn't have much and there was no way I was going to take the gift even though it was such a kind gesture. I didn't want to hurt her feelings but to be honest I could tell she had been tipping back on some large amounts of Vodka. God love her!!!

We made it....Back in the USSR!

We are here, sitting in our room at the Azimut in Samara Russia. I am so happy that I am able to connect to the internet this time. We never could the last time. It was such a bummer.
Our room is so dated it makes us laugh. The last time we were here we actually had a nice room. This time the key we got to unlock our door looks like a key that would open a door from the 1800's..LOL.... and well let's just say the room looks like it's still in the 60's. We are not complaining though. We are just so thankful we are back and get to see our princess tomorrow. Sergai(our driver) will pick us up at 8:30 in the morning and then we will drive 3 1/2 hrs to the baby home. Spend a few hours and drive back. We are so excited. It's been over three months and it feels like forever.
Our flight and travel was so much easier this time. In New York we had lunch with my sis n law Julie. We had a great time and ate at the Palm in the airport. It made our five hour layover fly by and we were so happy she came to see us. How sweet!!! WE love you guys!!! Thanks again for everything!!!
That's all for now. I'll post tomorrow when we get back from the seeing little Samara.

Mar 3, 2010

Our Itinerary

We leave this Saturday at 9:00 am from CVG, Arrive at JFK airport at 11:14am....then we have over a 5hr delay.
My brother Mike and Sis n law Julie live in Mass and Julie is driving out to see an old friend in New York this weekend and is going to take the subway to JFK to have lunch with us during our layover. It will be good to see her. The last time I saw her was when her and Mike were in for Thanksgiving and they are the ones who drove us to airport on our first trip to meet Samara.
We leave JFK at 4:30pm and begin the over 10hr flight to Moscow. We arrive in Moscow on Sunday @10:10am. Remember Moscow is 8hrs ahead of us and Samara is 9 hrs ahead.
We will meet Val (Driver in Moscow) and go over some documents we need to have prepared for court. We have another 5hr layover until we catch our last flight to Samara. We arrive in Samara at 5:50 pm on Sunday the 7th. We will drive about an 1 1/2hrs to the Azimut hotel to catch some shut eye. We will then get up bright and early Monday Morning and drive 3 1/2hrs to the baby home where our princess is, we will only get a few hours with her and then turn around and drive 3 1/2hrs back to Samara.
On Tuesday we have our Medical appointments and then have the rest of the day to try and see some sights and catch up on some sleep.
Wednesday March 10th is COURT....Oh my we are so nervous.....but I'm sure we will be fine. Once court is over we will hopefully get dates from the judge when we will get to come back and pick up our little princess. We will then head straight to the Samara airport and fly back to Moscow. We will spend the night and leave out Thursday at 12:00. We fly back through JFK and home at 7:50pm.
It's another packed trip, I am so excited about getting to see Samara again even though we only get a few short hours we will make the most of it. It won't be long now and we will be one big happy family.

Mar 2, 2010

3 More Days until we leave

We have been so busy lately, so much to do and prepare for. I was so busy I didn't even post on the 3 month mark since we last held Samara in our arms. It's a whirlwind right now.
We submitted for Visa's Saturday morning and got confirmation that the embassy excepted our applications. They are to mail them overnight to us on the 4th, and we will get them on the 5th? Boy I sure hope so...we leave on the 6th and without Visa's...No trip. It's been stressful but I am praying and I believe they will be here in time. Too close for comfort.
Anyway I am exhausted and getting ready to go to bed. I will post our travel itinerary tomorrow.
Thanks again for all your prayers. We are just so happy and cannot wait to see her again and become officially her parents!!!