Hope this helps a little- I would be glad to stay in touch with you on our progress going forward. P

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We are adopting a little girl from the Vladivostok region. We are just waiting for our hearing to line up our second trip of 3. I would be glad to answer any questions you might have. We are so excited to get our little girl home before Christmas!
We did not use a dr in the region. I have very mixed feeling about this still. For a couple of reasons. We did meet with the dr. that was at the baby house. She was not good. She gave little info and said some really strange things. An example: Our little girl is 3 years old. Weighs 20lbs and is 30inchs tall. Literally our two bio boys were just as tall and weighed almost 30lbs when they were one. She is three. I asked repeatedly and in different ways. Do you think FAS was a factor in her size, why is she so small? They knew of the birthmother and never gave me clear answers. Was the mother just small? ..(so we did have concerns about her extremely small stature.) The doctor said and one point why does it matter, you will just take her back to the US and those Dr's will tell you what is wrong with her I was got... omni cancun hotel Also the last day our little girl was running a fever. I could feel it and see her flushed face and toned down demeanor. I made our coordinator call and make sure she was doing ok. The doctor said she was just stressed that is why she was running a fever. Well every good mother in the US knows that stress doesn't cause fevers, bacteria or viruses cause fevers. I know it was probably because we were infecting her with new germs that she was not used to, but this tells me the dr either really doesn't care or is a really bad dr. So back to the point of hiring one...would paying $1500 for another inter-country doctor be worth it? Maybe if they have better credentials than the in house one. I found that by using my local pediatrician and the US adoption dr here was just a good for us. But again I don't have any experience with a local adoption dr in that region.
You know I was very apprehensive on the first trip. My husband travels regularly for his work to the Moscow area and regions, but he had never been to the Vlad region. We were pretty isolated because we stayed at the Vlad Motor Inn. This is a western style hotel(and apparently where they like to put US families we talked omni cancun hotel to 2 others there to adopt) and the food and accomidations there is really pretty good. The only down fall is this is not around the city area so unless you had your coordinator with you, you really didn't venture out much. I felt safe, but they did say don't go out at night. We were next to a beach area on the ocean that you could walk to during the day if you had time. They baby house was in a town an hour and a half north. So our schedule was our coordinator picked us up at 9am. We were at the baby house by 10:30 and then we had to leave when they started omni cancun hotel to eat lunch at noon. We drove back to Vlad and did paperwork. Then we were dropped off again by 5 or before. This happened every day. There was a lot of down time and they limited omni cancun hotel us to only an hour and a half with our daughter. Very frustrating. But this was the schedule. So you are there for like 8 days (including flying) and you literally get to spend 7 hours or so with your child...totally frustrating. But the times we weren't with her we skyped omni cancun hotel and emailed our drs. back here our concerns or the things they wanted us to test for. Meaning...give her a small toy..see how she handles it, is she inquisitive about your jewelry...and other cognitive tests. Also, throw a ball and see how she runs after it and how she throws it large motor skills. We did our own measurements and I took off her clothes to see her body proportions myself. I was not relying on the baby house dr for anything. I had no confidence in her. And I decided if this was going to be my daughter I had a right to ask or do whatever I needed to with her.
But I will tell you we came to a point on the night before we had to log our decision on whether she was the one we wanted to adopt. (would have been Thursday night) It was very emotional. There were so many questions that we felt weren't answered or we were concerned about. So we either had to say no that she wasn't the one, or take the leap of faith and say yes. My husband and I were at two different places omni cancun hotel in the emotional processing of all the info and we literally had an intense verbal discussion. We decided to separate omni cancun hotel for an hour and then come back together and talk about it again. This was so hard. I was already... this is my child no matter what and he was still ... I don't have the answers I want. Being in the science world he is very smart on all the dr technology and issues these kids could have. I on the other hand tend to live more on faith than knowledge. So when we got back together he was finally ready to take that leap of faith with me and move forward. That is not to say we won't have issues with her, but are relying on God to get us through those. So I will tell you this will be one of the hardest things if you don't have the answers you need. Again I was thankful to have access to our US doctors, but not saying one in the region wouldn't be just a good. (sorry I can't help you more with this)
You will find the women very beautiful there. They all wore fancy clothes and high heels. They could totally pick my husband and I out--Americans in our shorts and flip flops. The general public was very friendly and older kids around the beach were we went sometimes always wanted to practice their English on us. It was cute. I am not sure where you live but we live in Iowa. So it didn't really matter if we flew out on the east coast or west. We flew to Dallas then to Korea then up to Vlad. This saved us hours on the plain, but was more expensive. I am not sure what we will do this next time, or the last. If you would fly from Moscow to Vlad it is a 9 hour flight in itself. That is how large this country is. From Dallas to Seoul Korea was 14. Korea to Vlad was 2 �.
Hope this helps a little- I would be glad to stay in touch with you on our progress going forward. Please don t hesitate to ask anything else. We have been fortunate to have found a family omni cancun hotel north of us in MN that had adopted from Vlad and so they have helped us along the way. Glad to pass it on! Godspeed on your referral! It is so emotional to get that first picture..AAHHHHH! I bawled for 2 days and had to leave work early the day I was sent her picture on the email!
First trip was mostly visiting the kids (yes, multiple) and getting to know them. Second trip was for the court appearance, but also lots of time with kids. A courier had to travel omni cancun hotel to Moscow on our behalf with paperwork (3 days wait).
We hired a doctor in US to review omni cancun hotel medical paperwork, but there was not much he could tell us. We did not hire a doctor in country. At some point (just as for all parents) you have to take a leap of faith. Took the kids to our home doctor and everything turned out well.
When we first learned we would be going to Vladivostok, I was a little disappointed that we would not see Moscow, but it turned out to be a great experience. The city was nice - everyone omni cancun hotel was friendly - our guide took us to some outstanding restaurants omni cancun hotel - The hotel (and its restaurant) were also great. Plus we spent some time in Seoul as part of one of the trips.
addi...what an informative post. i can totally relate to the torn emotions omni cancun hotel of that big decision because the information you get isn't always complete full of questions they either can't or won't answer. omni cancun hotel we went back forth little too over some possible issues w/our little girl. my heart said yes, my head whispered i don't know . i say whispered because omni cancun hotel it wasn't a BIG red flag, but just one of those nagging what if thoughts. anyhow, i thought my husband would be the one to be more logical since he always is, but after we got home from that 1st trip during one of my 'are we doing the right thing' moments, he just looked at me said well its not like were going to leave her there ...and that was that! he surprises me in ways i could never imagine for that i love him! we leave sunday to get our little girl i am so happy. i still pray that little whisper in my head is wrong (and 2 Dr.'s here think she'll be fine), but if not, we will deal with it! She IS our little omni cancun hotel girl always will be!
soXcytd ...I would love to hear your experice on your second trip- the court hearing. What was your time frame between trip #1 and #2. We are at 8 weeks out and still no court hearing. I think there is a delay, omni cancun hotel but I am not getting much from my agency.... I AM SO HAPPY AND JEALOUS THAT YOU ARE LEAVING omni cancun hotel SUNDAY TO GET YOUR GIRL! I can totally imagine your excitement to finally get to the end and start of the rest of your lives! So awesome. Thanks for giving me hope that it will be here soon!!!!!! So very very happy for you!!!!