Kaluga - Meeting Alexander

We got up early to meet our coordinator, Svetlana. Svetlana, besides serving as the Kaluga Coordinator for the Cradle, is a pediatrician. She's a lovely woman who speaks very good English. We checked out of the hotel and met our driver, Andrew. We dropped Svetlana off at her apartment as she had a patient that she needed to meet prior to her going to Kaluga.

The roads were better than many of the roads in Northern Illinois this time of year and we quickly saw the snowcovered fields southwest of Moscow. As we drew closer to Kaluga, Andrew started pulling into gas stations. The first gas station didn't seem to have whatever he needed but he managed a smoke break. The second gas station also didn't have what he wanted. At this point, Nathan and I weren't sure what the challenge was - no gas, too high of a price, just to mess with the silly Americans - but Andrew finally found the right station in the third one. (There is a gas station about every 200 yards in the country. It's quite odd.) As we headed back into civilization, we were hailed by the police. If they show a red plaquard as you drive by, you must stop. Seems a lot less hassle for the police than having to chase people down in a car. Andrew immediately handed over all the necessary documents but after handing over a couple more sheets of paper, the officer still wasn't satisfied. Ultimately, Andrew handed him his car's owner's manual and all was right with the world. We're still not exactly sure what having the owner's manual proved except that Andrew was very organized but it worked.

We stayed at the Hotel Prioskaya in Kaluga. Our room was very nice. It had a bedroom, bathroom and living room. We had a couple of hours to wait for our translator, Gennady, to pick us up to go to the Ministry of Education to receive our referral. Fortunately, one of the tidbits that I found while lurking was to bring snack food. As Americans, we simply aren't used to eating 'lunch' at 3 p.m. We scrounged up some Ramen noodles for a snack. It's amazing how good Ramen noodles actually are as we haven't had them since college.

Gennady and Andrew arrived and let us know that the MOE had some additional meetings that had been scheduled and that we would go directly to the orphanage to meet Alexander. I know you'll find it odd that Nathan and I were nervous about meeting Alexander. We weren't nervous about traveling to a new country, or eating new kinds of food or meeting any other people but meeting a 14 month old - we were scared. Would we find the right combination of toys and animal crackers to win him over? Would he freak out when he met us? Would we go down as the worst perspective adoptive parents ever?

We drove to the Kaluga Baby Home. There was a large metal fence that surrounded the complex. We met with Nedejda (which translates to Hope in Russian) who is the head doctor and runs the orphanage. She was a nice lady and wanted us to interact with Sasha prior to reviewing his indepth medical information. We set up the video camera on a tripod and began snapping photos. We took a couple of photos for Dr. Davies to better help him diagnose whether Alexander has the face of FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome).

Sasha was escorted into the physical therapy room (boy, will he be disappointed when he sees our house after being in this room!) by one of his favorite caregivers, Julia. I immediately got the 'bug' out to start trying to win him over. He was a bit timid around us. He had never had any interaction with men before this. Julia was a doll and hung out while Sasha warmed to us. He seemed to enjoy the bug and we eventually made our way to the music room. Wow ... another amazing room with a huge puppet theatre.

We had to say good bye to Sasha and went into the chief doctor's office to discuss his medical information. We received additional information and video taped our conversation to review with Svetlana later.

Gennady and Andrew escorted us back to our hotel and we waited for Svetlana to arrive. With Svetlana, we found the internet cafe which is located across from a really wonderful 24 hour store and sent photos and a written medical update to our two doctors. We also managed to send a few photos back to the grandparents. We walked back to the Wall and had local Russian cuisine including a champagne from Moldavia (again, we just didn't realize that Moldovia had champagne ... see how much we learned on this trip!). Nathan had Folk which is served in an earthenware pot and tastes a bit like beef stroganoff. I had a dumpling dish with cream and dill. Everything was very tasty and Kaluga is FAR more affordable than Moscow.

We were a bit overwhelmed by all the additional medical information but prayed that God would guide us to the right path. We called Dr. Davies' after hours phone and set up a follow up appointment for the next morning with his partner, Dr. Bledsoe.