Well, today should be an exciting day – first day to meet our new son – had an early start so did not have a breakfast as we had to be up just after 4 am. Sonia was picking us up at 5 am in the lobby – amazing we are not that tired. No hotel seems to have a lift so we end up lugging the bags everywhere, up and down flights of stairs. Our hotel cost about $200 as we had to pay for one and a half days. Bit steep but suppose we got what we paid for!
We got through in the airport no problem! Sue put her baggage with ours and we did not have to pay any excess! Had to sit awhile in the airport waiting for our flight but that was fine – Sue and I started browsing my Baby Name book. Thought she might like it as it is Celtic and she is Welsh. When we got to ‘E’ I pointed out Evan and said it was our choice. How funny. That was the name she had picked also and funnier still that neither baby ended up being called Evan.
Our flight to Ust-Kamenogorsk was lovely with Air Astana. Beautiful sunshine! I thought this is going to be a good day…. Everything will be fine!
Was not so sure once we arrived in Ust Airport. Sky was overcast, weather was COLD as we walked down the stairs from the plane and we got lost and passed by the shed where our luggage would end up. Shortly after, our translator Alfiya turned up, a beautiful Kazakh woman, as all Kazakh women are. We feel very shortchanged that they got all the good-looking genes!! She picked us out, easy to spot as the trio that did not know what they were doing or where they should be going!
She explained that there were many families in Ust and not many babies. Boy, did we start to get worried! Suddenly all was not rosy in the garden!
Our driver helped us load our luggage in a large maroon beat-up van which would be our limo to the Baby Home for the next number of weeks. Ust seems to be much larger than Taraz – little did I know at that stage that I would compare everything between the two trips over the next few weeks. The Irytsh River runs through Ust-K and lent its name to the Irytsh Hotel where we will be staying.
Thank God, there was a lift as we were put on the 10th floor and again we had a suite, for which we were paying $108 a night – a lot more than we were expecting. It was nice tho, sitting room, bedroom and hallway and bathroom.
At this stage we felt the day was almost over but, no we still had time for breakfast – Declan checked it out, I followed him down and we met with our other traveling companions, Aine and Alex Henderson.
This is not the easy option by any means but … so worth it if one can get past the scary bits, like travelling blind, first meetings, medicals, etc
With great trepidation we travelled to the baby home to meet with the director and then our baby. The waiting was hard. We first met in the director’s office and met with Aksana, the lady from the Ministry of Education, who was very pleasant. The Director is a small blond lady, very capable and not as fearsome looking as the Taraz director but however she did not make small talk with us like Miss Trunchball did in Taraz so this added to our trepidation.
Also we had no information about our baby in comparison to feeling we knew Elena before we ever got to meet her in person. This is a huge factor for me as I like to be in control of things as opposed to waiting for anything to happen.
Having been shepherded to another room to wait, and then another, we were told to sit on a couch outside the director’s office and eventually Aine & Alex were ushered in, followed by their baby boy Andrus. Sue was next and she came out with her little boy, Damir. That left time for even more nerves and finally we were brought in to meet a little boy who was handed to me and was not too sure he wanted to be in my arms. What a tiny baby – The carer called him Sasha and I thought ‘Hey, Alex’ Therefore no Evan!!! He cried as he did not know what was going on!
He is fair, blue-eyed, blond hair and lots of it. The carer led us upstairs to the room where his group is and then into a little side room, which I later found out is the bonding room. We got to spend some time with him and of course we had been waiting so long that our time was short. Sasha stayed quiet but stopped crying and before long we were joined by an American couple from New Mexico called Nancy and Darren who are adopting a 15 month baby called Anatoly – now Tucker.
Alfiya came searching for us and said we would get the medicals tomorrow. It was time to go back and compare notes with the others. We had a lot to talk about and decided to eat in the hotel that night which was nice – more beer – guess they are not big on wine here. Before that Alex, in the suite across from us invited us over for a drink to celebrate.
What a full day!
If you can see the temperature on the above sign you will see that it says 19 degrees - lovely for the first of November!!
Declan below relaxing in the suite in the Hotel Berkhana in Almaty. Can you guess what he is doing? Watching TV? Very good guess!
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