SDA Appointment and BIG CHANGE OF PLANS!!!!!!

We were the first family of the morning and everything went fine. We got to see two younger pictures of Lily. I didn't recognize her in the first one, but in the second one I did. We found out that she has an older brother, born in 1994, who is "normal" and lives with the birth parents. Lily was left at the maternity hospital because the birth parents realized they could not take care of her special needs. I don't know yet if they visit her or not, hopefully we will find that out when we get to the orphanage. It would be such a blessing to meet her birth parents and to keep in touch with them!

On the medical side of things: Lily has Down Syndrome (duh), crossed eyes, an umbilical hernia (very common in children with DS), and a patent foramen ovale. We are not exactly sure what she had heart surgery for, as the PFO typically closes on its own. Maybe hers never did??? Who knows! We'll find out more when we meet with the orphanage doctor.

On to pictures!

After the SDA appointment:

If you touch this beetle on the statue it gives you good luck. We both touched it before our appointment :)

The SDA office is right next to St. Sophia's, a beautiful church that is being remodeled

We did a little souvenir shopping, too. We got this Matryoshka doll:

This is a traditional outfit in Lily's country:

We had lunch with the McFarlands at this little grocery store/deli that is right across the street from where we are staying. It was so yummy! We rested for the afternoon and then met up with a bunch of other adopting families at TGIF for dinner. Masha joined us as well! She has been such a blessing to us.

Then came the BIG CHANGE OF PLANS: Some how, some way, our referral was ready by the end of today (instead of 3-4pm tomorrow). We couldn't pick it up in time today, so we will pick it up tomorrow morning at 9am instead. What this means is....

TOMORROW WE ARE GOING TO "OTHER CITY"!

We will go straight to the orphanage, meet with the orphanage director, inspector, doctor, and then we will get to meet our little girl! TOMORROW!!

I will admit, I am a teensy bit disappointed that we won't get to go to Vorzel on Saturday or church on Sunday here in Capital City, so please pray that God works out the details for all that to happen AFTER we have Lily!! Please also pray that we have a good internet connection in Other City so that I can easily blog about our first meeting and upload pictures and videos!!!