Thursday June 30: Gotcha Day

We started the day early by packing, then headed over to the lawyer's office to pick up Lily's birth certificate and passport. We were very lucky that we were able to get the old, "red" passport that is made in region, so that is why we got ours so quickly. Then we hurried over to the orphanage and signed a bunch of stuff, I don't even remember what.

Lily had a bank account that needed to be closed, so then we headed to the bank and signed a bunch of more stuff. Then they handed us 25,000 hrivnas (about $3000) in a plastic bag! An orphanage worker then went with us to the open market to buy stuff for the orphanage. We payed for some food, school supplies, paint, plaster, trim, computer desks and fans. We still had about half the money left, so we went back to the orphanage and did some more paperwork to make the official donation.

Then they brought Lily to us dressed in her Gotcha Day outfit and we took a few pictures:

One of the orphanage doctors came in and started telling us all the medications she is on, when to give them, how to give them, etc. It was at this point that I started freaking out a bit. She is on four medicines for her heart condition. They gave us one week's supply. Each dose is a powder wrapped in brown paper. It feels like we are giving our daughter cocaine! Then we signed some more stuff and hurried out the door.

We went straight to the car and made the four hour drive to Kyiv. Lily did great in the car, but she did get hungry and all we had to give her was cherry juice. We discovered later that night that we gave her waaaay too much, but it was all we had.

We got to Kyiv and hit traffic. We switched cars/drivers and sat in more traffic until we got to the Embassy a little after 5pm. Our driver dropped off some paperwork for us at the Embassy and then took us to our apartment.

Rob went to the store to get some food for Lily: we thought she would eat some baby food and formula. We were wrong! Thank goodness our friend Zlata called and we told her that we couldn't get Lily to eat anything, but we knew she was starving. Rob went back to the store with Zlata on the phone and got milk and "Mana Kasha". Rob fixed her bottle and, thank goodness, she ate it.

I can't say enough how amazing Rob was that day. I was a puddle. Lily was screaming and crying, all I could do was keep her from crawling off the bed (and cried myself). Finally she fell asleep and we did, too.

I know this post isn't very well written, and there are SO many details I'm glazing over, but I just wanted to get the gist out there. Lily is waking up from her nap right now and I need to take one myself, so that's all for today.