October 3, 2002

Evan woke us up this morning around 6:30am (which was, of course, 7:30am in Ukraine). Lee was feeling very sick and very tired, so Kristin played with Evan for a while to give Lee some time to take some cold medicine and get it together. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant (they had a fantastic buffet), and Evan got a helium balloon from the waitress! He found it very fun to play with.

We got ourselves ready to go, and left for the U.S. embassy just before 9am. (Our appointment was at 9:30, and we'd been told to be there about 15 minutes early.) The bellcap hailed a taxi for us, and the trip to the embassy was fairly short.

When we arrived at the embassy, we bypassed the line outside and went right through security. (Lee had wisely left the computer in the hotel room this time. It had really complicated things in Kiev, and we'd ended up leaving it outside with Inna in the end.) We went to window #10, where a very helpful lady helped us to gather and straighten out all of our paperwork. It all went very smoothly, thanks to the preparation from Finally Family, our helpers in Ukraine, and the U.S. embassy in Kiev.

We waited in the waiting area (and Evan played in the nearby play area). Naturally, we were called up to the window for our interview just as Kristin and Evan had left for the bathroom for a diaper change. Lee did much of the interview by himself, with Kristin and Evan joining for the swearing-in protocol and the signing of the documents. We got our instructions for picking up Evan's immigration visa, and then we were done! We asked the security staff to call a taxi for us, and we rode back to the hotel.

At the hotel, Evan had a small snack and started his nap. Around 11:15, Lee returned to the embassy (alone, this time) and picked up Evan's immigration visa. Piece of cake!

Evan slept until after Lee returned to the hotel. When he woke up, we went back to the restaurant and had some lunch. Evan was fussy and wouldn't eat much besides banana, but he did get another balloon and we managed to survive the experience. Back up in our room, Evan and Kristin played for a while and Lee took a nap. Then it was Lee's turn to help put Evan down for his second nap. We'd considered trying to sightsee in old Warsaw for a while in the afternoon (Kristin was very much in favor of this), but we ended up playing it easy and staying at the hotel.

When Evan woke up again, we played some more, fed him a snack, and ordered room service for dinner. It was really good, and Evan finally decided that eating might be a good idea. He enjoyed the spinach spetzel that we ordered for him (but not the vegetable soup), and he also enjoyed the mashed potatoes that came with Lee's teriaki salmon. We still hadn't figured out how to get this kid to eat meat or much of anything with protein, and we were starting to worry about it. He needed his protein to overcome the anemia from the orphanage! (They certainly didn't have much meat there.)

By the end of dinner, Evan was throwing a fit. We weren't sure if it was something he ate, pain from his teething, or general disorientation from all the new stuff around him, but we suspected that it was most likely a combination of all of these. It took more than an hour of holding, soothing, back patting and rubbing, and wrestling with blankets in the crib to get him to finally stop screaming and go to sleep. Kristin and Lee eventually ate dessert in the bathroom, as it was the only room where we could safely turn a light on. Ah, the joys of parenthood!

Later, Lee worked on the computer catching up on email and the website, and Kristin set up a couple of chairs and most of the bedding outside the bathroom door so that she could comfortably stretch out and read her book.

Tomorrow is be the big flight home. Tomorrow night, we'll sleep in our own beds! As we ate dessert in the bathroom, we talked over the whole trip and how we felt about it now that it was almost over. We have no regrets, and overall everything went remarkably smoothly. We're not sure we'd do it again this way, but we're very satisfied with how things have turned out, and we're very much looking forward to getting home and starting our new life together with Evan. We can't wait to see Grandma and Grandpa Schultz at the airport, and we can't wait to settle in to a calmer, more comfortable environment.

It's easy to understand how Evan would be upset this evening: he's slept in four different cribs in four different places over the past six days, not to mention the disruption of his original group at the orphanage four weeks ago. He's been on two airplane flights and numerous car rides, and he's now with a couple of adults who love him very much but who also speak a language he doesn't understand yet and who aren't all that experienced with taking care of a baby like him. He's never slept without other children around him before, and he's probably not sure when it's all going to settle down. He's eating strange foods and his gums hurt from teething; on top of all that, he's got a cold. What's amazing to us is that he's so happy and delighted so much of the time despite all of this. This evening, as Lee held Evan's hand while Evan went to sleep, it became very clear that despite all his discomfort, Evan is obviously falling as much in love with us as we are with him. We truly feel blessed to have such an adorable, good-natured, clever, and beautiful little boy!