My newest US citizen(and Bulgarian Beauty)

:) :) We just returned from Bulgaria with our little boy. I went this trip with a friend and we had a great trip and visit in Bulgaria. I never thought I would say this but Bulgaria is truly a beautiful country and we made some very good friends in the town near the orphanage and I believe with the people that run the agency that we used in Sofia. We had a great experience at the orphanage and were allowed much more open access then I was told to expect. Whether this had to do with the fact that I am a doctor or that I brought a tremendous amount(as much as I could carry) of donations for the kids I will never know. I seem to have a great working relationship with the director and we are planning on working on a mission in the near future to help all the children in Bulgaria who have the same special need of my child. She is a more open director and you can tell that she cares deeply for these kids and they to her. The orphanage was clean and they did as much as they could with the little they had. Please remember that with the lack of referrals the orphanages are affected by over crowding(no one getting out but more coming in) and no income from the adopted child as well as no donations from visiting families. This standstill is affecting everyone involved but the powers that be are not physically seeing the children or waiting families and therefore are not seeing any urgency in the matter. In my son's orphanage there were 150 children and 30 children in his building. I was told by the director that there were more than 75 children from this orphanage alone already registered and that all children (not only healthy or healthy looking special needs) were being registered. His was a special needs orphanage but when questioned of the 15 children in his play group(children that came out to playroom and all were beautiful) only 3 were special needs. One had a repaired menigocoele(but was developmentally healthy and the happiest 2 year old you have ever seen) and the other one was OI (with a family waiting and the final was a 5 year old F with normal intelligence and a left sided weakness(that would be fine in US and PT/OT) but has no ID number(born in greece and abandoned in Bulgaria. So our look for a SN girl in this group was fruitless. The other 12 are healthy and registered. We went on Weds and arrived on Thursday and drove directly to the orphanage to play with Avery Boiko for a few hours before his going away party on Friday. On friday we arrived to a big party. The kids were in their sunday finest and balloons were everywhere. The staff told us the kids had been partying since 7am. We had cakes and cookies, bananas and oranges and I had brought chocalates for kids and staff. We had brought big beach balls and blew those up and the kids had a ball and so did the nurses if their faces were any hint. My son had his last lunch and nap while we finish the paperwork to remove him on the exact date (2 years) that he was placed in this facility. When we left the orphanage we did so with the women who had been his surrogate mom since August 2004. The transition went smoothly as she came back to the hotel and had dinner with us. He never cried and went right to sleep for me. He awoke in the morning and was fine. When he saw Elena though he was very excited and smiling. Throughout Friday, Saturday and Sunday we intermittently would be together and apart and he got used to this and to me and so when we seperated from Elena on Sunday afternoon there was no scene except from the adults involved(Elena, Angelina(my friend) and me were like blubbering idiots). She truly loves him and he her and I plan on keeping her in his life and updating her as much as possible. On Sunday I wanted the weekend staff to have a party so we returned one final time to the orphanage and the kids got another great day. They had such a nice time and the staff was so pleased that I had thought of them as well. The director came in specially that day to see my son off and to have a long discussion with me on other matters that we plan to work together on. It was nice taking the extra time to transition the child then to take him on Monday morning abruptly from everything he knows. I think this would have really traumatized this particular child and set him back developmentally and I am glad I took the time and had a director that was willing to work with me in this. On Sunday we went to Sofia and monday was the visa foto, physical exam and filing the application at the embassy day. Tuesday we went for visa interview and had our visa by 430pm that day but could not leave until thursday as we had scheduled our flight for that date because I had been told I would not receive the visa until weds. We stayed in a great 2 bedroom apartment in the 5 corner's area(central) for 78 a night and you were close to everything. We got used to the little markets(no wal marts here) and our internet cafe(were they knew us well) and the little vendor who used our front door to the building as a store during the day(lots of entrepaneurs there). After the Visa interview on Tuesday we hired a car and travelled to his birth town and got lots of pictures and had lunch and bought him a bib and book so that he would have something from there. A cute Embassy story: On Monday the plan was for the agency director to pick me up at 2 and take me to the US embassy to file the application but at 2:15 the taxi arrives with our typical driver(who was sweet but couldn't speak a word of english) and drove me to the embassy. He parks in front of embassy and I ask him where is Violeta? no response so I mime to him to call her and he does and she tells me that she is on her way in a seperate taxi. As this is happening the men in front of the embassy(you know the ones with the machine guns) are heading towards me so I quickly get out and cross the street to wait. Well while waiting I get this brilliant idea.............I pull out my camera and decide to take a picture of the embassy sign for his memory book.............yes I know now I agree that this sounds like a dumb idea but at the time it seemed like a great one. Very quickly a man with a machine gun is in my face yelling in Bulgarian.......I say I am american and cannot understand you. He goes and gets the dude who speaks english and they both come back. The 2nd dude says"Why you take picture?" and I say I am adopting a 2 year old and I wanted to show him what his embassy looked like. The 2nd dude says"Why you take picture?" I start to repeat myself when I nice bulgarian lady(visiting from Chicago) says would you like me to help..............to which I say sure and she proceeds in Bulgarian into the strange preoccupation of americans and their need to make scrapbooks and keep things open and documented to which The 2nd dude says"Why you take picture? in Bulgarian..........at this point I say I will delete the picture and I do but then he says you need to give 1st dude your passport. He had a machine gun so I did but when he walked away it wasn't towards the embassy it was down the street. I figure now that my attorney is going to kill me and I am wondering how I will get into the embassy. Violeta shows up and says "are you ready to go in?" and I say"I can't , I don't have my passport" She says"you forgot your passport? and I say "No, that dude made me give it to another dude" and she says "Why?" and I say "because I took a picture of that sign" Well she called her contact in the embassy(Mr G) and I am sure in Bulgarian she was saying"the crazy american has lost her passport because she took a picture of the sign for her baby book! Shortly after this Dude #1 reappeared and I guess Interpol said I was not a terrorist and I got it back. Security in the Embassy is unbelievable and almost comical as well. As we were getting ready to enter(and I was so happy to have my blue passport back that I was flashing it) Violeta asked me if I had brought any perfume? What? Did you bring any perfume or do you have perfume on you? I started to get upset at this(maybe still a bit tiffed from the camera incident) but why did I have to bribe my own embassy when I had not had to bribe one person in Bulgaria to date!...........she must have realized my question because she said no that security says that perfume is comsidered a weapon and you could not enter with it(maybe in 007 movies from the 60's). We entered the first security check and it took 10 passes through the metal detector to get her purse to pass. She had to leave a 2 inch mirror(not made of glass), a lipstick, a date book, a hair clip, a lighter and some other craziness. This was all done in Bulgarian and to me quite humorous. I passed in one try once I gave up that pesky camera. Back to the return: We left Sofia at 710 am and Avery slept until we reached Munich. He ate breakfast and played for 2.5 hours and then I medicated him with Benadryl and a hydrocodone cough syrup for the long flight. Well the combination might be what did us in but he was a wired happy baby for 4 hours before he went down. The flight attendants on Lufthansa could not have been nicer or more helpful(on all 4 flights to and back). It is really a great airline and worth it for there care and efficiency. He slept on the floor and 7 blankets in bulkhead seating for the final 5 hours and then we were in charlotte. It took 1 1/2 hours in customs to finalize his visa and make him a US citizen. My husband was out there panicing because the airllines could not tell him if we made the flight and he thought we were still in germany. There is a long hallway from the homeland security area and the baggage area and so as we started down the walkway my girl saw us from afar and began to run towrds us (and homeland security)............I got some good video of their first glimpse of their brother and he them and it is sweet........of course my friend AC was still a little nervous about the Embassy picture taking so we moved right along. He then got to spend 3 hours(rush hour traffic in Charlotte) with 4 crazy and loud sibling and so at this point we realized he would never get the easy quiet transition for his adjustment. The first few days have gone great and his sleep is now good and his eating is slowly improving. He loves neing outdoors and moving freely anbout the house. His sibling adore him and are very protective of him, lecturing each other on the need to give him some space. He still has very little thirst and doesn't seem to want to drink as much as I would like but I believe he has been programed for so long that this was not an option that it will just take time. He is such a happy go lucky fellow and he is improving his development milestones within days of leaving the orphanage. He is babbling so much now that he is hoarse and he rarely made any sounds in the orphanage. I actually believe I heard him say mama the other day but I may have been hallucinating...it sure sounded like it. Mary mom of Alexi(6-30-02) Type III/IV(mild) 27 lbs 33 inches Avery Boiko(7-15-02) Type III/IV(mod) 22 lbs 30 inches and the nonOI threesome Alec (9.75) Aidan (6.75) Aubrey (5)