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Saturday we had some down time and walked to Red Square, got photos of the outside of the Kremlin and the much-recognized St. Basil's church (photo here). If it wasn't for the fact that it's 30 yards from this colorful icon to the Kremlin wall and the seat of Russian politics, you might think you were at the gate of some Slavic amusement park. After getting a good sense of the heart of this ancient city, we strolled the kilometer back to our apartment. Our driver Vlad met us at 3:30 and drove us the 45 minutes out to the orphanage, where we were allowed to take Syevinch around the grounds in a stroller for about an hour. (The picture here shows one of the several play areas on the orphanage grounds -- very colorful and well maintained and monitored.) I should mention 
that our expectations for Moscow's early-autumn weather were for a much cooler climate. Despite having packed warmer, we've been thrilled that it has been in the low 70s the entire trip, despite the clear indication of fall's approach in the color of the leaves.
Our ability to connect with Syevinch is slow and at times painful. Saturday was Renee's day. Syevinch spent nearly the entire 90 minutes of alloted time in Renee's arms as we strolled the orphanage grounds. Lots of eye contact and physical interaction as I walked ten steps behind getting loads of photos 
of their bonding in progress. Renee is now able to pick her up without resulting in tears, and at least a few times, when Syevinch began to cry in the stroller, Renee picked her up and the tears stopped. A very good sign. However, she is still quite scared of me — which is very hard to take at times — although I am attempting to hold her for slightly longer periods of time in the hope that the familiarity helps. But it has been a growth experience for all three of us and we will continue to visit her today and tomorrow (Sunday and Monday) to continue the ritual.
Some of you have asked about the process from this point forward. Once we leave here and return home, we expect to wait about one month for the call requesting our return, at which time we will appear in court and petition for custody of Syevinch. This should be fairly straightforward and is expected to last about an hour (although we have heard horror stories of 8-hour "interrogations" by unsympathetic judges). Once approved, there is a mandatory 10-day waiting period before we are allowed to take custody of her. Often, the orphanages will allow the adopting parents to take temporary custody of the child during this time, but this orphanage does not. So we have the option of returning home immediately after the court hearing and returning after the waiting period. This latter option would mean that we would have no further contact with Syevinch, however, until our return and that may just be asking too much of her for an 18-hour, multi-legged flight home. So choices are to be made....
Oh ... I neglected to mention in yesterday's message that two days ago we visited a notary here and had to sign a form indicating our intention to adopt. The form required the full name that we intend to give to the child, so here it is (the drum roll is up to you): Genevieve Syevinch Sanguinetti. This French-Uzbeki-Italian combo might be a mouthful, but it has a nice, complex rhythm to it. We're going to try to continue using Syevinch until the adoption is finalized and then break Genevieve in over time (the name, rather than the person).
All our best and more to come.
Larry & Renee
Just a quick update today (and a brief recap for those new to the story).
Recap
After an intense trip out here, we arrived in Moscow tired but excited. Nineteen hours in airports and airplanes and an 11-hour time-zone difference had left us pretty exhausted, but not enough to miss our 7:45 a.m. appointment to visit the orphanage on Thursday. We arrived at Moscow Orphanage #2 at 8:30 and were held in suspense for another 10–15 minutes while "she" was dressed to meet us. Then when they carried the adorable bundle through the door into the meeting room ... it was love at first sight.
She was introduced to us as Syevinch Rakhminova Musurmonova, a 14-month old of Russian/Uzbeki background, surrendered to the state at one month of age by a single mother who could not support her. Her birth mother was apparently from a region in Uzbekistan known as Furenze. Other than this, we know little about Syevinch's family background, although her medical history is well maintained from age one month on.
Before meeting her, we were informed that Syevinch does not deal well with change (which is a good sign in an institutionalized child in terms of attachment theory), so much of the first day involved tears and attempts at Cheerios-inspired bribery for her affection. We spent about 90 minutes with her before she was taken away for her morning nap.
Continuing on...
Another night of sporadic sleep -- we've been catching naps in the afternoons as schedules allow as we attempt to convert to the drastically different time zone. Those who know me would be surprised to learn that on the other side of the planet I can, in fact, be a morning person (conveniently ignoring the fact that my body experiences this as waking at 5 p.m., west coast time). We were therefore quite on time for our 11:00 a.m. meeting with our translator, Masha (here with a less troubled Syevinch). We drove to the orphanage for a second day of visiting Syevinch and the hope that we might work our way into her tiny little heart with familiarity and time.
Syevinch was handed to Renee and again we were left alone with her for most of the next 90 minutes. After initial periods of crying, she settled down and they had some seriously introspective bonding time with each other. Hoping that her fear of men had lessened a bit on day two, I held her for perhaps five minutes this time with only occasional howling (from her, not me).
Typically visitors are not allowed at the orphanage on the weekends, but somehow Vlad (our driver/guide) and Masha have been able to get permission for us to visit later this afternoon (Saturday) and perhaps even on Sunday. We are wanting to spend as much time with her as we can on this trip — not just to make up for the lost 14 months, but also to begin the arduous task of bonding. As I've said from the very beginning of this experience, I can imagine nearly every conceivable situation relative to the adoption adventure, with the exception of the 18-hour, multi-legged flight home from Moscow with a confused and frightened toddler in the custody of two inexperienced parents, in the midst of a planeload of tired, international businessfolk. If spending time with Syevinch helps to ease her burden (and therefore everyone else's) on that undoubtedly memorable trip, then let the bonding begin!
So things are still moving forward — excitement and emotion for all three of us as we navigate the "new" over here. Renee and I have settled in to the apartment we've rented on a short-term basis and are heading out in just a bit for a quick walk to the Kremlin (how often do you get to say something like that?) for photos of St. Basil's, Red Square, and a chic and evolving city center.
Thanks to all for the very supportive messages. More soon....
With love,
Larry & Renee
Friends & Family:
Well, the good news is we made it to the other side of the globe with only minor difficulties. The flight we had booked from San Francisco (via Amsterdam) was delayed by two hours, which meant that we would have missed our connecting flight to Moscow. We eventually transferred to an AirFrance flight connecting through Paris and with a bit of airport endurance racing, we made both flights — San Francisco and Paris.
Moscow is an amazingly large and mysterious city (9 times larger than San Francisco in size and 14 times larger in population, or for a different perspective, just a bit smaller than all of Los Angeles but more than 2.7 times the number of residents!) Even with a semester of Russian under my belt, the language is very challenging and the Cyrillic alphabet alien. While I can (with some difficulty) pronounce the words I see, I have no clue what I'm saying.
Fortunately for us, part of the deal with our adoption agency was to provide us not only with a driver (Vladimir), but also a translator (Masha) — at least for the official visits of orphanage visits and appointments with the Moscow bureaucrats. Many of the natives here speak English, and those who don't seem to be able to get whatever Renee or I are asking for in our mangled Russian phrases.
Because Moscow is 11 hours ahead of the west coast, jet lag has thrown us for a lingering loop. We were up for about 26 hours (scattered napping) when we finally made it to bed Wednesday night and had to be up at 6:30 for an 8:30 appointment at the orphanage on the far side of town. (Traffic here is worse than anywhere I've seen — the city has just a handful of main boulevards that act as expressways through and around town, but major construction is going on simultaneously and without apparent coordination.)
Now for the good stuff.....
So we arrived at the orphanage early this morning and were greeted by the orphanage director. We were asked to wait in the "special meeting room" (the auditorium — about the size of a large conference room), while they dressed the little one for our first meeting. Prior to traveling, we had only been told that she was under the age of two and that she was brunette. On the drive over, we learned that her birthdate was August 1, 2006, making her nearly 14 months old. Other than that, we were clueless. When they brought her in, dressed in her teal dress and with her dark hair poking out in all directions, we both fell in love with her.
Her name is (take a deep breath for this one!): Syevinch Rakhminova Musurmonova. We will most likely incorporate her given name into her Americanized once she is legally ours. She was given to the state at the age of one month by an unwed mother of reportedly Russian/Uzbeki heritage. She has no identifiable extended relatives and no siblings according to the initial report. We hired a doctor to come in while we were there (a common practice for adopting parents to ensure no serious medical issues), who said that she appeared to be in reasonably good health. And while her development is mildly delayed (due to the simple reality of having been institutionalized for nearly her entire life), she is expected to get back on track once brought home.
Upon introducing us to her, the orphanage staff pretty much left us alone with her for the next 45 minutes. Because she had no experience of men, my two minutes of holding her was a test of her lung capacity as she cried unconsolably. Renee had much better luck with her and began the long, arduous task of bonding. We will return again Friday morning for another 90-minute visit and hope to be able to return again over the weekend before having to initiate the paperwork process.
We are certain that Syevinch is the girl for us, so please keep us in your thoughts in the hope of a quick and successful process from this point forward. I will write more as we have additional updates and photos.
With love,
Larry & Renee
Will the adoption updates ever end?!...
I'm happy to announce that Renee and I just got confirmation from our adoption agency this afternoon that we have been approved to travel next week to meet the mysterious little girl who we hope will soon be a big part of our lives.
As we speak, visas are being processed, travel itineraries arranged, hotels booked, nerves jangled. Renee and I will fly out from SFO next Tuesday afternoon with a two-hour pit stop in Amsterdam before arriving in Moscow Wednesday afternoon. We have a day to settle in before meeting with the regional minister of education (the official adoption bureaucrat) and visiting the orphanage and Little No-Name for as much time as we can over the next week. We know that there will also be a bit more hoop-jumping, but we're hopeful that the timing might allow for at least a couple of days' down time in pre-celebration of the big "4-0" nipping at my heels. (1967: The Summer of Love and The Graduate ... what a year!) Down time or not, our return tickets are set for Friday, October 5.
Once we return from this first eventful trip, we have been told to expect the wait for the follow-up phone call to take anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks. This means that Renee and I may need to acclimate to sub-freezing temperatures and seasonal affect disorder before we return to Moscow for a Russian winter. [Note: The images at right are stock photos used solely for the purpose of eliciting sympathy.]
Thanks again to all of you for your continued support. We will definitely keep you posted as we enter the equivalent of our third (or thirteenth) trimester.
With love,Larry & Renee
Just a quick message to update you all on the status of the ongoing adoption trials and tribulations....
As we have shared with many of you over the past couple of months, we received a call in late July informing us of two sisters (15 months and 30 months) ready to adopt. We began preparing for immediate travel when we got a follow-up call two days later informing us that there was a hitch and that we would need to wait for the results of a court proceeding scheduled for August 20.
August 20 came and went with no further word. It wasn't until late last week (three weeks later) that we finally got the good news/bad news that the older of the two could not be adopted until late February (due to a mandatory six-month hold following the birth mother's release of custody), but that we could proceed with the adoption of the younger (resulting in an additional two costly trips to Moscow, another four weeks away from home and work, and major disruption for a little one attempting to understand the concept of "home").
We made the difficult decision to move forward with this despite the challenges and were waiting for further word from the agency as to when we should expect to travel. When the agency called Monday morning, the news was again both good and bad.
As it turns out — nobody quite knows exactly why — the younger girl is now no longer available for adoption either. It may be to keep the sisters together (despite the fact that they currently reside in two different orphanages), it may be politics, it may be the harvest moon in Scorpio — we will probably never know. We have yet to fully grieve this sad situation — it's amazing how attached you can become to the image of an individual without benefit of photos, birthdates, or names.... The only silver lining is that the agency happened to know of another little girl ("between the ages of 1 and 2") who is available for adoption. We are once again waiting for a call from our agency with our travel date (although there is now a sense of dread when the phone rings), but we suspect that it will be before the end of the month.
In terms of process, the first trip would be just two weeks, after which we return home, hopeful that things proceed on track. The second trip — one to three months later (Christmas in Moscow?!) — would be to jump through three weeks of legal hoops before bringing a living, breathing little one home to California.
Please keep us in your thoughts as we wait and hope that the worst of this intense ride is over.
Larry & Renee
Saturday we had some down time and walked to Red Square, got photos of the outside of the Kremlin and the much-recognized St. Basil's church (photo here). If it wasn't for the fact that it's 30 yards from this colorful icon to the Kremlin wall and the seat of Russian politics, you might think you were at the gate of some Slavic amusement park. After getting a good sense of the heart of this ancient city, we strolled the kilometer back to our apartment. Our driver Vlad met us at 3:30 and drove us the 45 minutes out to the orphanage, where we were allowed to take Syevinch around the grounds in a stroller for about an hour. (The picture here shows one of the several play areas on the orphanage grounds -- very colorful and well maintained and monitored.) I should mention 
that our expectations for Moscow's early-autumn weather were for a much cooler climate. Despite having packed warmer, we've been thrilled that it has been in the low 70s the entire trip, despite the clear indication of fall's approach in the color of the leaves.
of their bonding in progress. Renee is now able to pick her up without resulting in tears, and at least a few times, when Syevinch began to cry in the stroller, Renee picked her up and the tears stopped. A very good sign. However, she is still quite scared of me — which is very hard to take at times — although I am attempting to hold her for slightly longer periods of time in the hope that the familiarity helps. But it has been a growth experience for all three of us and we will continue to visit her today and tomorrow (Sunday and Monday) to continue the ritual.
