Bringing Dariya home: Birth certificate, Passport and birth dad

After 7 hours of paper chasing by Luda, our facilitator, (we only had to be in the chase for 3 hours of it) we have Dariya's new birth certificate with our names, we closed her bank account out and donated the $2800 to the orphanage, and took Dariya out in her first car ride to get her passport applied for.

When we got in the car with her she didn't know what to do and got a little anxious, she didn't cry but wouldn't be still for about 30 seconds and was arching her back then she wrapped her arms around my neck and was fine.  They don't use car seats over here so she had to sit on my lap.  I think I was more stressed about it than she was, oh and the driver swerving to miss every bump in the road AHHH!

We arrived back at the orphanage around 4:30 and took Dariya back to her groupa so we could sign the final paperwork in order for us to take her out for good.  

We are praying to have her passport back on Friday.  If her passport comes back as planned on Friday.  We will have gotcha day and head to the capital for the weekend. On Monday and Tuesday we would have our embassy appointments which would mean flying home on Wednesday July 13th.  Nope we haven't booked the tickets yet we will know Thursday night if her passport will be ready for Friday so then we will book.

Once we were finished with the paperwork we went back and got Dariya to play in the sports room for a while.  About 5:45 Luda phoned us and said that the birth dad (Sasha, nickname for Alexander) had arrived at the orphanage to meet us.   He had talked to the director to find out when he could meet us and when someone would be there to translate.  He understands some English but doesn't speak it. 

We were able to visit with him for about 20-25 minutes.  He was very kind, quiet and soft hearted (sound just like Jason? YEP!)  We were able to tell him that we will raise Dariya to know that he loves her.  He gave us his email address so we can email him pictures of Dariya as she grows up.  He was so kind he said maybe just around her birthday each year.  He didn't want to ask for more than we were willing to give.   Dariya got her beautiful blue eyes from her birthdad, they look exactly like his. 

We didn't take our camera with us today as we didn't know we would be visiting Dariya (trust me it wasn't my idea) but, thankfully Luda allowed us to use her camera and take pictures of Sasha and Dariya.  He is going to come visit again on Friday so I will get many pictures then.  Luda is on the bus now back to the capital so we will have to post pictures later. 

We visited a bit longer with Luda after Sasha had to go back to work and learned that she was taking updated pictures of RR kids and new kids to be listed on RR.  One little boy is 2 years old with FAS from Dariya's groupa!  Please start praying for his forever family, he isn't walking and needs a family asap!