A Successful Venture

We ventured out to the Children's Hospital yesterday morning and arrived there at 8:00 AM. We checked in at the Day Care Surgery desk and moved into the Waiting Room/Play Area. And what a waiting room it is. Comfy seats, a video playing on a flat-screen TV, tons of table games and crafts, even a couple of folks who come in and help out with the arts and crafts.

After a while a nurse called Alexey's name and interviewed us. Then she handed us a set of hospital pajamas for Alexey in what she laughingly called salmon colour. We got Alexey into the pajamas and went back to the waiting room.

At about 10:50, we went back to see the nurse and she gave Alexey his pre-meds, a little something to loosen him up. About fifteen minutes later, we carried him to the operating room area. John got all dressed up in a gown, booties, and a mask and carried Alexey into the operating room. Then he held Alexey's hand and head while an OR nurse and the anesthesiologist got him ready for the surgery. John left after they put Alexy to sleep with sleeping gas.

After some anxious moments waiting together, the surgeon came to tell us that everything went well and that Alexey was on his way to the recovery room. After a little while, Monika was allowed to go in to be with Alexey in recovery.

Soon, all of us were whisked back to the Day Care Surgery area and into a room with four beds in it. Alexey was snoozing peacefully, with intermittent attempts at activity. When he was awake, he drank a whole baby bottle full of apple juice. The he downed his first popsicle ever in about two minutes, faster than either Mama or Dada could eat one. About twenty minutes later, he ate a second one, also in record time.

After being discharged, we went home and Alexey put his head down for a short three-hour nap, from 3:30 until 6:30. Then he ate dinner and had a three-hour post-dinner nap until it was time to get changed to go to bed for real.

This morning, Alexey was a little out of sorts, but ate his breakfast and stayed up for a while, crawling around on the floor and doing many of his usual activities. After lunch, he stayed up for another four hours before needing a nap.

So, it turns out that the surgery hardly fazed Alexey at all. He just took it in stride. Now, if Mama and Dada had only been able to do the same....

Our heartfelt thanks to all who expressed their concern and kept us in their thoughts and prayers.

Back in Time

We have some pictures and stories of events that happened over the last month or so, including stories of the Christmas holidays. We will be backdating some posts over the next few days so the pictures and stories appear in order. If we wait much longer to do this, someone will have to carbon-date the pictures instead.

So please don't think that your eyes are going or that you're slowly losing your mind, wondering how you missed some earlier posts.

Big Day Coming Up

Alexey is due to have a small operation on Tuesday at 10:00 AM at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), here in Ottawa.

Alexey visited with an anesthesiologist today (Monday) to make sure that everything was clear for the surgery.

We have to be at the hospital at 8:00 AM so the nurses and doctors can prepare Alexey for his surgery. One suspects that this is also to prepare Mama and Dada for the surgery.

This procedure is what they call a "day care surgery", so he should be back home late in the afternoon, once the effects of the general anesthaesia have worn off.

Please keep him and us in your thoughts and prayers as we face another challenge together.

A Visit to St. Nick

For weeks, we’ve been planning to take Alexey to visit Santa Claus at our local shopping centre. We tried to get in a few times, but either Santa was off feeding the reindeer or the lineup of folks waiting to see him was just too long.

After these haphazard attempts, we decided that this past Wednesday was going to be the day. We planned the operation with military precision. At 1700 hours, John would leave work. At 1730 hours, we would eat supper. 1800 hours, get dressed and get in the car. 1820 hours, arrive at the shopping centre and get into line.

Operation Claus started without a hitch. John sped home from work, we ate, bundled Alexey into the car, and proceeded to the shopping centre.

We found a nice parking spot and lined up with a bunch of other families. Slowly we moved up in line. Alexey waited patiently for his turn, watching Santa’s every move. One by one, families went in to see Santa, had their pictures taken, and filed out. One of Santa’s subordinate Clauses (sorry) whispered the names of the children to Santa as they went up to see him.

Finally, only two families were ahead of us. The first with two girls dressed in matching dark blue dresses, the second with a boy in a Christmas-red sweater. They processed in awe across the expanse of red carpet and talked with Santa. Flashes flared as the official photographer recorded the moment with the big guy for posterity. Now only one ahead! Next, the boy went forth and whispered in Santa’s ear. Again, flashes flashed, recording history in the making.

Now it was Alexey’s turn. Santa’s helper whispered Alexey’s name, and Santa called out “Alexey” in his best Santa voice. Slowly Monika carried Alexey to the vast blue throne. She sat down beside Santa and put Alexey on Santa’s knee. Here was the moment that we were waiting for. The culmination of Operation Claus!

Alexey looked at Santa’s eyes, at Jolly Old St. Nick himself. Then he looked at Santa’s snowy white beard. And cried and screamed as loudly as he could. Passersby in the shopping centre turned to stare. The next children in line took a step back in fear. Whether they were more afraid of Santa or Alexey is debatable.

Santa is a wily old fellow, though, so he immediately feigned disinterest in Alexey, looking at the ceiling, the decorations, and the shoppers. Monika held Alexey on her knee. The photographer didn’t take a picture, waiting for the tears to subside. Suddenly, Santa leaned closer to Alexey and the photographer took a few shots while Alexey went from zero to sixty. She looked at the pictures on the viewscreen on her camera and told John that a miracle had occurred. She had captured one usable picture before Alexey blew up again.

We thanked Santa and the photographer profusely and left the presence with a present for Alexey: a little stuffed snowman.

Operation Claus had succeeded but only just barely. The official photograph shows a rather grim but tearless Alexey. All done until next year.

Transitions

Sometimes in the world of blogs, things become pretty insular. A leads to B leads to C. We have a few items that break our insularity.

Congratulations to some friends of ours who are in Karaganda right now. They just had their adoption court hearing and are the proud new parents of a little boy toddler. They are staying in the same apartment we were in. The timelines for their immigration process means that they won't be back home for Christmas. They received an early gift that they won't be able to share with their families for a while yet. Our thoughts are with them.

Our thoughts and prayers are with John's cousin Debbie as she is in very serious condition in hospital right now. She has pneumonia. She is not going to be home in time for Christmas.

Our thoughts and prayers are also with John's cousin Brenda as she continues her long battle with cancer.

Back Again

Only 28 days since our last post. Sigh. We have had lots of action in that time. We'll try to get caught up here.

John started back to work at IBM on November 2. He was happy to get together with his colleagues and friends there and to catch up on all the news on events of the past few months. John doesn't want to embarrasss his boss, Tara, so we won't mention all of the fantastic support she provided over the past couple of years as we pursued our adoption process. We wouldn't have been successful without her help.

The three of us went over to Monika's cousin Kazik's house on November 7 for a birthday/meet-and-greet celebration. Alexey got to meet some more of his relatives on Monika's side of the family. Kazik and his wife Natalie prepared a wonderful buffet lunch for us all. Alexey got to meet their son Gabriel for the first time. Gabriel is already in grade 1 at school. Alexey also met Kazik's parents, Zbyszek and Ewa,  and Kazik's sister, Anna. Babcia (Monika's mom) was there too. We had a great time, since it was an honourary birthday celebration for Alexey and a real "on-the-day" birthday party for Zbyszek. Alexey was showered with lots of gifts, for which we are all very grateful.

After a couple of weeks back at work, John decided that he wanted to stay at home with Alexey and Monika. So he caught a nice case of pneumonia. Seriously though, this likely happened because his immune system was suppressed due to the food poisoning he had when we first returned home. So he went on a fine course of antibiotics for 10 days and was off work for a week. Monika once again became a single mom for almost two weeks because John couldn't do very much. Some days he couldn't even pick up Alexey.

Speaking of health, though, Alexey finally received his citizenship certificate, so we were able to get a health card number for him. Monika and Alexey got their H1N1 flu shots a couple of days later. We also were able to get a SIN card for Alexey, so he can go to work at any time now.

That brings us up to date.    

Another Busy Week of Firsts

We have decided to continue our blog for a while. Some posts will be about Alexey and how everything is going as our new family is forming. Other posts will provide more details about our experience in Kazakhstan. This one is about the week just past.

On Monday (Oct. 26), we had John's Aunt Barbara from Cowansville in the Eastern Townships, cousins Garry and Connie from Cape Breton, and John's mom over for dinner at our house. This was the first chance for Aunt Barbara and the Cape Bretoners (sounds like a folk group, no?) to meet Alexey. He was his usual charming self, er, except at dinner, and was spoiled by his new relatives.

On Tuesday the three of us went on a very serious mission with Monika's mom (Babcia to Alexey). We went to Toys 'r Us to look for a few toys. Alexey enjoyed his first visit there, Babcia did the grandmotherly spoiling thing, and great fun was had by all.

Wednesday (Oct. 28) was our fourteenth wedding anniversary. We spent the day together as a a family, rejoicing in our new life together. The three of us had takeout Thai food for dinner, a new culinary experience for the little fellow. Alexey ate some pad thai sans shrimp, satay chicken without the peanut sauce, and some rice.

On Thursday, we went to a reception arranged for us at John's office at IBM. Many people from John's department were there and all enjoyed the cake and meeting Alexey. Ditto for the little guy.

We didn't dress up Alexey for Hallowe'en, but he did help us to greet the trick-or-treaters at the door. He wasn't scared at all by any of the goblins and ghouls. On the other hand, unusually for her, Shiraz was freaked out by a couple of the visitors and spent much of the evening barking and growling.

Sunday's change to Standard Time went very smoothly for us. Alexey started to wake up at the usual time, but then went back to sleep when we didn't respond to him and got up at the new time. He was able to stay awake until his new later bedtime in the evening too. He has always adapted very quickly to schedule changes.

Catch-up Time

We mentioned in a couple of earlier posts that Alexey slept beautifully on our flights home. The bassinets provided by Lufthansa were just perfect for him. They put us in “the children’s row”, right in front of our portion of the cabin, on both of their flights. The bassinets attach to the wall, allowing their occupants to travel securely. Although Ivan the Bearrible is lying on top of it, you can see the wide heavy cloth restraint that prevents your baby from flying independently of the aircraft:

We took every chance we could to doze on the way home. Here, Mama and Alexey catch some sleep in the lounge in Frankfurt AIrport:

Even once we were home, we needed to sleep a bit more. Here are Alexey and Dada trying to have forty winks. Shiraz is always a willing snoozer:

Alexey is finding his new room a little cramped:

And So It Goes…

Things are finally settling down here at home. We now have a routine. This is easier because John is finally feeling better. He's now eating after a full week of decreasing menu options. Rice, toast and bananas gave way to Alexey's baby biscuits and crackers. Finally, he was down to only drinking Gatorade and PowerAde for about three days. Doctors think he had food poisoning. John likely picked that up in Almaty, in a cafe (кафе) which was recommended to us. John had a few bites of undercooked chicken before he stopped eating it. There is a certain amount of irony here:

Alexey and Shiraz (our Beagle) have signed a non-aggression treaty. Shiraz tried to become Alexey’s mom one day when he was a bit too rambunctious for her taste. Shiraz circled him a couple of times, herding him. Then she sidled up behind him, opened her mouth as wide as she could, and was about to grab him by the back of the neck to carry him away. Fortunately, Dada intervened and had a few words of advice for Shiraz. Since then, there has been a bit more respect between Alexey and Shiraz.

Monika and Alexey went out for Thanksgiving dinner to Uncle Mats and Auntie Iza’s house while John and Shiraz kept each other company at home. It was a great chance for Alexey to meet cousins Paul and Emma as well as Uncle Mats. Babcia and Grandma were pleased to see Alexey again too, of course. He had some of Auntie Iza’s delicious potatoes, stuffing, and carrots to eat, along with a few spoonfuls of ice cream for dessert.  

This past week, Mama took Alexey to WalMart and The Children’s Place to stock up on clothing, and Dada took Alexey to Metro to pick up some food. Alexey acted like a veteran shopper, sometimes picking up carefully selected merchandise to weigh its merits and disadvantages.

We’re Still Here

Yes. We’re still alive.

We haven’t had much time to blog because of a number of factors.

First, jet-lag is a big challenge for us right now. We’re trying not to nap very much during the day, but that’s proving to be difficult. That’s because Alexey disagrees with the medical literature about trying to sleep through the night to reduce jet-lag. So, he wakes up sometime between 2 and 4 AM every morning and is ready to go for the day. So, one of us has to get up with him and entertain him for up to an hour.

“One of us” in the last sentence really means Monika. Not because John is deliberately avoiding his duties. He has been afflicted with a very nasty stomach condition since we got home. High fever, a bit of nausea, and many, many, er… you get the picture. Since we don’t want Alexey to catch this bug, especially because he is quite small for his age, Monika has assumed about 95% of the parenting duties. Plus she has had to look after John, too.

The resulting drain on our resources (sorry) means that our house is a disaster. Suitcases are strewn across the living room. Two months worth of mail sits unread on our dining room table. Packages of baby food are taking over the kitchen. That being said, we’re still progressing.

Shiraz (our beagle) and Alexey are now getting along well together. They each try to play with the other’s toys. Shiraz has been rebuked several times for playing with the lovely caterpillar toy Alexey got from Kazik, Natalie, and, Gabriel. In the early going, Alexey was severely reprimanded for tugging on Shiraz’s ears, gouging her eyes, and pounding on her head. He has since learned to pet Shiraz nicely, though. Shiraz has been great. If she is unhappy with something that Alexey is doing, she just walks away.

That’s not completely true. She comes over to supervise when Alexey starts to play with her food dish. She frowns and snorts a bit, trying to figure out what to do. We intervene before the situation escalates, though. Alexey also likes to play with Shiraz’s water bowl. Splashing is always great fun! We tried not to laugh and became as stern as we could when he bent over and started to drink from the bowl, without ever having seen her use it.

We will soon post some pictures and some more information. Time to go. Have to feed Alexey.

Home!

We missed our flight from Toronto to Ottawa. We arrived at Ottawa Airport on a later flight at 8:15 PM on Wednesday. Auntie Iza and cousin Kazik were there to greet us. We loaded up our bags into the car and went home to be greeted by Babcia (Monika's mom) and Shiraz, our beagle.

Yahoo!

More details soon!

Now in Frankfurt

We arrived in Frankfurt after an uneventful flight from Almaty on a Lufthansa Airbus A-340 jet.

The number of people touting taxis and assistance with bags at Almaty airport is fantastic. We fell victim to a couple of fellows who took our bags from our hands as we arrived at the airport. They put them on a baggage cart before we knew what hit us. We had to pay about 2000 Tenge to ransom our bags, about $15. One suspects that the government security officials at the airport are friendly with these sorts of people.

The check-in clerks helpfully assigned us seats right in the front of our section, so that a bassinet could be installed on he wall for Alexey and so we would have more space. The cabin crew was fantastically helpful. They talked to Alexey, played with him, and catered to our every need. Right after takeoff, when the Captain turned off the seat belt sign, a couple of flight attendants came and put in the bassinet. But this wasn’t just a basket. It had a real mattress with sheets, a blanket folded so that Alexey could have it under and on top of him, and a real honest-to-goodness miniature pillow. It even had a little roof over the head.

We put Alexey into the bassinet and he fell asleep almost instantly. He slept for almost five hours. We actually had to wake him up.

Upon arrival in Frankfurt right on time at 5:55 AM (ugh), we waited to deplane for almost 25 minutes because there were no stairs available for the plane. Passengers were growing restive, especially those with imminent connections. But soon we were underway, speeded on our way after a 15 minute bus ride to the terminal.

We had hoped to spend our 8 hour wait in the hotel attached to the airport. But a little oversight on our part meant that we couldn’t leave the security area. Alexey is travelling on his Kazakhstan passport. The German Immigration Police representative politely reminded us that citizens of Kazakhstan need a visa to enter Germany. Oops. We opted not to make a break for freedom given the presence of a second police officer toting a machine-gun backing up the front-line officer.

So we are now spending our time relaxing in a lounge in the secured area of the airport itself.

On the bright side, we are still able to feed and change Alexey here in relative civility. Alexey has been snoozing for a good two hours on Mama’s chest. Ivan the Bearrible is keeping them company.

We expect to be leaving for Toronto in only another hour or so. Then it’s a short two-hour wait in Toronto before a one hour flight to Ottawa. Then our 41 hour odyssey will be over.

And then a new one will begin.

Report from Almaty

It’s about 7:00 PM in Almaty, Kazkahstan on Tuesday. It is already completely dark outside.

After some tense moments, we left Karaganda Airport right on time at 10:10 AM and arrived here on time at 12:30. What tense moments? When we checked in, we discovered that Alexey was not registered in the computer system as being on our flight. After some discussions with the special airline ticket agents in the special office for special people, he once again existed and was granted permission to board the aircraft. We went back to the check-in counter, only to be sent to the excess baggage payment office. We were 24 kg overweight. After settling up there, we returned to the check-in counter for a third time, and got Alexey’s boarding pass and our baggage tickets.

Our flight to Almaty lasted just over two hours. We were in a Fokker 50 propeller plane. The kindly check-in agent gave us seats in the first row, so we had a bit more space and could watch the right-hand propeller go around. The left-hand propeller had to be a matter of faith.

Alexey flew like a champion. After a bit of settling-in time, but no crying at all, he provided some play-by-play commentary as the airplane made funny noises and the flight attendants moved about. After an hour he fell asleep for about 45 minutes in Mama’s arms. We actually had to wake him up when the Fasten Seat Belts sign came on as we began our descent to Almaty airport.

Even though the air pressure changed a fair bit, Alexey never uttered a sound, but watched with interest.

We believe (pray?) this is a good omen for our next flight. It’s on a Lufthansa Airbus 340 jet and takes seven hours to go from Almaty to Frankfurt, Germany.

Almaty is a big city with a population of well over a million people. The architecture here is mixed Tsarist-Soviet-European. Some houses and small apartment buildings definitely appear to be old-time Russian style. Huge blocks of apartment buildings and some office buildings are built in the Soviet box style. Some store buildings on the main streets would look at home in Paris.

We visited St. Michael’s Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church built in 1908. It has golden onion domes and is painted in white and yellow. To enter, we had to have covered arms and Monika had to cover her head. They had scarves available to put on in a room as you entered. The Cathedral is full of icons, paintings on the ceiling and walls, and triptychs. Some golden artefacts were in evidence, including crosses, candlesticks, book stands, and the like. Hundreds of tapers, slim candles, were all over, with people lighting them as they prayed.  The Cathedral itself is fairly small, with benches providing seating for no more than twenty people. You could fit in a few hundred people standing, though. The congregation is expected to stand throughout the entire liturgy.

For lunch, Monika had a cheeseburger platter and John had a hot chicken salad. We shared Monika’s French fries, the first we’ve had since we left Canada. The lettuce in our cheeseburger and salad was also a first.

In restaurants and stores, we noticed that prices are definitely in the range of those in the big cities in Europe. They appear even worse because the prices are in Kazakhstan Tenges (TT). A bowl of soup in a nice Thai restaurant would cost a startling 1,800TT were we to buy it. That’s about $14. This is a big change from Karaganda.

We are staying in an apartment until just after midnight, when we return to the airport for our 2:55 AM flight. (Zzzzzzz)

We will try to post to the blog from Frankfurt if we can.  

And So It Begins

We leave our apartment in Karaganda tomorrow (Tuesday) and fly to Almaty. The end of the beginning starts then. Over a two-day period we transition to the part of the world in which Monika and John are comfortable. And Alexey comes to a world he doesn’t know exists.

Our time in Kazakhstan was one in which we could focus on becoming a family. It was a time without any distractions or external pressures. Local problems and inconveniences simply were a part of our family-building process. Monika and John could focus on learning about Alexey and he could focus on learning about Mama and Dada. Monika and John watched with amazement, amusement, and sometimes disgruntlement as Alexey learned new things every day. Respectively, in the past week Alexey has learned how to pick up food in his hand and eat it with all five teeth, how to throw things backwards over his head, and how to do a raspberry (ptttht!) with food in his mouth.

So in two days we will be back in Canada and continue our lives as a family, charting a new course with a new crew member. Alexey will meet his new relatives for the first time and make a whole lot of new friends, even though they all speak a funny language.

We will try to post to the blog from Almaty and Frankfurt as we travel home.

До свидания 

Canada + 1

Today, Saturday, we received Alexey’s documents back from the Canadian Embassy in Moscow. We now have Alexey’s Kazakhstan passport, new birth certificate, and adoption certificate.

Best of all, though, Alexey is now the proud holder of a letter that states that, as of September 30, 2009, he increased the population of Canada by one, because he is a Canadian Citizen!

Alexey now also has a Canadian Facilitation Visa, which allows him to enter Canada as a resident.

We’re comin’ home, baby!

Photos and A Couple of Makeovers

It’s been a while since we posted some photos, so here are a few new ones.

Alexey is already complaining about having to sort the laundry. Wait until he finds out about cutting the grass at home:

Alexey has already learned how to drive handsfree:

Alexey trying his flight accommodations for feel and size:

Alexey’s hair was starting to look a bit unkempt. In need of a makeover, he had his first haircut on Monday at the hairdresser in the shopping area of our apartment complex. He tested our eardrums for much of the time, but we managed to get the entire job done, which we believe to be a miracle. Here he is afterwards with Mama, posing for the camera:

In Kazakhstan, you see feral (or wild) cats and dogs quite often. The dogs are often in small packs, but you sometimes see loners. A makeover is required here too:

The End is Nigh

Because we are still waiting for our paperwork, our scheduled departure date from Karaganda has come and gone. It was supposed to be last Sunday. But now we have a new date: Tuesday, October 6.

We leave here at about 10:30 AM and fly to Almaty on a Fokker 50 propeller plane. After that short 2 hour jaunt, we have a tidy little 14 hour layover in Almaty. Then it’s off to Frankfurt at 2:55 AM on a 6 hour flight. Then an 8 hour wait in the airport there before our 8½ hour flight to Toronto. Followed by a 2 hour wait before our 1 hour flight to Ottawa. We arrive there at 7:10 PM on Wednesday.

Those of you doing the math with fingers and toes by now have run out. Twice. That’s a 41½ hour odyssey if you include waiting times. We will be checking into a hotel in Almaty for sure. Maybe also in Frankfurt.

Success

Very good news was heralded by the sounds of gurgling and belching at 9:00 PM on Sunday night. Our hot water had returned! It ran red for a few hours, and was kind of slimy, but then became as clear as it ever has been. Of course, it wasn't hot, but is heating up nicely now on Monday morning. We are hastening to do dishes, get washed, and so on as fast as we can. So, another crisis has been worked through!

In order to exact payment for this resumption of normal service, our gas stopped working this morning. We are sure that a team of talented engineers is working to remediate this unfortunate situation as soon as is practicable.

Plus ça change...

Another Day Gone

Sunday is almost over here in sunny Karaganda. The high was 22 degrees and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. It was quite dry. Actually, really dry. Still no hot water. And little cold water. The tap in our kitchen only dispenses the tiniest dribble of cold water, and even that only after we utter various incantations, usually involving the state of Florida. You know, sun on a beach.

If we want to do anything serious with water, we must head off to the bathroom and use the tap there. It has a fairly decent flow; almost as much as that of a drinking fountain. Of course, we have our bottled drinking water, but don’t want to squander it on the dishes and personal hygiene. So we bring water from the bathroom to the kitchen and heat it up on the stove. The end result is that it takes about an hour to do the dishes from lunch if you factor in all the trips back and forth, the heating up of water, and so on.

We spent this morning doing the tour of our neighbourhood, walking through the courtyards of apartment blocks. Most apartments here are built in courtyards. You enter your apartment from the courtyard, not the street. The street side is usually reserved for stores and what are optimistically called boutiques, really stalls with counters. You can buy almost anything in these stores and boutiques, ranging from pears to pairs of socks. You can find plumbing supplies, pipes, cigarettes, clothing, liquor, and copies of DVDs, CDs, and computer games. The copies must be legal, because we saw a senior police officer with a large amount of braid on his epaulettes buying one just the other day.

Hopefully the team of crack engineers will restore our hot water tomorrow.

NoH2O

As of 10:30 AM on Saturday, there is still no hot water. The cold water is but a dribble. Our cook tells us that there is no hot water in her apartment building, on another courtyard than ours.

The Soviet way of supplying hot water and steam for domestic and heating use was to have central heating plants. A complex network of above-ground pipes carries the water and steam to apartment buildings, individual houses, and other buildings. You can see an example of a couple of pipes here.

This was done for reasons of efficiency and economy. Any problems in the heating apparatus could be fixed quickly and in one place by trained engineers. You only need to have one type of parts, not many different types for different brands of equipment. This also fit in quite nicely with the general Soviet proclivity towards centralizing functions and facilities. Why have many little somethings when one big something will do, and look good in the process?

So we assume that a team of trained engineers is working feverishly to restore our hot water.