Zach:
April and I met our son today. What more is there to say? I met my son. I met my son... I keep saying that over and over.
Today was the first visit to the babyhouse in Taldykorghan. I had the 'Chariots of Fire' theme playing in my head as we all walked (slow motion) to the infant room. Then it all happened so quickly. Boom. Pregnancy, delivery (towel off, spank, yada yada), "here's your kid Mr. Taylor".
He was shy at first, clinging to the caregiver. Then April tickled his cheek. He opened up his mouth, stared her straight in the eyes and smiled. All the tension was gone within 2 minutes. It felt natural. He loves being held. As I sat him in my lap, bounced him on my knee and kissed his fuzzy little head he gripped my finger and wouldn't let go. He didn't cry or seem worried at all. The visit went better than I had expected- except it was too dang short. I want to go to bed so I can wake up and see him tomorrow.
April:
I feel like the zombie formerly known as April. We left our house (and dogs and cats, sigh) at 10am on Monday and were driven to the bus station by 2 psychotically excited grandmothers-to-be. Thus began the trip, in fabulous air-conditioned bus featuring a movie, snacks and a driver with a wicked woodchuck accent. The flight to Frankfurt was totally uneventful, the crew was great and we didn't sleep a wink. We had a 6 hour layover in Germany where we availed ourselves of the fabulous showers they have there (excellent suggestion mom, I felt like a new woman), walked about 3 miles, people watched, and waited for our plane. We met up with the Holton's for the Almaty leg (see their website for documented proof) . We landed in Almaty, whisked through customs, totally confusing the guy behind the counter as we shouted Kazakh and Russian greetings at him and grinned like idiots. Our bags arrived intact (which is more than I can say for some of the maple syrup in the bags, but I don't really want to talk about that right now), and we went out to greet our coordinator Gulnara and our driver Emil. Since we were only spending 1 night in Almaty, we were taken to a hotel instead of an apartment, where we dosed ourselves heavily with melatonin and fell into a deep sleep, broken only by the sound of cats ether trying to kill each other, or mate.
We woke up, had breakfast and were collected by Emil, our incredibly nice and helpful driver. We went to the main office of our coordinators, met with Gulzhan, one of the directors, and proceeded to sign about 30 papers which we couldn't read, and handed over a huge stash of crisp $100's. Our timeline was explained to us and the basic schedule of our stay.
Then, after having our cell phone delivered to us, we were off to Taldy.
The drive was incredible. There we were, sitting in the back seat of a shiny black Audi, in air-conditioned splendor, being chauffeured by a beautiful Kazakh woman (Gulnara) doing about 150km/hr without a seatbelt as she lectured us about the dangers of putting an infant in an airconditioned car. It took all my self control not to say "THAT'S what you think would be dangerous about this situation?"
Anyway, we made it to Taldy, which sits in a beautiful green valley, surrounded by dry high plains and the Tian Shan mountains in the distance. Picture the Bighorn mountain area of Wyoming. The town is an oasis, complete with stately trees that look like Lombardi Poplars on steroids, and architecture courtesy of the Soviet era. We dropped our stuff at the apartment, met Aida, our translator and driver for the next 3 weeks, and then went to the babyhouse.
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!
We briefly met the babyhouse director who said some stuff (it was kind of like listening to the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons: Waah wahwahh, wahh wahwah) and then they took us upstairs to his room. There were about 6 or 7 babies in matching terrycloth overalls lounging on the floor and 4 babies in playpens. One of the caretakers went over and scooped up one of the babies on the floor, and there he was. didn't think I was crying, ,but I must have been, because all of a sudden my cheeks were wet. He was so beautiful! His little fuzzy hair was standing on end, and he just stared with his mouth open. When I touched his cheeks he smiled, and when they finally let me hold him, he latched on with both hands, and wouldn't let go. He was definitely shy, he arched away from me a lot at first, but then we whispered and cuddled and he relaxed. He was fascinated with Zach, all the babies were. Most of them have never seen a man, one baby girl was trying to figure out what the hell he was. I put Kai on Zach's lap, he grabbed both of Zach's forefingers, and held on for dear life. Kind of reminded me of a snapping turtle, I wasn't sure we would get Zach's fingers out of that grip intact. What felt like 30 seconds later, we were told the first visit was over. Turns out it was about 20 minutes. Tomorrow we get 4 whole hours. He is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, and sweet to the bone. The caretakers all tease him for being a baby who never wants to be put down (hence the vice-grip); boy did he come to the right family!
