The trip to get him is hard for me to remember now. I think back and I can hardly recall the travel over to Bulgaria. Of course, some of that has to do with the fact that I overdosed myself on Dramamine and ended up sleeping for the ENTIRE 30 some odd hours that we traveled. Maybe? But I remember landing in Sofia and then riding in this quaint little van for 4 hours to Burgas to his orphanage. Charlie and I both slept for that ride over. We stayed the night, where I don't remember if we slept at all that night. I remember being up very early wondering about breakfast because we didn't eat hardly anything during the travel over. (We discovered during the first trip that airline food doesn't suit either of us very well and the after effects are not worth the risk of eating it.)
That morning we went to the orphanage and sat awkwardly with our translator/attendant waiting while the staff prepared Ivan for us. We met with the orphanage director for about 15 or 20 mins. She was open, kind and seemed happy that Ivan would be leaving with us. She mentioned to us "It will be difficult with him because he is in his own world. It will be hard for you." to which Charlie and I just smiled and nodded. Yes, love. We know. She asked if we had any questioned for her, after she'd given us all his paperwork, and I asked if Ivan had been prepared that we were coming. I asked if anyone had talked with him about the fact that he was going to be leaving with us today. She let us know that the staff HAD been talking with him about Mommy and Daddy and about "going to America" with Mommy and Daddy. I was just relieved that he wasn't about to be absolutely sideswiped by us.
We took clothes for him, but the staff returned them because EVERYTHING was at least 2 sizes too big. I knew our boy was small but once we'd gotten home I had convinced myself that he couldn't have been that little and he must have just seemed smaller. No, no. He's really that small. Everything we took was 3T. He's in 24month/2T clothes.
Finally, They brought him in and he came bounding in, in his way, laughing and smiles and he seemed overjoyed to see us! What a relief! We had fears that he would have forgotten us and would be afraid but he seemed absolutely ecstatic to see us. We bundled him up as best as we could, the director said a little good bye to him where she reminded him he was leaving with Mommy and Daddy to go to America, she wished us luck and we were out the door.
There was a moment of terror when we walked out the front door of the orphanage where Ivan seemed very unsure about what was going on. He became stiff and visibly scared so I scooped him up and carried him to the car. Ever felt like you were stealing a child? I totally felt like we were stealing him. He wasn't a fan of being buckled in to his car seat but once in it, he rode like a champ. I got a thousand photos of his little face and his little self in that little car seat during that long long ride but my favorites are the ones where he had reached out and held my hand, all on his own, and we rode like that for miles.
We had to stop for gas and I took the opportunity to change his diaper, which turned into a full clothing change because he had managed to soak through his diaper. (oops, mom fail already and we'd only had the kid about 2 hours by this point, lol) As I was walking him to the bathroom, I realized that it would be the first time I'd seen him naked.
Talk about weird firsts.
So the first time I saw my child, fully, was in a dirty little gas station bathroom. And he wasn't happy about it at all, because I had to clean him and change him and change his clothes and that wasn't on his agenda for the day at all. Poor thing. He was so excited, overall, though that he seemed to forgive me. We got back in the car with some yogurt cereal stuff and some bread to feed him for lunch as we traveled. He ate everything I put near his face.
He rode so well. He didn't sleep at all. There was too much going on. Too much excitement. He was full throttle Ivan the entire day. When we finally made it to the apartment, he was going great until we left to go get groceries. We walked past a restaurant on the way to the grocery store and he. just. LOST. IT.
It was a full fledged, all out, end of the world tantrum/rage. In public, no less. The child screamed and thrashed and screamed and thrashed. In Public.
Charlie and I had nothing to prove this child was legally ours, either. We had given our attendant EVERY PIECE OF PAPERWORK on the entire adoption. We realized on aisle 4 that this was a very poor choice. We ended up getting just enough to feed us for dinner and got the hell out of Dodge.
Once we got back to the apartment and fed the poor child, he was fine. Charlie and I learned a very important lesson on that first day. Food is Ivan's pressure point. Food is what will send this child into traumatizing rage fits. Food is also the way to avoid them. So plan ahead and avoid we did.
That night, the first night, it took forever for Ivan to finally crash. And that's what it was, too. He finally just fell over from exhaustion.
As did we.
(More, hopefully, soon...ish. I'm suddenly very busy lately. hehe)
Here's some pictures from that first day. =) Sadly, we didn't get any photos of the public rage but i'm sure our faces of pure horror would be hilarious had we thought to preserve the moment in pictures.
