He’s ours…practically speaking!

Well, we’ve been in Tomsk for nearly two weeks and most days have consisted of two visits with Valera. Each visit needed to be supervised by someone from our agency since we are not officially his parents until we receive the court certified documents on Monday, July 27th. To be quite honest, other than the highlights of purchasing supplies for the orphanage with “Zena” this trip has been tougher than expected. Although the time with Valera has been awesome, he has also showed many signs of over stimulation and some confusion. We have also all suffered some homesickness and have felt sort of trapped because of the language barrier.

We are all very grateful for your prayers, because this past week we had two very significant and unusual blessings in the process. The first one came when we learned that our coordinator, Katya, was able to convince the judge to begin our 10 day waiting period on the day of court allowing us to stay on our originally planned flight schedule. Without this favor, we would have stayed in Tomsk one extra day, but would have cost us a weekend in Moscow (3 extra days) and required us to change all of our plane tickets. We were amazed at Katya’s determination. She actually spent 2 1/2 hours in the judge’s office pleading our case. The second blessing came this past Friday. Monday is officially our “Gotcha Day” when we pick up Valera for good, but because our translator was taking the weekend off and our driver would also be gone, our agency agreed that we should ask to have Valera over the weekend. So we were allowed to take him Friday night for good. What a tremendous blessing to be able to spend the additional time with him before having to make the difficult trip home next week.

So, the last 48 hours have been exciting. The past two weeks we have watched him experience a stroller, car seat, ice cream, crepes, etc for the first time. But the past two days we have also gotten to take naps, eat meals, take baths, go shopping, and sleep all night (or at least he has) together. It’s really been an overwhelming process.

Valera clearly knows that Krista is mom. He is most attached to her. We make sure that she picks him up when he gets hurt, she feeds him all his meals, she bathes him, and gets to hold him the most. But I get to put him to sleep. A task I simply love. I’ve learned the Russian word for sleep (pronounced “spee”) and he will lay down with me and usually fall asleep with me rubbing his back or simply holding him. It brings back so many memories of when Brittany and Alyssa were young. I cherish these times and spend them just praying over him, just as I did with the girls for so many years. It’s in these quiet moments when I realize the power of what we are doing here and realize that we have been so incredibly blessed.

We all look forward to bringing him home, allowing him to adjust more. He still seems too wound up and is probably wondering where all his little friends went, but he also seems to really like all of us. I continue to pray that we would adapt well and enjoy our newest family member. I also pray for his emotional well being. I can only imagine what is running through that tiny head of his.

Well, stay tuned. The next blog entry will introduce Valera Stephen Marisov Lusey to the world…pictures included!!!

Thank you again for your love, support, and prayers.

Chris