Alyssa fell asleep on Papa’s lap right after we left Casa de Maria
First time we fed her. It went well. 🙂 
After a long day of meeting her new parents to be, we didn’t get a chance out the ponytail holders in her elaborate hairstyle done by Casa de Maria, before she fell asleep. We did manage to get her PJ’s on. 🙂
Other fun photos from the last two weeks..
I am starting my third week in Medellin, Colombia. We have had our 11 month old daughter for two weeks as of yesterday. Jason flew back to Minnesota on Saturday and my mom is here staying with us now. We had our ICBF interview a week ago yesterday. I just found out we have our Sentencia appointment at the courthouse tomorrow at 11:00 am. Our guide is coming over later today to go over the details for our appointment tomorrow. Hopefully once it is completed I will be able to get online and proudly post dozen’s of pictures of our daughter Alyssa tomorrow night.
I am hoping to be able to travel to Bogotá soon. Most of our trip has consisted of a lot of waiting around the hotel. The hotel is wonderful but after over two weeks of seeing little more than the hotel grounds and Exito I am very ready to move on to Bogotá and start our journey home.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy Medellin and the Colombian people, it’s just really hard living in a hotel and having no place to put Alyssa for even a minute where we know she will be safe without having to watch her. She is bored with the hotel too.
She is very close to walking, it’s amazing the progress she has made in the last two weeks. She started by walking very wobbly holding our hands at a very slow pace and now she is still holding our hands to walk but she isn’t very wobbly at all and her pace has sped up greatly. It’s almost like we have to jog around the room to keep up with how fast she wants to walk. I don’t know what we would have possibly done the last few weeks in this hotel without Alyssa to entertain us and us to entertain her. She is my sanity. 🙂 I don’t know what we did before she came into our lives. 🙂
You can tell she misses Jason as the morning he left she woke up saying PAPA.. PAPA PAPA PAPA… looking all over for him. I’m not sure she knows Jason is PAPA specifically, it was probably a coincidence but it was really sweet and sad at the same time.
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Last Thursday we went on a sightseeing tour. We went to Via Lactea – web link below.
http://www.vialacteaparquetematico.com/
Along with 4 other families we got on a small mini bus at about 9:30am. It was a 3 hour and 15 minute ride. We picked up one family on the way and stopped for photo’s at one random side of the road spot along the way
Via Lactea is a mini (from what I have in MN) amusement park based around cows milk production. I think this would be a fun educational adventure grade school children. It has amazing photo opportunities of mountains and scenery that I could hardly believe that I was looking at reality and not some national geographic channel on television. Probably the best place to take photos anywhere.
It was a very cute place and everyone that worked there was very nice also. I think the distance of the trip was a bit much for Alyssa who is almost a toddler. There wasn’t much to do for someone her age (11 months). We started by showing her the cows up close. (Casa de Maria said Alyssa always pointed and smiled when the cows walked by outside the orphanage. So we THOUGHT she would love to see the cows)
Ten minutes into the trip, after a diaper change and a quick wet-wipe sponge bath, I had her in the Baby Bjorn and we walked up to the cows in their stalls. One cow moo’d and it was really loud. Alyssa was terrified and started hysterically crying (which hasn’t been her temperament previously) and as much as we tried to calm her she was very scared until we walked away from the cows.
Here is the sweet cow that started all the crying. I think she was just trying to say hello.
So we walked around a bit in the parking area as all there was at that area except for stalls with cows in them. Eventually they loaded us all up in this Moo Wagon (the horn is a cow mooing) luckily it didn’t sound much like a cow.
They brought us up a hill where the majority of the park was. Most of the park seemed to be closed and our group of approximately 15 people were the only ones in the park.
We had a very good lunch with an amazing view.
They have several options for adults or older children at the park.
You can either ride a horse for approximately $6.00 US (in pesos)
Ride a 4 wheeler for 35 minutes around the neighboring farms approx $14.00 U.S. (in pesos)
(They didn’t have any automatic 4 wheelers working at the time we were there)
or you can take a rip cord ride (is that the right term for it?) across the park down this hill for approx $20.00 U.S.
(Where they harness you onto this cable and give you one glove and push you down this long cord)
They also said they had a place for children to pet and feed animals. So that is what Alyssa, my mom, and I decided to do while Jason tried riding a horse for the first time. (He initially was going to go on the 4 wheeler but found out it was broken and decided to ride a horse instead)
I’m not sure why they said it was a place the children could pet and feed animals as there were no animals available for petting and there was no food to feed them. Maybe it was something lost in translation?
The zoo area was mostly various birds (chickens, ducks, a peacock etc), a few goats, a ostridge, and a couple sheep. Alyssa was interested but clung to me the entire time. Hopefully this will pass as we love going to the zoo. So we will keep trying. Plus we have a dog and a cat at home. She may need some time to get comfortable with animals up close.
At the end of the “Petting Zoo” there was a playground and a huge cow figure attached to a building. Inside the building was an educational presentation on milk production and cows. Alyssa was antsy and it was hot in there so we sat outside in the shade and shared a bottle of water while we waited for the rest of the group. The group walk around inside this cow building and from what I hear there was one of those ride simulators that took you on the journey to become milk. At the end of the ride the charge was $5.00 U.S. per person (in pesos).
While we waited we saw someone who worked there get an anxious call on his walky talky and he started running back through the park… We wondered what had happened.
The presentation either went on forever or maybe it was just too hot as it felt like hours while we waited for them to finish. Finally Jason came walking up the hill towards us with a funny grin on his face holding a beer.
He mentioned something about coming back from the first aid area and pulled up his pant leg and his sock was covered in blood. WHAT you wonder? Exactly my thought too.
Jason had an interesting first experience riding a horse in Colombia. After a short instruction on how to steer a horse (do they call it steering?) he rode around in an enclosed area for about 5 minutes. Then he was trying to turn and “The horse wasn’t following my instruction” is what Jason said. He rode the horse too close to a donkey tied up along the side and on the Donkey’s third attempt he managed to kick Jason in the shin – WHILE he was on HORSEBACK.
*****I’ll wait while you picture it and finish laughing. *****
Here is Jason and the Donkey that kicked him. I insisted on going back and taking a photo for Alyssa’s LifeBook of the Donkey and the horse involved so we could document the moment. They refunded Jason the $6 charge for the horse ride and gave him a free beer.
Here is the horse Jason was riding at the time the Donkey kicked him.
Luckily, Jason doesn’t have any broken bones. We left an hour or so after that and got back to the hotel at about 7pm. It was a very long day. Jason’s leg was very sore so we called the hospitals medical team, that is included in the room charge to come up and look at his leg. The InterContinental hotel is the best hotel with first class service in every way. They had a team of 2 medical staff, one of the Bellmen to translate, and a security guard all up to our room within 30 minutes. They did a very through exam of Jason’s leg. My mom is a Registered Nurse at a large hospital and she was also VERY Impressed by the hotels medical staff and the care and treatment they gave Jason. They cleaned up the wound, which I am shocked he didn’t need stitches, gave him a shot of something similar to Advil but much stronger to help with the swelling, and gave him a two prescriptions. (One was an antibiotic and the other was some cream for when he changed the dressing).
I filled his prescriptions at the hotels Drug Store. I dropped it off and they confirmed the price of approximately $50 U.S. was okay, then they said they would call me back when it arrived. About 20 minutes after we got back to the room we got the call that they were ready. They had the medications delivered via motorcycle from a local pharmacy. Talk about making it easy for us. Jason’s leg was very sore but he is recovering well. Even though Jason got hurt, we all laughed a lot (including him) on how he got hurt. Has anyone ever heard of anyone else being kicked by a donkey while riding a horse? It will be a good story for years to come.
When we got back to the hotel we were instructed to pay the driver $200,000 pesos (about $100 U.S.) for our 3 adults trip to and from the park. We were initially just told we were going sightseeing, I think if we had known it would be a couple hours each way and we were going to a cow farm, we would have probably skipped the trip. We did get some wonderful photo’s and a great story to share. Plus I got a nasty sunburn, I should have packed sunscreen, it just didn’t occur to me we may be outside all day long. 🙂
Here are a few more photo’s of our trip.
I’ve been meaning to post about the hotel for a while but haven’t gotten a chance. Alyssa is napping next to Jason so I have a bit of time this morning. 🙂
I haven’t taken many pictures of the hotel outside our room. The first one is a picture of Jason in front of the Bull Fighting ring (If we are understanding correctly) that is at the back of the hotel. We have yet to see any animals or events near this. But were told there were some famous bull fighters staying in the hotel a few days ago.
Our room has a large bedroom with a king size bed, nice size bathroom, living room, desk area, dining table, and very small kitchenette (comes with a few plates and basic cooking supplies – but no silverware)
The view out one of our 3 large windows. It’s very nice.
THE CRIB
This is the crib that they put in your room if you get the suite like we did. Since our daughter is 11 months tomorrow and almost walking there is no way this crib is anywhere near safe for a child that is climbing in any way shape or form. I have heard that the cribs were wobbly so I bought I couple small screwdrivers to tighten it. When we saw the condition of the crib we decided there was no way she could spend the night in it. It just feels like an accident waiting to happen. We only use the crib for her naps, once she is fully asleep and we are in the same room watching her. When she sits in it her head is slightly above the railing. Also the drop side rail had a latch that faces the inside of the crib. Picture below. Many couples with younger children have been able to use this crib by tightening it and putting pillows or wrapping sheets between the slats as the openings are also way to large.
We went looking for a Pack n Play at Exito and a couple other stores but the ones we found were HUGE deluxe sets and were at least $150 U.S. Since we already have one at home and have heard some people have been given a lot of grief about getting these through airport security we decided not to buy one. This is what we did instead, which has been working okay for us but unknown if it would work for everyone.
We put the straight-backed kitchen chairs against my side of the bed. The back of the chair against the bed – so it’s kinda like a bed-rail. Then we take that long green decorative pillow that is on our bed and lay on the bed against the chair backs. We put the extra pillows we are not using on the other side of the chair resting on the seat.
To recap – we take 3 kitchen chairs and push them tightly against one side of the bed and prop pillows on them.
Alyssa sleeps next to me and that line of chairs and pillows. I am an extremely light sleeper, so every time she turns over (which she does a lot) I can monitor her. So far this has worked out really well for us. The only worry I have is getting home and having her transition to her crib and out of our bed. Which I can only assume will be a challenge, but we feel it’s worth it for the piece of mind she isn’t crawling out of this crib at night. (There is no way to lower the mattress – FYI)
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About the Hotel
After a few days at the hotel almost all of the main hotel staff knows your name. Which is REALLY nice. They are very formal here so they know us as the Tucker Family or Mrs/Mr Tucker. I would prefer Amy over Mrs. T. any day but it’s hard to try to explain that to someone who doesn’t speak the same language and formal greetings tend to be how it works here.
The hotel staff is wonderfully friendly and accommodating. Everyone greets our daughter every time they see her and she gives them a big smile. They do this with all the families and children and it makes it feel a lot more like a home then just a hotel at times which is nice when you are away from friends and family for so long. I’m sure it would be even better if we spoke spanish but we tend to manage without. A couple of the waiters speak English which is nice also, but at this point not really needed. At first it felt very intimidating as we didn’t know where to go or what to do, and had a hard time communicating to ask how things work. But it is much better now.
If you stay at the Intercontinental Hotel in Medellin here are a few words of advice.
~ LOCK your door whenever you are in your room. The hotel staff, ALL OF THEM, are as sweet as can be, but it’s not like the hotels I am used to in the U.S. where all the random housekeeping and hotel staff knock on your door to see if you are in your room before entering your room. About 3-4 times a day either the housekeeper, minibar checker guy, sweet lady that brings chocolates for your pillows, or the reporting woman (who makes sure you only have as many people as you are paying for) swipe their card in your door and will just walk in your room. Unless they see you are in there, then they will walk back out and wait for you to greet them. This has been a major annoyance to us as we kept feeling like someone was breaking into our room, until we got in the habit of locking our door EVERY TIME we are in the room. Even then you hear their keycard try to open your door, but it’s not as bad. All the hotel staff are very kind, so I’m sure they don’t realize we considered it rude for them to just walk into our room. I’m not sure if this is something that just happens at this hotel or all thought Colombia.
~ Included in most of the room charges is a breakfast buffet. They didn’t tell us anything about it or where it was when we checked in. So we didn’t know if it was actually part of our room charge. The first day we ordered room service the night before to be delivered, but once we found the breakfast buffet we haven’t ordered breakfast in the room since. The breakfast buffet was also much better than the breakfast room service.
It is open until 10am. To find it you go to the basement level (BA) same as the pool. Walk out of the elevator and follow to your right and you will find the breakfast room. Just walk in and give them your room number. Then grab a plate and dish up. You can sit anywhere you like, and they have about half a dozen tables set-up outside too. They walk around and serve you coffee and milk, but otherwise it’s a wonderful breakfast with about 6 fresh squeezed exotic juices a day. Fresh fruit, (either pancakes, waffles, or french toast) eggs, meat, cheeses, and at the end of the buffet you can get them to make you an omelet or fried eggs or more. Haven’t needed that yet as we have been happy with what they had out. They also have great yogurt that is more of a milkshake consistency.
There isn’t a bill for the meal you can just leave when you are done. I haven’t seen anyone else leave a tip yet, but we usually leave at least a couple dollars as our sweet little girl is a very messy eater and we are still trying to figure out how to minimize it. I believe I have heard the breakfast buffet would be $13 U.S. per person if not covered in your room fee.
Whoops, nap time is over! Gotta run.
Today at 2pm Gloria is coming to take us to a Museum and then later tonight my mom is arriving in Medellin to meet her first grandchild. Thursday our guide Gloria has arranged a minibus sightseeing tour with us and 2-3 other families. We can’t wait. It will be a busy few days. 🙂
Best Wishes Everyone!
Good morning from Medellin,
Time for an update. 🙂
Monday 2/15/10, we had our ICBF meeting at Casa de Maria. I am told this meeting is usually 1 week after you receive the placement of your child. Which it was exactly one week for us.
We were notified late Sunday that we had a meeting at 8:30am at Casa de Maria with the ICBF social works. So we had to be ready in front of the hotel at 8:15am to be picked up.
We have been getting more efficient each day with getting up, getting ready, getting downstairs for breakfast, and feeding Alyssa. The first day it took us almost 2 hours to get out of the house. Now we can do it in an hour or slightly more without much stress. Still getting all ready, finishing breakfast, and downstairs at 8:15am was quite a challenge. We had to actually wake her up early and get her in the bath, which wasn’t the peaceful start to the day we have had each morning yet. The first few days we had her she woke up startled, as you can imagine and started crying. Eventually she started awaking slowly and peacefully and just wanted to snuggle in the mornings. Which has been very nice. Getting her up at 6am to get ready was a challenge but we survived it well.
Anyways, back to the ICBF interview.
We made it to Casa de Maria right on time, then waited for our guide Gloria to arrive, she had a conflict that morning so she sent a substitute driver to pick us up. We sat in the waiting area and the staff smiled and coo’d over Alyssa and were happy to see her again. She smiled when she saw them too. 🙂
I believe Gloria met with the ICBF staff first, as she walked in back and told us to wait, then came out 20 minutes later and ushered us back into the same room we were presented her in a week before. Gloria translated for the the meeting. We met with two other people. One was as very kind man who has an office across from the presentation room (not sure what the actual term for it is) who had been there went we met our daughter. He is a doctor of some sort, and another woman who was very kind also that we hadn’t met before that was a social worker. Some of the introductions were sadly lost in translation. I’m not sure who was exactly with the ICBF, maybe both? Also we had no clue what to expect for this meeting.
They started by asking our experience with our daughter so far. We told them how it had been wonderful and how she bonded with me first than Jason. We also spoke a little about her personality we saw coming through more each day. I’m sure a lot of what we said and what was asked was also lost in translation.
Then they asked us if we were prepared for her. We weren’t really sure exactly what they meant when they asked prepared. So we started by saying yes, and how we have her room set and ready back in the U.S. They didn’t seem satisfied with that answer and asked us the same exact question again. So we said yes, that we were prepared for her as a child and we knew how to take care of her and we had taken additional child/baby classes to help us prepare in addition to the classes required by our adoption agency. We also went on to say how we have family in the medical field and friends and family with small children so we had a lot of resources should we need help.
They talked a lot about our answers and our focus went back to Alyssa as they spoke in Spanish. I was hoping our answers were okay, but cheesy as it is they faded away as we played with our baby girl and waited for the next question.
Eventually they started talking to us again and asked to take a picture of all us of together and said they could tell she was happy and that she would need a lot of love. They congratulated us and left us with Gloria. Gloria said the interview went very well and they would write favorable reviews of the visit. So now we have to wait for the judge and Sentencia (adoption finalization in Colombia). Unknown if this will take a couple days or a week or so.
Gloria said she will let us know when we have our next appointment. After the appointment we went to the courthouse again (the notary) which isn’t anything like any courthouse I have seen in the U.S. It looks like it was the upstairs of a house converted into a legal building. You pull down this tight alleyway and there is a man there to help you find a parking spot as it has very limited parking. Then you walk up these stairs in the back of a building which is the courthouse. They had a sit in a meeting room right when you walk in and Gloria ran to the front desks to get us paperwork. Jason isn’t planning on staying the entire time and will be going back to Minnesota this weekend. So they put together what I believe is the equivalent of a Power of attorney. Which will allow Alyssa to leave Colombia with just me and not Jason. I think they charged us about $6 U.S. (given in Pesos) to complete this and we were there for about 45 minutes.
After we left the courthouse, we went to Exito to get passport photo’s of Alyssa taken. This way when they give us the okay to get her passport we are ready. It was this tiny photo booth and Alyssa squirmed a lot. So it took a while to get an appropriate photo of her. Eventually it worked out and I believe it was about $3 U.S. (given in Pesos).
We also stopped at the local well-known laundry facility called Clean and Clean. We brought with us one of those large inexpensive mesh laundry bags from the U.S. It was almost full of laundry which was the majority of the clothing we brought with us. My understanding is they charge per pound not per item which makes it a much more economical way to do laundry. From what we hear the hotel laundry service is insanely expensive, about half a load of laundry costs about $50 U.S. We probably had 2 loads of laundry in our bag and it cost us about $30 U.S. (given in pesos). That charge includes; washing, drying, and delivery back to the hotel. We dropped it off at about 10am and they said that we should get it either after 6pm the same day or first thing the next morning…. the laundry arrived the next day at about 6pm, one of the hotel staff brought it up. We are not sure if they delivered the laundry to the hotel at some point and they just got it up to us or if Clean and Clean didn’t deliver it until late the next day. But we were very happy to have our full wardrobes available again.
Gloria dropped us off and said she had to get something done with the Notary/Power of Attorney document and she would get it to us the next day, Tuesday, and that she would take us out to the mall or somewhere that afternoon once she was done with a morning appointment with another couple.
We went back to the hotel and gave Alyssa some lunch, baby soup, which is basically a pureed vegetable soup that Casa de Maria feeds children her age twice a day. The hotel’s restaurant has something similar that you can order for about $6. U.S. a bowl. We purchased some small bowls to bring the restaurant with us as she never eats a full bowl of soup and we hate to waste it when we could reheat it for her later in the day. It also saves money. 🙂
We have been in Colombia just over a week. Last Sunday we didn’t do anything but try to recover from all the travelling, so we didn’t know that EVERYTHING seems to be closed in Medellin on Sundays.
We started out the day with the breakfast buffet that comes with our room charge as we do every day. Our daughter eats VERY slowly so we are always in the breakfast room longer than most people. We decided at breakfast to go back to the mall today and maybe buy some clothes for us and look around some more.
So we walk out the front and a very nice attendant, concierge person, not sure the technical term. Greeted us with a big smile. After you are here for a couple days it seems the main hotel staff know exactly who you are and are always saying good morning and hello. Which is very nice, since we are spending so much time in the hotel. We told him we were headed back out to the mall and he recommended we try a different mall which is also only 5 minutes away called De Soto. So he flagged the next taxi and advised them where we were going. It was only another 5 minute ride and about a $3 fare price or so. The mall was much larger than the San Diego mall we were at yesterday and had more trendy stores. But there was one problem…. the mall is closed on Sundays. It is open so you can walk around and window shop, and it appears that the small restaurants, like a Burger King were open, but all the stores were closed. Surprisingly there were quite a lot of people still walking around. Eventually we found our way back out of the mall after window shopping for about 30 minutes and got back in a taxi to our hotel. It was nice to get out for a while, even if it was just to mall walk and window shop. Alyssa slept the entire time we were at the mall in the Baby Bjorn. Now that I think about it, it may have been fun to take a few pictures of us at the mall with all the stores closed, but I didn’t. 🙂
So we bought a couple pastry type items for lunch at this wonderful pastry shop in the lobby and sat outside for a while. It has been a lot cooler today, maybe 65ish, and was very lightly sprinkling, but that still didn’t stop several people from swimming in the pool, or playing tennis in the rain.
Shortly after we got back to the room we got a call from our guide Gloria. Tomorrow she will pick us up at 845 for our interview with the ICBF. Not sure what that entirely entails but I can only assume we should dress up for it. We got a call later saying to be ready at 815am as our appointment was at 830am.
Taking a quick break to update our blog.
Here are a few random things about Medellin, Colombia.
They do not have Diet Coke…. The word diet as far as I can tell doesn’t exist here. They do have Coca~Cola Light.. Which is Diet Coke in the U.S. Or Sprite/7-up light. We started purchasing these large 2 liter bottles from Exito (the Walmart type store) for about $2.00 U.S. for our room. Which saves a lot of peso’s instead of going to a restaurant or buying a single glass bottle from the minibar every time you are thirsty for $2.00 U.S. each.
Exito seems to be everywhere and the store people go to. We have now been there 3 times in the week we have been in Colombia. Twice on purpose and once was a miscommunication with our guide. Yesterday, we called our guide and asked to go shopping as we wanted to get out of the hotel and go to a mall. So she arranged a time to pick us up and we were all excited to be out in Colombia and see some of everyday life. Then we pulled into the same Exito parking lot we had been to two days before. I guess the word Mall maybe doesn’t exist here? She just thought we wanted to go shopping, so like Target or Walmart Exito has everything. Jason and I just smiled at each other and did a bit more shopping and got Alyssa a pair of Bubblegum sandals which I guess are a big deal here.
Today we started speaking with a very nice Dutch couple that doesn’t speak much Spanish either. It was wonderful to be able to have a conversation in English and know they understood everything. They advised us that you can take a tax just outside the hotel, there is always a line of them, and say “San Diego Por favor” and they would take you to a shopping mall that is only 5 minutes away from our hotel (Intercontinetal Hotel). We were so excited as we have only seen a grocery store, small courthouse building, and Exito since we got here a week ago.
So we all decided to go to the mall right after breakfast. It couldn’t be easier. The local mall is called San Diego and all the taxi drivers know it but most don’t speak any English. It was a short ride and the taxi fare was only $3 – $3.50 U.S. (gave them the equivalent in pesos) each way plus tip. Once we gave $4 and once $5 and both taxi drivers looked very pleased with us. We walked a bit around the mall but spent most of our time in one large shop right by the taxi stand (when you leave take a taxi only from the Taxi stand. There is a sign and a security guard at the stand with a line of taxes. I have heard you should ONLY tax the regulated taxis at the Taxi stands.
The mall was nice and we had lunch at a crêpe and waffles restaurant. There is a mini amusement park called “Happy City” in the center of the mall area. It had 3 main rides for small children (3-8 years olds) and I believe it costed about $1 U.S. per ride.
These are our mall purchases today, 2 shirts and a pair of shorts for Alyssa, they had a lot of sales and some pretty good prices for things that were not U.S. products. These clothes were 60% discounted and totaled about $13 for all 3 pieces. We spent a lot of time at Falabello were we bought these. The kids clothes are upstairs.
This is how the price tags look. The exchange rate changes everyday, yesterdays was about 1700 pesos per U.S. dollar. It’s usually about 1900-2100 pesos to U.S. dollar. So if you divide everything by 2000 you get a pretty good idea of the price in U.S. dollars. This shirt was also 60% off. Most prices here have a period where we would put a common which is rather hard to get use to.
We have also learned that people do not like to take U.S. dollars in most of the stores. I believe calculating the exact exchange rate for that day to figure out change is just to difficult. I hear you can get pesos anywhere but we got them at a bank at Exito (of course!). They need your passport and it took a while but we exchanged cash for pesos there and it worked well. Most places will take Visa’s but I have seen the machines to accept the cards not work in a couple places so they would need cash.
There is so much to say about our visit and Medellin… Where to start…
We haven’t done much since we received our daughter on Monday afternoon. We are suppose to go back and have a tour of Casa de Maria any day now. But I did snap some photos of the outside of the building.
When we drove up we walked up and their were children playing ball, they all looked at us very curiously and welcomed Gloria (our guide) with hugs. They were all very sweet and the one little boy came up next to me and held my hand in his and wrapped his other hand around mine too and looked up at me with these sad hopeful eyes. I wanted to pick him up and hug him and whisper how his Mami and Papi would find him soon too… (I couldn’t because I do not speak Spanish, had no clue how Casa de Maria would feel about me hugging and holding other children, and I didn’t want to give him false hope that he would be leaving with us also.) I wished I could have been his Mami also in that moment… But as everyone knows that’s not how adoption works. You don’t go to an orphanage and say, he’s cute and sweet, can we take him too? So many other things to consider. I hope he finds his forever family soon as he has a very tender heart and is so sweet.
We walked up the stairs and went to the building on the left hand side, we sat in their waiting area for about 20 minutes or so as everyone walked by and peeked in to see the new parents to be. They copied our passports and we waited for the director to be ready for us. I snapped a picture of this little doll hanging from a doorknob. She was just calling me to take her photo.
I believe my earlier post told about our meeting and when we got to meet our daughter.
While we waited for them to bring her in we snapped a picture of us. The room they present your child in is full of pictures of other children and you can look out the window and see someone walking by with a cow every once in a while. Not something you would normally see in a meeting, but I thought it was fun.
Here is a teaser photo of our daughter – I will post tons of photos of her once we get Sentencia (which maybe any day now).
Once we left Casa de Maria we jumped in the car and went to Exito (large store that sells everything, very much like a Walmart/Target). We bought her formula, baby food, another pair of shoes, and another outfit.
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Driving in Medellin
I would never rent a car and try to drive here. The driving style is unlike anything I have ever seen, even when I have driven through NYC or Vegas… NYC driving is easy and relaxed compared to Medellin. From what I hear there are hardly any car accidents here. Much like Las Vegas cars have the right of way not pedestrians. So be very careful if you want to walk across the street. Everyone has small compact cars and/or motorcycles. The lines in the road seem to be only a suggestion as everyone drives anywhere they want and around anyone they want in any way then can, it reminded me of being a kid at a go-cart park, where there was little structure to how the kids drove, but somehow they made it around the track enact. The motorcycles weave in and out between cars sometimes bumping the mirrors on the sides of cars (just barely but I saw it happen). What we would call cutting someone off in the U.S. is just how driving works in Medellin. Even with all this chaos on the road, not all cars have working seatbelts and they do not use car seats. So you just hold your child and plant you feet firmly on the floor and discretely pray.
Saying all this you would think I was saying the people of Medellin are bad drivers, but actually I think it is just the opposite. They can easily drive through traffic like this, talk on the phone or text, and the commute is pretty smooth. I don’t know how they learned to drive this way, but for this city it works really well. I know find it pretty entertaining.
I’m sorry I haven’t been able to post until now. Our daughter, Alyssa is doing VERY well. Since about 3-5 hours after we met her she wouldn’t allow me to do anything, and I mean ANYTHING unless I was holding her. So, trying to type an email or update the blog has been an impossible feat with an 11 month old on your lap slapping the keyboard.
***Currently, Alyssa and Papa are snuggling and taking a nap***
Yesterday we saw a huge difference in her bonding with Jason. She laughs and giggles while he makes funny faces at her, or spins this blow-up beachball on his finger while he whistles the globetrotter theme song (which she tries to mimic). She has definitely found her Papa to be a great playmate, and finally she is starting to look to him to hold and snuggle her too, which she wouldn’t allow before. I say “finally” but it has only been 4 days, so in the realm of bonding I still think that she is bonding very quickly. Although I really think Jason felt left out until yesterday as she would SCREAM like someone had removed a limb when I was 5 feet away from her and he was holding her.
She is almost walking now. Actually she can walk if you hold her hands. It’s all she wants to do (that, and stand up and fall back on her bum on the bed and giggle). I would be surprised if she didn’t take her first steps in the next few weeks. She is still wobbly, but very determined and her legs are definitely strong enough to support her. She is working on learning how to balance now.
It has been a rollercoaster of a day. In the end know that it all worked out and we have our sweet baby girl that I am watching as she sleeps and snores like a little purring kitten right now. We are overjoyed.
It is a VERY long story…. but I will try to make it shorter. Anyone who has spent 5 minutes reading any of my posts knows I’m long winded. Sorry in advance. 🙂
We had been advised late last night that we should go to breakfast at 8am all dressed and ready to pick up our daughter afterward (around 9:30am). We got up early all excited and were ready to get our baby girl as we walked to the door at exactly 8am to go to breakfast when the phone rang.
Jason answered it and it was the director of our orphanage apologizing profusely but saying that they found out a new regulation had just gone into effect on Friday afternoon which required our lawyer to be present for all first meetings and our lawyer wasn’t available so our presentation date would have to be delayed until sometime on Wednesday…. Jason relayed this to me on the phone and as you can imagine I was beyond upset. Granted it would have only been two more days but when you think you are finally going to meet the child you have wanted since you were a child yourself and you are just an hour or so away from meeting her… being told 2 more days feels like a lifetime. To say I cried would be putting it mildly. I’m not normally a crier, either. We were told someone would contact us in the next day or so about a court appointment we could do before we got our daughter and we should wait by the phone as they would give us 2-3 hours notice…
I wrote out a couple emails to our local agency reps in MN. We weren’t very happy at the time.
We collected ourselves and with red swollen eyes we went downstairs to breakfast… Feeling like idiots for being so excited for the few hours beforehand.
We had a very sad breakfast and I tried very hard not to break into tears every time we saw another family with children walk by. We kept reminding each other that it was only 2 more days, it wasn’t like it wasn’t going to happen. We just had to be patient. Emotions were running high. We tried to stay positive.
Finally breakfast was over and we slowly started walking out of the hotel’s breakfast room. There was a server at the door on the phone with someone and he stopped us.
He said “You couple?”
I said “Si” (We only know a few spanish words)
“Baby?” he asked
Jason and I looked at each other confused…
“Adopcion” he said, or something similar to that.
“Si” Jason and I both repeated…
He handed the phone to me. It was the director at our orphanage. Somehow they fixed the problem and had set us up with an appointment at 2:30pm for today. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing… Was I misunderstanding? “So we get to meet her today?” Jason looked really confused. She said yes that they were still working on some of the paperwork so we may have to go back but yes. We would get to meet her at 2:30 and take her back to the hotel with us. Everything that was set for this morning ended up just getting pushed back until the afternoon instead of cancelled the way we were initially told… I was shocked and had to confirm with her 2 or 3 times… I kept thinking I wasn’t understanding her correctly. But she confirmed over and over.. that yes, we would get our daughter today. I nodded to Jason and he heard me confirm… He looked just as confused as I was, but he beamed with this huge smile. I wanted to start just sobbing in the middle of the breakfast area – I was so happy. What is it about having a child that makes you want to cry? Not sure, but as long as she is happy I am okay with it. 🙂
We hung up and the server was standing behind us with inquiring eyes.. I gave him a thumbs up and smiled big…he nodded and smiled too, understanding that we had just received good news.
We practically skipped upstairs to kill five hours before we would meet our daughter. I almost finished reading a book and Jason tried to get some work done… It was hard to concentrate, but finally 2pm came around and we ran downstairs.
We met our guide in the lobby and she took us to our orphanage, Casa de Maria, it is in the middle of a city but like most of Colombia that we have seen it is full of exotic-looking trees and feels very tropical.
We waited around while they copied our passports and everyone walked by and congratulated us.
We met with the director who was very friendly and we reviewed all our daughter’s information and received some additional information that we hadn’t heard prior to that visit. She is very healthy. 🙂 and they claim she crawls so fast it’s almost like she is running. (We haven’t seen this yet) She is also almost walking.
They give you a very strict schedule to follow full of food, bottles, naps, bath schedule, how much of what and when… Plus that she sleeps with light baby style music on.. which I am guessing all the babies in her age group do the same.
Then finally, we got to meet her. They brought her in and the first thing I saw was her cute head of hair done up all pretty, then she looked up at us with those dark beautiful eyes I had been staring at in her referral photo for almost 2 months. Wow had she grown since then… I didn’t realize how big she would be.
I held her and she was okay with it but her big eyes were scouting everything out in the room. She wasn’t so curious about us but kept pointing to the photos of all the other children on the walls, so we took a walk to the walls and looked at all the photos together. Everyone kept saying it’s Mami and Papi, but I don’t think she had any clue or really cared who we were. She was interested in all the excitement outside the room.
Eventually she started actually looking at us and started getting curious. She squirmed a lot! We could tell she was confused, which of course, two people you have never seen before are holding you and everyone you knows walks out of the room. These people don’t speak the same way you are used to hearing words or hold you the way the people left the room know you like to be held. Poor little baby girl, I can’t imagine how hard and scary that must be for a child. She didn’t really cry much, her eyes didn’t lie…she is a brave little girl. It took about 30 minutes or so before I think she started feeling comfortable with me. But once it began she bonded with me quickly. An hour or so later she only wanted me to hold her. and would whine and fuss when Jason would pick her up. They say that is common for the child to bond with one parent first and then the other. She is very curious about Jason and likes him not to be too far away. I think they will be bonded in the next few days.
Before we left they brought in two little boys and explained that they wanted to say goodbye because the younger of the two boys (the one who grabbed my hand really hard when I first got there) thought that we were there to adopt him instead. I think the other boy was just curious to see who had come to his orphanage. It was obvious that the younger boy had been crying, and it just broke our hearts to have to leave him behind like that. Hopefully someone comes by soon for him, someone who is open to adopting an older child around 5 years old.
There is so much more to tell and it’s getting later, so I will try to update more tomorrow.
Good night everyone 🙂
The last 24/48 hours have been a blur. Probably since I slept about an hour after we got to our hotel and two hours last night…
We arrived at the airport about 2.5 hours before our flight which was about 3:15am cdt. There were two other groups ahead of us in line. The airport terminal was pretty much shut down. Security personnel eventually showed up and the airline representatives showed up at 4am to check everyone in. At 4am suddenly our short line of a handful of people was about 100 people long. So everyone but us must have known they didn’t open the airline desks until 4am. It is good we got there early so we were at the front of the line.
We have 3 large suitcases totalling about 140 lbs. Plus we each had a carry-on bag. The luggage scale I ended up buying was 100% correct and very helpful. Without it we could have easily been over the 50 lb weight limit on one of our bags. (We got it at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for $19.99)
Our flight to our layover in Miami was packed and somehow I didn’t have a seat number issued at the time the tickets were purchased. So Jason and I didn’t sit together, we each crammed in a center seat about 10 rows apart. I watched almost 4 episodes of Dead Like Me (love that show) on our portable DVD player and Jason chatted up a nice guy that sat next to him and walked up to say hi to me once or twice.
Our layover in Miami was technically only 45 minutes but the plane we were supposed to leave on came in about 30 minutes late so our flight was slightly delayed. Honestly, it was nice to have a break and be able to walk around. Jason grabbed us some mini pizza’s for lunch that were AWESOME. To our surprise they actually served us a light lunch on the flight (for free). It was an excellent taco type salad thing. Very surprising for free airline food. We got very luck and our flight from Miami to Medellin wasn’t booked so we were able to stretch since the seat next to us was empty. The flight to Medellin was VERY bumpy, but shortly before they announced we were starting our departure we crossed over the most beautiful mountains. I wish I could have taken photographs of them, but photo’s our airplane windows never turn out, so I didn’t try.
When you get off the plane they take everyone through the immigration desks. We were in line for about 30 minutes which I didn’t think was that bad. When the immigration rep looked at our passports and Visas he looked really confused. Everyone else breezed through in 30 seconds but we were at the desk for what felt like 20 minutes, but in reality was probably 5-7 minutes.
It is a lot harder not being able to speaking the language than I thought it would be. It’s very intimidating trying to figure out what to do in the immigration/baggage lines with no assistance and when you cannot read the signs. We found our way to our bags by just following everyone ahead of us, someone had actually pulled all our bags off the conveyor belt and put them together for us. We are guessing it was someone who worked there since we were the last ones to get our bags. Then we stood in line as we went through security and our bags were x-rayed again (another 20 minutes).
By the way right after you leave the immigration desk there is a stand that you can get a luggage cart for $2, no signs that say this but a woman was kind enough to tell us. We didn’t get one but almost everyone else did.
At the other end of security, without asking, a man put our bags on one of those charts and gestured for us to go with him. I had heard that people swarm you to offer to take your bags, but I had no idea they would just grab them and start walking telling you to come with. I have heard that you should tip them $1 a bag and we did at the end.
We walked out the main door and our driver was there and we were off to the hotel. The driving in Colombia is completely different than the U.S. Everyone drives really fast, crosses over the lines, passes cars and motorcycles within inches, yet it’s still a very smooth drive. I can’t imagine what driver’s education must be like for people here.
We checked into the hotel and we went to our room… I had heard before that people say the bed’s here are way to hard and they are not kidding. Previously people have told me you can tell them the bed is too hard and they will take duvet covers over the mattress and put a fitted sheet over it and that helps a lot.
Currently at 10:48pm we have called twice in the last hour asking someone to come up and do that to our bed, no one has shown up. Our TV also wasn’t working, but a repair guy came in and that is back up an running. Debating on just going to bed, as my eyes keep almost closing, but I am afraid they are going to come knocking at the door eventually. They initially said someone would be up in a couple minutes – that was an hour ago. We may have to deal with the hard mattress (imagine plywood with a sleeping bag on top of it) for tonight and see if we can get housekeeping to help us with it tomorrow, or maybe I will just request a bunch of extra blankets and figure it out tomorrow on my own.
We ventured out and found dinner at the great restaurant in our hotel called Fogon de Piedra. I have spoken to several people that have eaten there and they loved it. We ordered a hot stone meal. It was AMAZING! They give you seasoned raw meat, cooked vegetables, this sizzling hot stone in the center to cook the meat on. We loved it and decided we will have to go back several times in the weeks to come. Also for approx $14/person it was a great deal for what felt like not just a meal, but an adventure. We were very full when we left. It is true what everyone says that in Colombia everyone does everything at their own pace. (Like the TV and bed issue earlier) It is so unlike eating anywhere in the U.S. where they are worried about turning tables to make bigger profits. They seem more concerned that you really enjoyed your time relaxing and eating your meal. About 30 minutes after we were obviously long done eating (plates gone, drinks empty) we flagged someone down to get our bill… which they had in another 5 minutes, but gave it too us and stood at a distance and waited for us to flag them down again that we were ready to pay. It is such a more relaxing way to live, its hard to get use too… Of course, this is just day one for us.
You can tell I have to hold my head up as I am just way to tired. 🙂
Tomorrow we are supposed to get a call at some point letting us know when and what the plan will be on Monday to meet our daughter. 🙂
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