Four Feet More

I'm not quite sure what the international adoption community calls the day when they first met their adoptive child, but "Metcha Day" is my own personal twist on "Gotcha Day."

For Jeff and I, the day when we first met Vika and Eamon is almost a more important date than the day when our adoption was finally completed. Seeing our kids for the first time was probably the happiest event in my life. I'll never forget the joy I felt when Eamon (called Kolya at the time) first walked into the visiting room at the orphanage, eyeing us with caution and uncertainty. He was so small for a three year old, and walked kind of funny in his blue orthopedic boots. He wore those boots with yellow tights and a pair of brown shorts that had a strange stain on the bottom (I don't want to speculate too much on what might have caused that stain!). He was incredibly shy, although we did play ball with him and listened to him name just about every toy in the room. By the end of our visit, we had him laughing and he said he wouldn't mind seeing us again the next day.

The meeting with Vika was just as happy an occasion. She walked into the Direktor's office, wearing two green pom-poms on her head, and proceeded to hide behind the desk, peering at us over a stack of papers. The first 10 minutes of the visit, all we saw of her were those dark brown eyes and green pom-poms peeking at us from behind the safety of the desk. Then Yuri, our coordinator, gave her some chocolate and the Direktor, Tatiana treated us all to tea and cookies. After tea time (and a lot of chocolate), Vika definitely warmed up! She began playing so much that we moved out to the gym, where she hopped around on a bouncy-bounce, swam in a "swimming pool" filled with colored balls, and fell numerous times in her playful excitement. After that visit, Jeff and I began referring to her as the "V-bomb." We learned very early on what sugar and caffeine would do to our child!

So many thoughts were going through our heads after that first visit, but the overwhelming feeling that I remember was a joyful giddiness. We were finally in Russia, meeting our children, and it would not be long before our family was complete.

Here's the video montage I made from our first trip to Russia. The song is a bit cheesy, I know, but it seemed appropriate at the time. After all that waiting and waiting, I couldn't believe we were finally there! By the way, during Trip 1, all we saw of Moscow was basically the airport and the Novotel Hotel. Our Red Square sightseeing was reserved for Trip 2, so sadly, St. Basil's does not make an appearance in this video. However, a reindeer does. It is towards the end, on the streets of Murmansk. I hope you enjoy the video, and that it doesn't skip too much on play-back (waiting for the entire thing to load before playing may help).