The Real Embassy Day

February 24- Tuesday
This was really the Embassy day.
We spent the morning trying to pack up suitcases. The kids played computer games. Keith went and got a phone card so we could call the Elder and Sister Thatcher to see if they wanted our Internet stick. We took the kids to McDonalds for lunch, mainly to get out of the flat.
Sasha picked us up at 1:30. And back to the Embassy. There was almost no one there.
The lady said still couldn’t get our I-600a. We had to authorize the Yakima office to release it to the Embassy/ Consulate. Apparently the Yakima office had called us this morning but couldn’t get through. (For some reason our phone turns of sometimes, this is apparently what happened). Now with the time change we wouldn’t be able to get a hold of them until tomorrow, which means no Visas today. They (the Embassy) would still do our interview and do everything for their part, but no Visas until they have that I-600a. After all that trouble getting airplane tickets, now we won’t be able to use them. Needless to say we were just sick. Another $2100 to change our tickets and we probably won’t even be able to get them until next week.
We waited for the interview in a room with 2 other families who were adopting. One was from North Carolina and it was a second marriage for both of them, first child for him and she had a 21 year old. They were adopting a 2.5 year old boy. The other couple had an interesting story. He was from Texas, she was from Chile. They lived in Cyprus. He works for World Vision. They were also adopting a young boy, Ignacio.
While we were waiting Elijah got his hand burned. They had a few toys there for kids to play with but mostly for toddlers. More interestingly they had a water cooler there that also heated the water. Somehow in trying to entertain themselves the girls had pushed the hot water button and it poured on his fingers. We sat that whole interview with his hand in cold water, which we frequently changed.
The Embassy worker came in and we all went through the paperwork in each of our folders together. They had to wait for us at each point because we had four sets. At one point the father from North Carolina asked about his language ability. He answered that he lived for a couple years in Russia. Ha, could that be an RM??? He jokingly said that we would have to sign a paper saying we wouldn’t let our girls go to University of Utah. Definitely an RM!
It was really hard at the end of that session to hear him tell the other couples that their Visas only need to be printed and would be ready in a half an hour. He came to us and had us fill out an internal memo to send to the Yakima office requesting our approved I-600a. We explained our situation; we have airline tickets for the morning, it was extremely hard getting them, it would probably be until next week before we could do so again, and it would cost a boatload of money to change them. We usually aren’t that “talkative,” but we were really to the breaking point. He took our paper and after a few minutes came back and said, “We will issue your visas. It will take a little bit longer today because we have to write a memo explaining all that.” Hey, I’ll stay all day if I can go home tomorrow. It would still be up to Homeland Security to accept the memo and extra paperwork to let us in but we could get our Visas. I couldn’t help it, I cried. I cried and cried. I couldn’t help it. Doors were definitely opened for us!! I sat there running over in my mind the major instances that doors had been opened for us through this whole adoption process, there have been so many; meeting the missionaries on the train to Khmelinetsky (that were only passing through that area), being able to get tickets, all the places we stayed, connecting with the girls themselves. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Why would little old us get such Royal treatment?!?!
After that whole experience (we were there for 3 hours), we called the Elders and had them ask Sasha if he could take us to the Mission home to drop of the Internet stick for the Thatchers to get. It took a while to find it. Elijah cried most of the time. His fingers were really burned and he also needed a diaper change. Ryah was also cranky (I guess we all were but those two couldn’t contain it) Sasha finally found the Mission home and we dropped off. I can’t remember who but someone called Kostya and we had him ask Sasha if he would buy something for Elijah’s burn at the Apteka (drugstore). He did and it made Elijah yell louder. Sasha was very patient with us the whole time. We, through Kristina and sign language, asked him to take us to a bigger grocery store so we could get diapers—we were out. It was 2 more hours after the Embassy before we finally got back to the flat. Everyone was VERY grateful to get out of the car. We packed and ate McDonalds. Keith got 2 of everything so we could eat that for breakfast as well. We finally got the kids to bed at 10:00 and we finished packing and searched for any lost items. We got to bed a couple hours later.