Day 6- Meeting Danilo!

We arrived at 6:20am, and shortly after the train stopped, a man appeared in our doorway and started helping us with our luggage.  Turns out, he is Valentin (one of our team members here) and Tatiana was waiting for us on the platform.  They are wonderful and made us feel completely comfortable.

Tatiana is our lawyer and Valentin does the driving.  They are fantastic about taking care of everything that we need.  They dropped us off at our new apartment (which is a total upgrade for the same price!) and we had a chance to take showers and grab granola bars (and coffee for me) before they picked us up to go to the orphanage.

This is when the story goes in fast forward.  Last night we were in K***, this morning we are in Danil's city, and by 11am we were at his orphanage!!!

The orphanage is about 25 minutes away, and pretty rural.  There are lots of trees, quite a few little brick buildings, and wildflowers all over the place.  I recognized it from some of the pictures on other families' blogs, so it was such a rush to see the familiar fence and know that we were close.  Tatiana and Valentin know Danil very well, so they were able to tell us a bit about him before we arrived. Oh, such emotions were going through Bryan and I that we could hardly hold a conversation!!


So, we get there, and get out of the car and meet with the orphanage's main doctor first.  I liked him immediately- he just seemed like he genuinely cared for all the kids, and knew Danil well.  One of the first things that he said was that "Danilo is the best child with Down syndrome that he has ever seen," and that he was an orphanage favorite.  He has had a pretty clear medical history, and socially, I think that he attributes most of his growth to his grandparents, who visit almost EVERY DAY.  The doctor said that he has great respect for Danilo's grandparents for giving him so much attention.

Our social worker had said before that most children offered up for adoption are done so out of love, and we can see that this is obviously the case in Danilo's situation.  His family cares about him, they love him, they want the best for him, they value him...and for whatever reason, they know that he will have a better life with us.  I can't help but think that we are absolutely meant to be here for him...he was always meant to be a Maddex, he just started out somewhere else.

Anyway...so we walked out of the office and down to the building where Danilo's groupa is, but found out that they were at the hospital for tests (or something? It seemed like a routine type of thing.)  So we waited on some benches on a playground, where a few little boys were playing.  A little boy named Vanya was riding a tricycle and wanted very much to talk to us.  We said hi and I let him look at pictures on my phone.  He figured out quickly how to swipe them over and how to play the movies of our boys saying goodbye to us before we left for the airport.  His nanny and another little boy came over, and they all looked at the photos.  She seemed really sweet, and spoke with us a little.

Soon, we were told that Danilo was back, and we started walking toward the main building.  And, there, walking down the sidewalk holding hands with a nanny and another little child was our DANIL!

He was the sweetest thing ever, with a little sleepy face and a quiet nature.  Turns out he had fallen asleep on the ride back to the orphanage, so he was a little out of it.  The nanny and I think Valentin (I can't remember- it is all blurry!) said that we were his Mama and Papa, and when Bryan and I knelt down on the sidewalk, he walked right to up to Bryan and put his arm around him.  Then I was able to get a hug in, and he put his little arms around my neck...oh, heaven!!

He was gentle and inquisitive and was cautious but not afraid.  We held his hands and walked to a bench under some trees, and we got some toys out that we brought in my backpack.  He seemed to like the trucks, but had little use for the stuffed lion. We read some touch and feel books, and he repeated the words to us and made animal sounds with the pictures.

Another doctor came out to talk with us and go over more specifics of his medical records.  I had my pen and a notebook out, and while I was taking notes, we discovered that Danilo likes to draw!  He drew all over my notebook with the pen, and then we got out markers and drawing paper, and he thought that was the greatest.  At first he couldn't get the tops off the markers, and later he learned to pull hard and do it himself.  Every time he got a marker open, he'd switch it over to his right hand and get marker all over his left hand in the process. He kept showing us the marker-marks on his hands.  He would also take the top off the marker, and study the tip of the marker before putting it on the paper, and when he colored on the paper, he'd put his face really really close to what he was drawing.  I see a trip to the ophthalmologist in the near future...:)

We had about 30 minutes after the doctor left and Tatiana was taking care of paperwork.  We just played on the bench with him, and he learned that we had all sorts of fun stuff in our backpack.  He stopped waiting on us to introduce new play things, and just squatted down next to the bag and went through it himself.  Some things we did:

*Used a wet wipe to clean his hands and a little covered table.
*Talked through a 1/2 deck of alphabet flash cards
* Commandeered our camera and took about 10 photos of his finger, which he kept putting over the lens.
* Used my cell phone and pretended to call Valentin on his phone- he put it up to his ear and said, "Hello?"- so cute!
*He liked playing peekaboo with Bryan- we got giggles out of that game, and he also learned Bryan's "Squash the Spider" game that he does with his hand :)

The whole time, he sat near us, cuddled at my side, or interacted with us.  He is SO bright, and SO affectionate, and SO cute.  We love him like our own already.

At about 12:15, it was time for him to have lunch.  We walked him back to his groupa (this was funny- he'd hold both our hands and pick up his feet while we walked just like Chase does all the time), where the nice nanny from this morning welcomed him back.  We said goodbye (Paka, paka!) and joined Valentin, Tatiana, and the another lawyer in waiting for the main doctor's signature on something before we left.

We cannot wait to go back again tomorrow...we're so excited to start the part of our journey where we become a regular part of Danilo's day.  I think that tomorrow we may meet his grandparents, which I am looking forward to, and also have that "I hope that they like us!" feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I hope that I can convey to them how much we already care for their grandchild, and how very much we want him to be a permanent part of our family.

Ok- we've been sitting in McDonald's here for 2 1/2 hours now, and it is dark outside.  I wanted to get every detail out so that I would always remember today.

We feel so fortunate to be here right now, and are thanking God for the wonderful people that we have come into contact with, for the caretakers that have done their best with our son, and for the beautiful weather that we've been able to walk around in.  We also count our blessings for Erin and Shannon (Bryan's cousins) who have been helping Bryan's mom watch our stateside-boys.  It is so incredibly difficult to leave them for this long, but we know that they are healthy (mostly) and happy even if we are not there.  Also, thank you to Tiffany and Brandon for being helpers for the NC Maddex branch, as well :)

Love you all!!

*edited to add- we found out that he goes mostly by Danilo, but also by Danil sometimes, so if you hear us refer to him as either one, that is why :)