Day 5 - Thursday, April 26, 2012 DIMA DAY!!

My sleep was restless at best.  In reality I think I slept maybe 3 hours.  It was a rough night.  We had come so far and had been disappointed in the past with a referral.  We both were so scared to let our hearts be excited to meet this new guy.  In the time from our first referral to this one we had begun to lose hope that this would ever happen.  After reading many adoption forums we realized that healthy kids from Russia were not necessarily the norm anymore.  The thought of being presented a child that we maybe could not handle and have to turn down was too much to really think about.  It broke our heart the first time and we never met him...how could we do it if we're meeting him?!
We got out of bed and spent the morning praying and reading the Bible.  Hoping for a renewed sense of peace.  I could barely eat but I forced some breakfast down.   
We met our driver at noon.  We had to drive down to the MOE to be presented the paperwork on our referral.  With my stomach in knots the ladies at the MOE finally passed the paper over to our side of the table.  There he was.  The picture we had seen.  Then smiles...from the ladies.  They proceeded to tell us how lucky we were.  How healthy Dima is.  How this referral would normally be reserved for a Russian family.  Our confidence was building about Dima and now we were ready to meet him. 
It took us about an hour to get to his orphanage.  It  was on the outskirts of Moscow.  The area seemed very similar to an area Willem grew up in Toronto.  Tons of high rise apartment buildings, not fancy but not falling down either.  We turned down a little side street that was tucked in between several apartment buildings.  At the end of the street was a big iron gate and a guard house.  We stopped, our translator went to the guard and they let us in. 
The building was in good shape, playground equipment in the yard.  No kids in the windows, very quiet, we were told most of the kids were still napping.  Inside the building it was impeccably clean.  We were taken to the music room where the director's assistant told us about Dima.  The social worker came in next and went over his family history and why he was there.  The doctor that we hired met us at the orphanage.  She began to pour over his medical file which was inches thick. 
As the director wrapped up what she was saying i turned to the door.  There he was!  Just standing there.  He had a cookie in his hand and had a look of "why am I here?"  He wasn't scared just curious. 
Not wanting to overwhelm him we watched him for a few seconds then said in my best Russian.."Privyet Dimitry"  He looked at me but was more interested in his cookie.  It took a little car that made noises to get him over to me.  I will never forget the first time he smiled at me.  He looked me in the eyes and smiled then pointed to his car as if to say "look how neat!"
After that the Doctor had him do a number of tasks, like say what kind of stuffed animals there were, name body parts on a horse, kick a soccer ball, etc...  He sailed through them and we realized he had quite a vocabulary.  He would occasionally look at us and chuckle about his new car or the way he kicked the ball.  Willem pulled out a puzzle and he did it with ease.  We were more than impressed.  He was 2 1/2 and seemed to not be very far behind our 3 yr old. 
The Doctor asked him to get undressed and he did, immediately all by himself!  She did a physical examination of him then he dressed himself back up.  While going over her opinion of him with me, Willem and Dima played.
We were thrilled with the report the doctor was giving us.  She was totally blown away by his good health and his development.  We were allowed to play for about another 45 minutes or so.  He drew on paper with a pen I had lying around.  He sat in Willem's lap playing with his beard.  Willem would puff his cheeks out and Dima would push them causing Willem to make a Donald duck type sound with his mouth. Dima thought it was hysterical.  He kept repeating something and after about the fourth time the interpreter realized what that he was saying "one more time Uncle".  All orphanage kids call men "Uncle".  It was very sweet.

The time went by way too fast.  The director came in to take him away and was asking him if he wanted to go back to his group with her.  Dima looked up at her and motioned her away and said "Nyet!"  We got another 10 minutes or so with him for that.  :)
When they took him, they said we'd be back tomorrow.  He smiled and went on his way.  We sighed a huge sigh of relief.  He was healthy, happy, and super smart!
The ride back to orphanage was great.  We were so relieved.  I'm sure our driver appreciated the lightness in the air as well!  We were told we had to make it back to our apartment before 6pm because they were closing down Tvertskaya St. for the night.  We happily went back, cooked ourselves some dinner and called home to share the good news.