[votemom]

maybe if you share what region you are in, you can get more specifics on the medical exam.

we adopted from samara and it was quite weird. we did have to take chest xrays to prove we don't have TB.

some regions require blood to be drawn while in moscow.


the trip home will depend on the age of your child.

we adopted two 23 months old girls. the trip, door to door, was 31 hours. one slept the last 3 hours, the other slept the last 90 minutes. it was maddening. i thot the trip would never end. i kept checking my husband's watch thinking "thank God at least another has passed", then realizing it had only been 20 min.

our one daughter ended up ripping all the pages, one at a time, out of the sky mall catalog. and we let her. the alternative was screaming and crying. toward the end we also let her run the aisles. she was like a drunken sailor cuz she was so exhausted. poor thing. we had ripped her out of her world and she had ZERO coping skills.

i could not possibly have been more exhausted on every level when we got off the plane. i was drenched in sweat and probably smelled terrible. sorry, but that's just how it played out for us.

but, now, we can look back and laugh about it. it's kind of like delivering a baby. you can't get out of it and you get thru it one way or the other!

all you can do it prepare for the various situations you might find yourself in and get on board! mostly people are really nice. the guy sitting in front of my husband kept his seat in the recline position the ENTIRE flight from frankfurt to detroit, fully knowing that my husband had a toddler on his lap. that was just rude. but, whatever. he'll get his one day - haha!

are you staying in russia for your 10 day wait?