[Provost21]

Just wondering if anyone left something for their child when you were there for trip 1? I was also wondering if you did leave a blanket, etc, if your child still had it when you returned for trip 2, and if you then brought it back with you or left it there.
Thanks for your help!

[Shay]

Hi Amy we did leave a little bear. We left it for the orphanage when we brought her home.

I know of some who have taken blanket too. I do not know if you have animals..this is kind of off topic here...but it was a good idea to take a little washcloth or blanket and put the child's scent on it and bring it home for the animals to get used to. I thought it was a good idea.

Another off topic idea is to take a disposable camera with you to leave at the orphanage so they can take pics while you are gone waiting for a court date. I thought that was a great idea too.

[ddahl]

Well, I bought doubles of all the toys we will be taking back on trip 2 so we left the original set there. We took a blanket and we will take it back for trip 2 and try to keep things as famliar as possible.

I can only tell you no matter what they tell you in country about when your trip 2 will be that you should leave a disposable camera. Its amazing how two weeks can turn into 10+ weeks and it would be noce to have pictures while you are away from your loved one.

[Michele007]

Tough call -our orphange could not gauranette that our son would always have the blanket-they wash it and it ends up where it is needed.what we did was buy a baby photo book-its cloth and has a plasic handle-so its goes in the mouth(he was teething at the time) put our pictues in it along w/ some other family members and selpt w/ it in our bed until we took trip #1-the orphange assured us they would look at it w/ him-I know they probally did not wash it so hopefully he will remember our scents.another good idea I got from this board is take a disposible camera and ask-nicely of coarse if they would mind taking pics between your trips. We also took a toy for our guy to play w/ every day we saw him-we brought-bubbles(huge hit)a baby leap frog(says ABC"S),a bumble ball,a xlilaphone, fairly inexpensive toys we left them for the orphange.

Michele

[ncdoppler]

Hello,

No trip #2 yet but we did take a blanket which we slept with and toys and a baby proof photo album of our home and his room and our pets of course. I put photo descriptions on each picture in Russian so the caretakers could read them to our referral. The orphange seemed excited by this! The toys were a hit, especially a Baby Einstein rattle we brought. All the babies were fighting over that one, so we bought 6 more to take back with us and leave for the other babies.

Hope this helps!

Nichole

[bdaddy]

Hi,

We brought the following items specifically for our kids:

1. a blanket for each one
2.a photo album with our pictures and pictures of us together, taken the same day with a disposable camera
3. a small teddy bear for each one to sleep with
4. vitamins--4 month supply for each---liquid if they do not have teeth yet ( first trip was in May and no court date yet, so they may run out of vitamins)
5. a disposable camera for each child

We also brought toys that we left with theorphanage on the last day of visiting. They were not that interested in.

I dont know if they will have any of these things when we go back. but a few people that were picking up their kids had also left things for them and when they brought the children out for their parents, they also brought the items that they had left with them.

Good luck on trip 1 :-)

[pwnort64]

On trip 1, I left:

1. A softie blanket that I had slept with for several weeks before going.
2. Soft-sided stacking cups with picture holders that had pictures of me, grandma and grandpa, etc.
3. A child's plastic photo album with pictures of me, other family, and his new house and room.
4. A disposable camera.

All were returned when I went back for trip #2. Interestingly, the other family that travelled the same as me for both trips to the same baby home got nothing back that they had left from trip #1.

Also, don't hold out great expectations for the disposable camera pictures. They did take pictures, but didn't always use the flash when needed so some of them are too dark to make out. I do treasure the ones that did turn out, though, as I got to see him in his 'natural environment' at the baby home.