[nhjosh]

Hi there,

Thanks to all for the wealth of knowledge on this board.

We recently just got back from a successful trip 1, but had a few questions about trip 2 from those of you who have been through it.

1. The 8-doctor medical... how thorough are they? We've heard different reports.. anything from "it's a joke, they just look at you and sign the paper" to "it's very thorough". What was your experience?

2. The trip home on the plane. We're certainly worried about the 10 hour flight home.... how did that go? Any tips?

Thanks so much to all. We're looking forward to our trip 2 sometime in early to mid August.

[beckyww]

How old is your child?

For the trip home with Julia, then age 6, she was so wide-eyed. She didn't go to sleep until the plane was circling DFW (sigh.) The plane showed "Narnia," plus we had a DVD player with DVDs for her. Mostly she just stared.

Highly advise some purse snacks and a couple of water bottles. Those are big flights and the stewardesses are not always very attentive.

We went in may, 2006, and didn't have to do the 8-doctor medical in country.

Becky
This Reminds Me

[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?

[beckyww]

Shame Brian didn't feel the need to cross his legs a few (dozen) times.

Becky
http://htisreminds.me

[Jen_in_OH]

Hi - I still laugh thinking about our flight from Moscow to NY with 2 kids ages 2 & 4. It was hell. The good news is that it now makes for funny stories. We did take a variety of snacks and small toys that they didn't see until the trip home. As we pulled away from the gate in Moscow I remember looking at the floor around our seats and thinking that it looked like we had already been in the air for hours...there were crumbs and stuff everywhere!! I also remember looking at my husband after what felt like 5 hours, and him smiling and saying, only 9 more hours until we land in the US!! I have never been so tired in my whole life.
Prior to the flight, a friend of mine reminded me that a person can do anything for 24 hours. Just remind yourself that the flight WILL end. You can do it!
: )
I imagine others have had better experiences, I just know that ours was an experience!

[waiter]

Didn't have to do the 8 doctor medical so I can't help you there.

For the flight- if your child is young- bring plenty of clothes and diapers (an extra set for you is also a good idea). All the stories about blow outs are true. The only one we had was as we were getting ready to take off. Plastic bags to put clothes in is also a must. My child only slept 90 minutes so remember any sleep is a bonus. If your child is under two and you have the option of lap ticket or buying the seat- consider how full the plane is. You will appreciate the extra space of buying a seat if there are not going to be a lot of empty ones on the plane. The 90 minutes she slept was in her OWN seat and not being held. We too tore apart the airline magazine. Best toy we had on the airplane- sometimes it is the simple things that will entertain them. Remember the plane will land and it will be over and then you are HOME>>>

[beckyww]

Dug up this picture of our trip home. (photo 1) Julia literally did not sleep a wink until we were circling DFW. Then she totally crashed in Keith's lap. We carried her thru DFW, then into a cab to Love Field for a SW flight home to San Antonio. She was still groggy when we landed in San Antonio, but wide awake when we got off the plane and headed to "Julia's dom." (photo 2)

Long trips with small children are never really fun. They're bearable. But not fun.

Becky
This Reminds Me

[votemom]

yes, for sure buy your child a seat unless they are an infant. if nothing else, it gives them some space to crawl around. money very, very well spent!!

[nhjosh]

THanks to all those who have responded so far!

Our region is Kazan... they require us to do the 8 doctor medical at the American Medical Clinic in Moscow at the very beginning of trip 2. (sorry I had thought all regions required this). I was just trying to find out if this was really a complete 8 doctor visit or if it was just a quick way to charge us another couple thousand dollars and they don't really do anything.

Our soon-to-be daughter is 18 months old... when we visited her on trip 1 last week, she is certainly squeamish and she whines a lot when she's not happy. I envision a pretty Hell-ish trip, so that's why I was asking. I know we'll get through it.

[kretzklan]

I didn't have to do the 8 doc - but our kids had their physicals at that clinic and HA! They weren't exactly physical since they barely touched them! Good luck...do what you have to do on the plane. There will, most likely, be others on the same flight in the same predicament!

[Ebadge90]

I have 2 sides of this question, as we went with a single woman on our second trip, and she did almost everything different than we did.
We paid the extra for a separate seat for our son, who was 14 months old. The other woman did not get a separate seat for her then almost 16 month old daughter. We had no problem eating, since our laps were empty. She did not eat. Our son crawled between my wife and I, and the open seat. Her daughter was on her lap the whole trip.
Our son slept for maybe an hour, in his own seat. Her daughter stayed awake on her lap for the whole trip.
Needless to say, get the extra seat.
We also adopted almost 3 years ago, and we had no physicals in Russia at all.

[ddahl]

I took a soft sided mini cooler and some freezer packs that we froze in the hotel room in Moscow. We were able to get to the super market in Moscow to buy things so we packed several yogurts and snacks in our bag along with formula bottles for the transition from hotel to airport. We also had water and sandwiches for us too. We were dropped of very very early so we needed bottles before the flight too. I also had mini cereal boxes of cheerios and gerber puffs along with several jars of baby food that the flight attendants heated as needed. I can honestly tell you that I thank God every minute that we had first class seats on the flight from Moscow to Atlanta. By the time we taxied down the run way I could tell it was going to be a looooooooooog flight. My sweet angel was ampppppppped to the hilt! He wanted to go go go! We had plenty of room to let him stand between the seats and walk the aisle over and aver again. Let me tell you if I had a parachute I wpuld have seriously considered my options but its a long swim... LOL! Our son never closed his eyes all the way to Atlanta. I was super emotional when we were landing and I was just overwhelmed with the thought that "we made it home finally! after 18 months" I started crying and I was a complete mess. By the time we landed I was the reincarnation of night of the living dead. We de-planed and made our way to our gate only to have to schlep all the way back to another terminal as our gate was moved. By the time we got there I was sick with a migrane headache and literally lying on top of the carry-on luggage on the filthy floor of the airport. Thank God for Dh who walked and walked with our son who apparently had the stamina of 20 toddlers. We had a delay that never ended and finally we boarded the flight to Florida and guess who fell asleep for the last 1 hour of the flight????? In the name of all that is holy! He was up for something like 20 hours! I advise a power bar or two and grab some bananas for your trip as well. My story is like many others... the flight from hell will be well worth it but it is indeed a flight from hell.

[votemom]

By the time we landed I was the reincarnation of night of the living dead.

thanks for the laugh ddahl!!!!! i read it to my husband and it took us both back... as if we were standing in the aisleway of the empty plane, surveying the damage our family was leaving behind. i didn't even have the guts to look in a mirror before stepping off the plane and greeting the 30 people waiting for us!

you said it VERY WELL!!!!!!!!!

[fugie]

Its been a long time since our 2nd trip, but it is one you definately remember. Like many others, we also paid for the extra seat. Well worth it. Also (I don't remember the actual name of the seat) we requested the front seat that has the bassinet attachment. We did not have to pay for this. Just changed our tickets. It is the seat on the plane that has no one in front of you. They have a bassinet that attaches to the wall in front of the seat. Our son was 13 months old, but still small enough to use it. He played in it and did sleep in it also. I have attached a couple of pictures showing him in it. He was in and out of it, but that along with the extra seat made it much less boring for him. Good Luck.

Lisa

[N.Gwinn]

First of all, I think that you might be right about the Dr. exam. I would guess that everyone goes through Moscow. When we were adopting (it's been several years now), every parent took their new child to the very same dr. in Moscow for the physical. And, it was the very same routine for all of us. He began examining our newly adopted child, and if that child was an infant, s/he then began to cry. When we reached for our baby, to comfort, he accused us of spoiling the children. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I do remember reading about it on this forum, so when it happened to us, it was like watching a bad movie. I remember thinking, "Your an educated dr. Don't you understand about attachement issues? And don't you understand how hard we have worked to become this little boy's parents? We can't just sit and watch him cry." Anyway, enough of that.

As for the trip home. Take twice as much as you think you need of whatever you need for your child, and then take some more. (You probably still won't have enough.) We ran out of formula and diapers. We made the mistake of taking Aeroflat, the Russian airline, there and back. My husband and I are not skinny people. Russians are generally skinny. The seats were made for them... not our big rear ends. I wish that I could tell you that the flight home was a time for Mommy-Daddy-Child bonding. NO, not really. It was awful. I was litterally crying, well sobbing might be a better description, as I pushed our son in a stroller down the last hall to meed our family and some friends when the whole darn nightmare was over. I loved the comparison to giving birth, it does finally end, and then it hardly matters.

By the way, our darling little 13 month old boy did not sleep more than 1 or 2 combined hours on the whole flight, but as soon as he was in a crib in his new room, he slept for over 24 straight hours. It wore him out, too.