Sleepy Baby

Olivia, her foster mother, and the social worker had a court meeting this morning, so we did not get to meet them at the park until around 11:30. Olivia enjoyed her lunch, and then we played at the playground.

She climbed and slid down the slide until she slipped and decided that she didn’t want to do that anymore. We put her in the swing, and she almost fell asleep. She started walking around with her thumb in her mouth and rubbing her hair.

After a quick snack of “soletti’s” (pretzel sticks), she gained a second wind, and we played some more. Her foster mother brought out the Barbie ball we bought her, and she enjoyed kicking that around the playground and rolling the ball down the slide.

I wish I had more to share today, but it was just more time spent with Olivia. Jason’s comment was, “enough of this visitation business, we just need to get her home.”

Tomorrow morning we have to visit a notary to sign documents confirming that we in fact want to adopt Olivia. We could have signed those documents the day we met her, but the law states we must spend 5 days with the child prior to signing the documents. Once we sign the documents, they will be filed in municipal court in Sofia and a court date will be set. Once we receive notice of the court date, we will make arrangements to return. That time, we won’t be leaving without our daughter!!!

In order to complete those documents, we had to provide our translator with the American name that we would give the child. Well……once upon a time, we thought we would name her Olivia Sofia. Sofia is the capital city of Bulgaria, and we wanted to somehow recognize her heritage. After learning and confirming that her given name, “Radostina” means joy, we decided to name her Olivia Joy. I hope this will give us the opportunity to share her Bulgarian heritage with her as she grows up.

Tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, we are leaving Shumen to take a one hour bus ride to Varna. We will spend the night in Varna and catch an extremely early flight (5am) on Saturday morning to Budapest. From Budapest, we will fly to JFK and then to RDU. It will be a long, exhausting day, but we’ll be back at home late on Saturday night. If we don’t get to blog anymore after this, we’ll do our best to conclude our trip later on.

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers.