Saying Good-bye - Day 5

We have known all along that doing two trips was part of the deal. We have been preparing our hearts for a long time to leave her here. We both were anxious heading to the orphanage, but The Lord blessed us with a great morning with her. 

When we got there, we were invited upstairs to see where she eats, sleeps and plays. We got to take a photo of her crib. It's exactly how you would picture it, cribs packed in so tight they are touching. We saw where they shower them and the room where they play and do their therapies. We took a photo of the three of us so we could print it out when we went to have her visa taken. 

The workers didn't like what she was wearing, so they changed her clothes before we left. I think even the workers were nervous about us leaving to have her photo taken. She is very senstitive and doesn't like change. We were all happy to see that she was fine for the car ride...epecially us. When we pick her up we will have to drive four hours back to Sofia. All of us piled in a car - the caretaker had Anche on her lap, me next to her and our case worker next to me. Rob is the front and the orphanage driver...well...he drove us. I guess they have two drivers and that's all they do at the orphanage. When we got to the photo place, we went in and the caretaker held Anche up while the photographer, caretaker and our case worker all tried to get her to smile. We stayed out of the way, but I turned to Rob and asked him if he ever felt like our life was a movie. I can't explain how surreal it was to be in this run down old shop with all these people speaking Bulgarian trying to get our little Bulgarian to smile for her visa photo. Pretty sure I'm dreaming. 

It is very important to them that she smile. They don't like photos of her crying. In fact, every time she cried the caretaker felt the need to explain to our case worker so she could translate to us why she was crying. Finally our case worker told her that we are fine with the crying and that we are not concerned. 

We also had an opportunity to have our case worker tell the caretaker thank you from us and express how grateful we are for the care she is getting. The caretaker responded by saying that they are doing the best they can. 

Anche looked for us while her caretaker was holding her. and when she was down and I would hold out my arms, she would walk right in. She is ours and we cannot wait to go back to get her. We see her in our house. We see her playing with our boys. She is a part of our family now. 

When we got back to the orphanage, our case worker went to check on another child and The Lord gave us great memories of our time with Anche. She let me hold her for a long time, we rocked and I got to give her a lot of kisses. I would kiss her head and then she would look back at me and lean in wanting another one. She was trying to make the smacking noise with her lips, but couldn't quite get it out. She really looked like she was more comfortable. 

Handing her over was so hard, but necessary. Now we pray like mad that the process is smooth and quick. 

After we left Bourgas we drove back to Sophia. We stopped by the agency to pick up the person who was taking us to the new apartment. Unfortunately, our last apartment was booked and so we have to stay in an apartment that is very far from the city center. It' not a big deal. It's getting late and we're hungry and tired and they'll pick us up in the morning to take us back to the downtown area to visit the notary. From there we will likely just stay and take the subway back. And as a plus, our apartment looks like it's straight out of HGTV. 

After we had eaten dinner we walked one block past our apartment to see where the U.S. Embassy is since we have to be there at 10:30 for our visa interview tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the start of the process to get Anche's visa to enter the U.S. Naturally, I'm trying to document the whole process in photographs so without thinking about it, I took a photo of the U.S. Embassy. Right after, Rob read a sign that said there are no photos allowed. Just then we see a man walking toward us. He explained that he saw that we just saw the sign (meaning we didn't know better), but that we would have to delete our photos. I pulled out my phone and he watched me delete them. Then he told me we would have to come up so they could check out credentials. It was quite the process...about 15 minutes worth...of him talking to the guards (with machine guns) and then them having to talk to their boss inside and then their boss having to call their boss on the phone. After that we thought it was best to just go back to the apartment so I didn't get us arrested.