Does she look like anyone else we know?

Hard to believe we are upon the eve of day 10.  Next Tuesday our 14 day bonding will be complete and a day or so later we should know our court date.  As mentioned yesterday, we began the day taking Nurai for a CT scan to check out her spleen and liver.  Questions about her liver appear resolved, though her spleen remained unusually enlarged.  We should know in a day or two what, if anything, doctors believe this means.

Because we began the day with a medical appointment, our visit was accordingly shortened and so we decided to go on a bit of a field trip after leaving Nurai at the Baby House.  Among the things we wanted to see before we left town were the places in which Nurai had lived before we knew her.  All three of these places were here in town and so we visited them and took pictures of them for posterity.

The first was the old maternity hospital where she was born.  We don't know exactly how long she was there, though it was probably not more than a few weeks.  She then went to a different hospital where she remained until she was 3 months old.  At that point, she went to the Baby House here in town where she remained until just a few days before we met her.

As we have said previously, she, and all the other children from that Baby House have now been brought to a temporary facility while the old Baby House goes through renovations.  When we stopped by the old Baby House today, it was just an empty, and mostly lifeless shell of its former self.  A handful of workmen stood about outside, and the occasional sound of hammering and drilling could be heard coming from somewhere within.  While taking pictures of the building, I was admonished for doing so while it was in such a state and told to return in 4 months when it is to be finished.  Any bets on that?

I have more photos of this part of our day that I will put together with other shots about town somewhere over the weekend as we will not be visiting Nurai either Saturday or Sunday.

As you can see, Tougy is loving her role as big sister.  She is so sweet to Nurai, and as you can see in the first photo I posted, Nurai looks astonishingly like her big sister did when she herself was a baby.

Thanks Annette for referencing the photo I was thinking of back in Nov 07.  We still are unable to view our blog and so I was unable to go back and look myself, though I knew there was a very similar photo of Tougy and I from early on in our bonding in Astana.

We are still trying to figure out our exit plan as we know we want to get Tougy back up to Astana for a visit before heading home later this month.  It seems most likely to occur after court as we are on our way, and we hope to spend a day or two in Astana and a day or so in Almaty before boarding our plane home.

By then, we are hoping that Adam, Sara, and Rylie will be in Karaganda and might possibly swing into Astana for a brief visit, and then that perhaps Gary and Stephanie will be in Almaty bonding with their son as we come through.  It wold be so incredible to make these things happen on this side of the process.  Time will tell.

Take Care.