23 weeks

I'm a bit late posting this one, since I was flying over the ocean on the first day of Week 23. And no belly shot since there's no properly positioned mirror in the trailer that we're living in on my parents' property. Suffice it to say, I feel huge.

This was a crazy week! On Saturday, we found out that Dietrich had gotten into our first-choice school for first grade. You have to do a test/interview to get into primary school, and they told us immediately after the test that he made it in. So on Monday, I arrived bright and early at the school to explain our situation with the baby. We had three questions: Could Dietrich start a month late? Could he be in a particular teacher's class? And could Dietrich's friend Matvei also be in the class? The director and teacher agreed on all three points, so I turned over his documents, paid our share of the cost to renovate the school's bathrooms and stopped off on the way home to pick up some of his textbooks so that he won't fall too far behind. 

Then it was home to clean and pack for the next day and a half. Dietrich had his last day of sadik on Tuesday. I was too consumed with the cleaning and packing to get too terribly emotional about it, but I imagine the nostalgia will set in later. Here he is with his teacher, Oksana Grigorovna. She will be Lev's teacher in the fall, and she's been working with him on his Ukrainian for some time now. Lev loves her.   

We'd found someone to rent our place in Ukraine on Sunday, but they weren't going to move in until mid-June. On Tuesday morning, dear friends of ours called because they needed a place to stay for a few weeks, so our apartment will be occupied the whole time we're gone.

Wednesday morning, we woke up at 2:30. Ick. The flights were smooth, the kids did great, the baby was kicking a bit on the plane, and all was well. The boys explored Baba and Papa's land until bedtime, and they both basically slept all night long, with just a few brief wake-ups. They've done awesome with the time change.

We spent Thursday doing set-up errands: Car registration, cell phone plans, Target run for shampoo and toothbrushes and the like. Neither of us remembered the pin numbers for our U.S. ATM cards, so our shopping was limited to the cash we had on hand, which was probably a good thing.

And today was my first appointment with the OB here. Oh my, what a delight to get in the car and drive 15 minutes through farmland with hawks soaring overhead to get to the doctor! In Ukraine, it was 80 minutes of minibus and metro rides -- lines and crowds and balancing on bumpy roads. Being surrounded by nature soothes my soul.

The doctor is the same doctor we went to last July, when we found out our last little guy had died. We really appreciated his compassion during that difficult time. He was great today, too. Very calm and reasonable and reassuring. The visit went exactly as I expected: He listened to baby's heartbeat, looked over my test results from Ukraine, and referred me to a specialist for a super-detailed ultrasound. This is the first time in a long while that a doctor's visit didn't end with some concerning news about the baby, so that was really nice. I have an appointment with the specialists on May 31, in the morning.

After the doctor, we drove Eric and Dietrich up to the airport, and they flew down to Southern California for the next two weeks. This year's Talbot—Kyiv Extension graduates fly in tomorrow to take part in a week of graduation activities, and Eric will serve as their guide. He loves this group of students and is super excited to spend so much time with them. Also, he gets to drive a really big van. Dietrich will spend the time pestering his grandparents to feed his Lego addiction. And, being extremely sweet grandparents, I've no doubt they will cave a time or two. 

And now, I must sleep. For, while the boys have done great with the time change, I woke up at 4 a.m.,  panicked about an ultrasound report that I wasn't sure had been translated into English, realized it was 2 p.m. in Kyiv and that I could still get it translated, turned on my computer, found the report (which had been translated after all), freaked out about something written on it that the doctor in Kyiv hadn't mentioned to us, spent 30 minutes Googling that something, and then couldn't fall back asleep. But, with today's nice, calm doctor's visit and with two weeks to wait until the super-duper ultrasound, I think I'll be able to sleep well tonight.