Heartbreak and Hope!

Ok so I have been absent, silent, missing, gone, and not writing, but in reality we are very much here, in action, writing and signing just not blogs! :)
A lot has happened in the last couple days and I will try and write a few of the details...
I didn't go back and read last post so not sure where I even left off, but we got to Kryvyi Rih Sunday morning and Monday morning we walked across the path to the orphanage and went to our first visit with Max. Sat down with director first and she went over his file with us explaining his SNs and medical history and then we went to meet him. Serge had told us he was a big boy, but we weren't prepared for quite that big! He is huge!!! Was just in a small room for about 30 minutes with him and felt very sterile and uncomfortable. We just sat on the little toddler bed and his caretaker and our facilitator were in the room the whole time:( We left with kind of a bad feeling about it all and thought a lot of it was nerves and the awkward situation. We talked about it some, but think we were both hoping the other wasn't as uneasy about it as we were. Went back for the afternoon visit and were able to have him in a big playroom and had brought some toys this time and had a more relaxing atmosphere. We interacted with him more and if you have adopted it is hard to describe all the emotions and feelings you go through on those first visits... your mind goes 100mph trying to assess this child and criticize every move they make wondering if it means something etc. the whole time trying to sort your feelings with it all. We left that visit with more questions and still an uneasy feeling about it. We took pictures and videos and sent that along with all the medical info we had to our IA dr. at UAB and then waited for her to get back with us. We kept talking about it and we couldn't pinpoint an exact medical condition or anything that would make us say no, but it was just a feeling that this was not our child. Our facilitator encouraged us to get an mri of the head as that is what our international adoption dr. had wanted. We scheduled an appointment with Max's regular dr. so he could get a referral for a mri. We called and talked to our agency at home and told her how we were feeling and our concerns and she said it was ultimately our decision but she felt like we were uncomfortable with this child and she would advise to just decline right now and not make the child go through an mri etc.  We were very happy that she supported  us and understood!!! She said she was going to call Serge and tell him that we were considering declining this referral to give him a heads up and Terri thought we should make our decision by evening. Well 10 minutes after hanging up with Terri, Serge calls US and you just have to know Serge and his ways, but he said if we were thinking about saying no that we needed to cancel the Dr. appointments right now and move on! And when you deal with Serge 10 minutes ago is not soon enough!!! :) So after many tears, and prayers and heartache it all ended within a 5 minute phone call!! Turning down a referral has more emotional trauma involved than you can imagine... it is not a quick or easy thing to do!!
So now we wait to hear from Serge on what to do next.. we knew we would be going back to Kiev to start the process over, but didn't know when. We walked down to the market to get some fresh air and relax our minds a little. Serge suddenly calls and says he has another child for us at the same orphanage and we need to be there NOW! He says the director will take us to the room where his group is and point out which one he is and we can LOOK ONLY for five minutes before we come back to Kiev! We run back to the orphanage and meet an out of breath facilitator who has LEFT a family in court to meet us there! She later told us Serge had called her 20 times while she was in court and she finally answered and told him she could not go now she was in the court room and Serge told her you must go NOW! Well you know who won:) So we got to get a little peek at him and the caretaker actually brought him over to us and he just grinned and grinned and loved Peyton right away and just laughed at him! I say this because Max didn't have any interest in Pey and that was hard on me! Now don't any of you go and report us or the team here!! :) This was very much against all rules and strictly forbidden thing for us to do!!! Connections ;-)
Oh yes we need to pack our bags and get on the overnight train yet tonight for Kiev!!! Don't think my blood pressure has come down from the sky since we left home! :)
Our facilitator had been planning on going back to Kiev already so she just came and hung out at our apartment while she got our train tickets. She said she was starved and wondered if we could go get pizza? Well yes we are starved too and would love to get pizza, but the time my friend, just not enough minutes in the hour! Yes we walked/ran down and scarfed some pizza, trotted back threw the rest of our clothes in the suitcase, lugged it all down and loaded in the van and off we go to the train!!! BIG plus they were totally sold out of 2nd class tickets so we had/got to get 1st class and my dear friend.... it was LUXURY!!! I mean I don't think there is a train in the good ole USA as old and rattly as this first class one, but.... compared to the other one it was delightful and oh yes it had a bathroom you could squeeze in with out rubbing all the walls AND running water AND toilet paper!!! :)))
Got back to Kiev at 5:45 and our driver brought us to our apartment which is oh so nice! :) Ok so I'm a wimp and like to have a FEW nice things, but that's just the way it is! I can survive quite fine in the not so modern lifestyle, but I go crazy and get all giddy when things improve a little! :) Had 2 hours to settle in a little and get freshened up and then went down to get some papers notarized and apply for our 2nd referral.
Now we are back at the apartment. Serge took all our papers and went to see if he could get us in to the SDA on Thursday or Monday instead of the normal week time frame you are suppose to wait. He sounded a little doubtful on the phone when he called just now, so if he's not sure then I'm not at all hopeful!
So we will be in Kiev at the shortest till Saturday/Sunday night and at the latest a week from Saturday/Sunday night, then we will go back to our same region of Kryvyi Rih and start all over.
That is barely skimming over the top with the details, but maybe will come back later and fill in.

If you need something specific to pray for, pray for Peyton. He is very sensitive when we get stressed and he gets to really be a mess! He has tears at the surface at all times and gets so tired of all the driving and sitting in all these places with nothing to do and having to be quiet etc. We are not sorry we brought him, but just remember him in your prayers that he can be strong!!