January 31

Finally, I got to visit my daughter! Of course she was very happy to see me. She is in the isolation ward right now, which is normal procedure upon return from the hospital. This is where she was at the beginning of the month when we first started visiting her again. I was hoping to go into the large visiting room with Christa and Pam, but since Olesya is “sick”, we had to stay in the isolation ward for our visit. I also had to wear a white coat which is supposed to keep me sanitary I guess. I look very official don’t I? Olesya was very happy to see me. We talked a lot about all of the people back home who are very anxious to see her. Any time another caregiver would walk by, Olesya turned to look and make sure that they said hello to her. Once they did, she smiled back and was very happy. Hopefully tomorrow we will have an outing to the photo store to get her passport photo taken, but who knows. As you all have learned by reading this website, everything is a maybe until it actually happens. When our visit was over, Olesya did not want to go with the caregiver. She did not fuss or anything, but she didn’t reach her arms out and smile either. She knows who her mother is. Today, one of the caregivers actually said that Olesya looked like me! Maybe she was just saying that to be polite. It doesn’t matter really, but I got very used to everyone saying she looks like Joe. She loves being with me-that’s all that matters.