Part 3 of 4: 9 stamps, 6 faces

Thursday morning (June 17th), our train arrived in Moscow. We had a day of sightseeing before our medical appointment, that day will be covered as part of Blog #4.

Friday morning, we woke up very early. It may have been nerves, but it may have also been the hot and sunny room. The combination of an Eastern facing apartment, very sheer curtains, a Northern latitude (sunrise was before 4am) and a defective husband (didn't figure out the AC unit controls until the last day) resulted in a super-bright, super-hot bedroom at 6:00 am.

At 11:00 am, it was time to leave. Our driver and translator met us outside our building, and we were off. We were informed that the cost per person varied, depending on the exchange rate, so we should have at least 50,000 rubles in cash, when we arrived at the hospital. Kathy and Tanya (our very nice translator) went to exchange dollars for rubles, while Alan chatted about sports cars with our driver. While we were in Russia, the exchange rate varied between 30 and 31 rubles per dollar.

As we arrived at the hospital, Tanya gave us a little information about what would happen. She said the hospital we were going to was very good; whenever Prime Minister Putin needed medical attention, this was where he went to be treated.

Once inside, we went into a large conference room; Eight different doctors would come into the room, appearing as their schedules allowed. Each was a specialist in a certain area, and they would review our medical information as it applied to their specialty. There was another woman in the room, who was also going through the adoption process. She was immediately sent out of the room to get Xrays: During her travel to Russia, she forgot them in an airport bathroom.

The first doctor to arrive was the Tuberculosis specialist. Although she was smiling the entire time, her demeanor was very stern. Through the interpreter, she grilled Alan for about 5 minutes.
"Do you have TB?" "No"
"Has anyone in your family ever had TB?" "No"
"Do you have trouble breathing?" "No"
"Did you take a full breath during the xray?" "Yes"
"Why are your lungs small then?" "I don't know"
"Do you cough a lot?" "No"
"You sound wheezy. Why?" "I have allergies"
"Hmmm. What type of allergies" "Typical spring / summer allergies"
"What specific allergies?!?" "Uh, grass pollen and ragweed" "Hmmmm"

After that, she wrote 5-6 pages of notes, spreading them on the table. By this time, Alan was convinced that he was going to be hospitalized, even though he felt fine. The doctor turned to Kathy, and it was her turn.
"Do you have TB?" "No"
She wrote 2 lines of notes on another sheet of paper, and with that, she signed off.

After that, it was fairly smooth sailing.

The skin specialist made us take our shirts off behind a (very) small privacy wall. Alan was told that he should have his skin tags removed. The neurologist swooped in before we had our clothing back on, to do a quick tap of the knee. The family doctor and our translator had trouble translating the word Thyroid (Alan solved the problem by tapping on the side of his neck). The oncologist asked Kathy whether she was getting regular breast exams, then told us that we were too young to get cancer. The infectious diseases doctor took a look at the tests we had done in MN and signed off without asking us a single question.

Finally, we were waiting for the 7th doctor (who covered both psychology and drug addiction). All of a sudden, the facility coordinator arrived with our paperwork fully signed, stamped, re-signed, re-stamped, and approved. The 7th doctor was so impressed with the letter of approval that she didn't even want to meet with us. (our adoption agency provided us the template, we had our US psychologist retype and sign)

Overall, the process was quite painless. We spent less than 2 hours at the hospital, 4 hours total, and the cost was 21000 rubles each, which left us with 8000 rubles to spend over the next 3 days.

How ever could we spend that much? Check back tomorrow for the final blog entry on our Russian adventure.