July 29, 2004 11:00
Ok, I don’t mind admitting that I’m a nervous wreck right now. No sign of Vika anywhere yet – she is still off getting papers signed and last night she said we’d leave for the orphanage by 11:00. *sigh*
We slept like rocks and the roosters outside our window woke us up this morning. It is hot, but we have a fan which we’re really thankful for. The mattresses squeak really bad whenever we move, and since my bed (there are two twin beds in here) was on the wall adjoining Vika’s room, I was afraid I’d wake her up each time I rolled over.
Our breakfast was yummy. We had bananas, bread (this kind was to-die-for yummy), cheese and currant-sour cherry juice. That along with our daily Pepto tablet to keep our tummies from getting sick (so far so good!), and our cold syrup. Still fighting colds, but we’re feeling better each day. So many other things on our minds besides our colds. I’m so thankful we packed plenty of cough/cold syrup and Kleenexes. Couldn’t do without them!
There are Bible verses on the walls in the hallway. John tried to look one of them up this morning, but when he did, he figured he misinterpreted something because there was no such thing as Psalm 50:96. Hmmmmm…..
Ok, enough babbling. Too nervous to write anything else for now.
We arrived at the orphanage by about noon. The director wasn’t there *sigh*. We had to wait outside her office for another hour, maybe less. Felt like a year. There was a young (20ish y.o.) secretary at the desk doing nothing but look us over and occasionally chat with Vika. There was another facilitato waiting too. He was helping an Italian couple. I was very surprised to see a big sign on the wall with “Nido de Esperanza” written on it. That’s Spanish for “Nest of hope.”
I can’t even begin to explain how scared I was sitting there. I had the worst feeling about these kids… that we wouldn’t be able to adopt them. I didn’t even bother packing toys or games for the kids. Only a few treats. I was afraid we’d be on our way back to Kiev in just a few hours. I even repacked our bags before we took off for the orphanage.
Anyway, the director finally came. She had a cold and had a hard time talking. She got up to take some meds for it only a few moments after sitting down. I offered her one of my “Ice Breaker” breath mints that I’ve been using as cough drops. She thanked me.
She asked our occupations and then asked what the NAC had told us about the children. We told her what we knew – just their names, ages and genders and that they were healthy. She told us that they boy had the most problems of the other two. His birthmother had a hard labor and he has a little bit of a palsy in his left hand. She also said they all had some delays, etc. but that they were wonderful children. She was most delighted to tell us about Zena. This orphanage is for older kids (not babies, I mean), but because she was a part of a sibling group the director got special permission to let her be here with her sister and brother. (BLESS HER HEART!!! Normally, they are separated, so this is the case for THIS orphanage and maybe a few token others.) That meant that when Zena came to live there, she was the youngest and tiniest child in the entire orphanage. So, all the care-givers had a soft-spot for her and consequently Zena is a “little spoiled.” (The director said this with a sly smile.) Aparently, her favorite thing to do is pound on the kitchen door and holler in asking about what they had for her to eat. She didn’t have a lot to say about Valya; just that she was a nice girl and would catch up quickly and would do well in a family. Nothing was said about the “Monkey Wrench” problem that I had been so worried about, and as she talked I was getting less and less scared, and more and more excited. She got very serious though and asked us if we knew other families who had adopted. I lit up remembering that Brenda had called and told me this was “their” orphanage. I told her we knew the Reynolds who live near us and that they had adopted twin girls from this orphanage this winter. She was TICKLED TO DEATH! (Thank you so much, Brenda for calling and telling me that!) She asked how the girls were doing; if they knew English, etc. I told her they were great and that they did speak English. She was really happy to hear the good report. As she looked through our pictures, I pointed our some of our “angel pin” pictures. She liked them, so I reached in my bag and gave her one. She loved it.
Misha is at a camp for disabled children this summer. It is five hours away. We’ll have to go there to meet him. She asked us if we wanted to meet the girls. Of course we did!
They sent the dr. out to get them. Before too long they brought in two little beauties. The older one was excruciatingly shy and wouldn’t speak unless spoken to, but wouldn’t show much/any emotion. No smiles, etc. The weight of the world on her shoulders, poor girl. She looked down and was really intimidated by us. I wanted to put her in my pocket Right Now and go home. She is wonderful. She shyly looked up at us and said hello. She was happy to be there, but wouldn’t let herself be too happy yet.
The little Zena, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. She is a ball of fire! I gave them each a box of raisins right away and Valya was shy about eating them – though she did eat some. Zena chowed them down and wasn’t going to put the box down and play until she was done. She’s also a little CHUBBY! Which is amazing because the other children we saw on the way into the orphanage were skin and bones (as is Valya). The director was not exaggerating in her description of her! We left the director’s office and went to a nearby quarantine room. Zena thought I was going too slow, so she let go of my hand and nearly skipped/ran down the hall.
I didn’t quite know what to do with myself! I can’t really talk to them, and I didn’t bring any toys. But here we all were in a sterile room with nothing in it but two tiny beds and a small table and chairs. I envied John warming up so fast with Valya. He got out his pocket PC and let her draw. She LOVED it. She’s gonna be a techie, just you wait! Her facial expression barely changed, but you could tell that she liked it. I’m a little scared for her, for me, and for us all. Life as we know it has changed forever. I put angel pins on the girls and they appeared to like them. Valya took hers off after a while and stared at it.
When we got up to leave, I picked Zena up and she clung to me really hard. Death-grip-like even. Maybe I wasn’t such a flunk-out mom after all? She would not let me go. We went into the director’s office to let her know if we liked the girls or not. Of course we love them already. She asked us if there would be any chance of us saying no to adopting Misha. No way. If they let us have him, we’ll run with him.
Then the director asked the girls if they understood who we were and what we wanted, etc. She asked them if they liked us and if they wanted to come to America. It was so cute to hear the girls talk – they said “dah” to all her questions. (yes). The director then told them it was time for their lunch so they needed to get going. Vika was holding Valya at that point, and I was holding Zena. Valya started shaking and got reallllllly sad-looking and said to John, “Come back Papa.” When Vika translated that we both teared up. How could we not!?! John reached out to her, looked her in the eye and said, “I PROMISE, Valya, I will always come for you” or something close to that.
Later we heard that as they were walking out, the secretary in the lobby asked them how they liked their new parents and Valya told her that Papa was hers and Zena told her that Mama was hers. Cute.
Next, the problem with getting Misha back from camp. The director wrote us a letter to give to the came as permission to take him, but one of the employees had to come with us anyway. (Aisya, the bored secretary). (She wound up to be a sweetheart, btw). While the director was telling us about the letter that was being prepared, I noticed her angel pin stuck on the wall! She put it under an award for excellence from Ukraine, and she told me she considered her angel pin an award for excellence from America. Since there wasn’t anything else n the wall, I was pretty flattered! :O)
Straightaway we took off in a taxi to wherever Misha was. We left at 3;30ish. The trip there was absolutely gorgeous. Fields of sunflowers as far as the eyes could see alllll over the place. We saw the Black Sea again too. Beautiful.
Each road we took kept getting more and more interesting. The taxi driver realized she was going the wrong way down a 6 lane highway so she did a U-turn right there. It must have been ok to do so because she did it in front of two different cop cars and nobody blinked.
We kept turning off the main roads onto more and more rural roads until we commonly saw thatched roofed houses, flocks of geese in the road and in yards; cows, goats, horses, etc. trotting along the road wherever they wished, or with an old man or woman behind them with a stick/staff. I looked up once to see an old woman in her front yard milking her brown cow. She had the traditional kerchief on her head and was sitting on an upturned bucket. We saw horse-drawn hay carts and tons of flowers in peoples yards again. One yard I saw had coral-colored gladiolas planted all throughout the yard. Gorgeous.
Another highlight was when a bull charged toward us at full speed. It would have run into us too except that it was tied to a rope. *whew* The ladies in the car (taxi driver, Vika, and Aisya all laughed at me when they “heard” my reaction!) (The taxi driver looks *exactly* like Cathy Harris, btw, only with short hair. It was freaky!)
We finally came to the end of the road and I held my breath when I started to see the boys at the camp. Some of them looked in pretty tough shape, and I felt really bad for a lot of them. I wondered if our Misha was going to be in worse condition than what we were told. We got out of the car and the boys ALLLL (and I’m talking about over a hundred kids) all looked over at us or came over to greet us. Everyone kept saying “Misha” to each other looking for him. Misha had heard earlier today that we were coming, so the word had gotten out. The camp director read our letter and said, “Ok,” and called for Misha himself. Out of the crowd comes a boy version of our Valya. He was sooooooooo cute! He was so happy, yet hesitant to show his feelings. He was slightly shy at first, though absolutely thrilled to be so completely in the spotlight. Try as he might, he just couldn’t hide that smile, though he was definitely shy with it.
I should mention that I saw no obvious problems with his left hand or arm. He may not have complete dexterity in his hand, but you’ll never be able to tell that by looking at him.
We were introduced, and John shook his hand, and I gave him a giant hug. I was crying. Half of the other ladies were crying. Vika told him he needed to go say goodbye to his caregiver, and he b-lined straight over to her. She did come over to us, but she was quiet, and looked very sad to see him go. I was sooooo thrilled to see such a bond between them. She gave him a Pooh journal and a pen and inscribed it. I took a picture of them both, but she wasn’t smiling. Very typical Ukrainian lady. Formal and emotionless in all pictures.
We piled him into the car and we were gone. Just like that. The rest of the boys waved and hollered their goodbyes. I was in tears. Still.
Once we settled in the car, Misha asked if we were also adopting his sisters. He was visibly relieved when we said we were. He loved looking at the pictures and video of us with them. He let us know right away that he eats anything, but hates peas. We assured him that we don’t like them either. After that, we were all good! (Later on, just to be sure that we understood how bad he hates peas, he mentioned that he “might even need a doctor if he eats peas.”) Ok! Ok! No peas! :O)
We stopped at an outdoor-vendor of some tiny village in Nowhere and had some fabulous homemade apple pastries. These put the other ones completely to shame. Mmmm. We also had some liquid yogurt drinks. Very good too. Misha was too excited to sleep, and he made himself stay awake the entire drive back to the orphanage. I dozed a bit and put my head to his to test how long he’d let me keep it there before he’d pull away. He never did, and seemed to relax more and more. I held his hand for a while. He looked us in the eye a few times while talking, and enjoyed thumb-wrestling with John. He’s a keeper alright! My son is wonderful.
We got back to the orphanage after 1:00am, and I begged John to post pics of the kids on the website anyway even though it was Way Too Late. It felt good to Unpack what I had packed up this morning when I was Miss Pessimist of the World and figured we’d be on our way back to Kiev tonight. Then I went to bed.
What a wonderful, wonderful day.
Ok, I don’t mind admitting that I’m a nervous wreck right now. No sign of Vika anywhere yet – she is still off getting papers signed and last night she said we’d leave for the orphanage by 11:00. *sigh*
We slept like rocks and the roosters outside our window woke us up this morning. It is hot, but we have a fan which we’re really thankful for. The mattresses squeak really bad whenever we move, and since my bed (there are two twin beds in here) was on the wall adjoining Vika’s room, I was afraid I’d wake her up each time I rolled over.
Our breakfast was yummy. We had bananas, bread (this kind was to-die-for yummy), cheese and currant-sour cherry juice. That along with our daily Pepto tablet to keep our tummies from getting sick (so far so good!), and our cold syrup. Still fighting colds, but we’re feeling better each day. So many other things on our minds besides our colds. I’m so thankful we packed plenty of cough/cold syrup and Kleenexes. Couldn’t do without them!
There are Bible verses on the walls in the hallway. John tried to look one of them up this morning, but when he did, he figured he misinterpreted something because there was no such thing as Psalm 50:96. Hmmmmm…..
Ok, enough babbling. Too nervous to write anything else for now.
We arrived at the orphanage by about noon. The director wasn’t there *sigh*. We had to wait outside her office for another hour, maybe less. Felt like a year. There was a young (20ish y.o.) secretary at the desk doing nothing but look us over and occasionally chat with Vika. There was another facilitato waiting too. He was helping an Italian couple. I was very surprised to see a big sign on the wall with “Nido de Esperanza” written on it. That’s Spanish for “Nest of hope.”
I can’t even begin to explain how scared I was sitting there. I had the worst feeling about these kids… that we wouldn’t be able to adopt them. I didn’t even bother packing toys or games for the kids. Only a few treats. I was afraid we’d be on our way back to Kiev in just a few hours. I even repacked our bags before we took off for the orphanage.
Anyway, the director finally came. She had a cold and had a hard time talking. She got up to take some meds for it only a few moments after sitting down. I offered her one of my “Ice Breaker” breath mints that I’ve been using as cough drops. She thanked me.
She asked our occupations and then asked what the NAC had told us about the children. We told her what we knew – just their names, ages and genders and that they were healthy. She told us that they boy had the most problems of the other two. His birthmother had a hard labor and he has a little bit of a palsy in his left hand. She also said they all had some delays, etc. but that they were wonderful children. She was most delighted to tell us about Zena. This orphanage is for older kids (not babies, I mean), but because she was a part of a sibling group the director got special permission to let her be here with her sister and brother. (BLESS HER HEART!!! Normally, they are separated, so this is the case for THIS orphanage and maybe a few token others.) That meant that when Zena came to live there, she was the youngest and tiniest child in the entire orphanage. So, all the care-givers had a soft-spot for her and consequently Zena is a “little spoiled.” (The director said this with a sly smile.) Aparently, her favorite thing to do is pound on the kitchen door and holler in asking about what they had for her to eat. She didn’t have a lot to say about Valya; just that she was a nice girl and would catch up quickly and would do well in a family. Nothing was said about the “Monkey Wrench” problem that I had been so worried about, and as she talked I was getting less and less scared, and more and more excited. She got very serious though and asked us if we knew other families who had adopted. I lit up remembering that Brenda had called and told me this was “their” orphanage. I told her we knew the Reynolds who live near us and that they had adopted twin girls from this orphanage this winter. She was TICKLED TO DEATH! (Thank you so much, Brenda for calling and telling me that!) She asked how the girls were doing; if they knew English, etc. I told her they were great and that they did speak English. She was really happy to hear the good report. As she looked through our pictures, I pointed our some of our “angel pin” pictures. She liked them, so I reached in my bag and gave her one. She loved it.
Misha is at a camp for disabled children this summer. It is five hours away. We’ll have to go there to meet him. She asked us if we wanted to meet the girls. Of course we did!
They sent the dr. out to get them. Before too long they brought in two little beauties. The older one was excruciatingly shy and wouldn’t speak unless spoken to, but wouldn’t show much/any emotion. No smiles, etc. The weight of the world on her shoulders, poor girl. She looked down and was really intimidated by us. I wanted to put her in my pocket Right Now and go home. She is wonderful. She shyly looked up at us and said hello. She was happy to be there, but wouldn’t let herself be too happy yet.
The little Zena, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. She is a ball of fire! I gave them each a box of raisins right away and Valya was shy about eating them – though she did eat some. Zena chowed them down and wasn’t going to put the box down and play until she was done. She’s also a little CHUBBY! Which is amazing because the other children we saw on the way into the orphanage were skin and bones (as is Valya). The director was not exaggerating in her description of her! We left the director’s office and went to a nearby quarantine room. Zena thought I was going too slow, so she let go of my hand and nearly skipped/ran down the hall.
I didn’t quite know what to do with myself! I can’t really talk to them, and I didn’t bring any toys. But here we all were in a sterile room with nothing in it but two tiny beds and a small table and chairs. I envied John warming up so fast with Valya. He got out his pocket PC and let her draw. She LOVED it. She’s gonna be a techie, just you wait! Her facial expression barely changed, but you could tell that she liked it. I’m a little scared for her, for me, and for us all. Life as we know it has changed forever. I put angel pins on the girls and they appeared to like them. Valya took hers off after a while and stared at it.
When we got up to leave, I picked Zena up and she clung to me really hard. Death-grip-like even. Maybe I wasn’t such a flunk-out mom after all? She would not let me go. We went into the director’s office to let her know if we liked the girls or not. Of course we love them already. She asked us if there would be any chance of us saying no to adopting Misha. No way. If they let us have him, we’ll run with him.
Then the director asked the girls if they understood who we were and what we wanted, etc. She asked them if they liked us and if they wanted to come to America. It was so cute to hear the girls talk – they said “dah” to all her questions. (yes). The director then told them it was time for their lunch so they needed to get going. Vika was holding Valya at that point, and I was holding Zena. Valya started shaking and got reallllllly sad-looking and said to John, “Come back Papa.” When Vika translated that we both teared up. How could we not!?! John reached out to her, looked her in the eye and said, “I PROMISE, Valya, I will always come for you” or something close to that.
Later we heard that as they were walking out, the secretary in the lobby asked them how they liked their new parents and Valya told her that Papa was hers and Zena told her that Mama was hers. Cute.
Next, the problem with getting Misha back from camp. The director wrote us a letter to give to the came as permission to take him, but one of the employees had to come with us anyway. (Aisya, the bored secretary). (She wound up to be a sweetheart, btw). While the director was telling us about the letter that was being prepared, I noticed her angel pin stuck on the wall! She put it under an award for excellence from Ukraine, and she told me she considered her angel pin an award for excellence from America. Since there wasn’t anything else n the wall, I was pretty flattered! :O)
Straightaway we took off in a taxi to wherever Misha was. We left at 3;30ish. The trip there was absolutely gorgeous. Fields of sunflowers as far as the eyes could see alllll over the place. We saw the Black Sea again too. Beautiful.
Each road we took kept getting more and more interesting. The taxi driver realized she was going the wrong way down a 6 lane highway so she did a U-turn right there. It must have been ok to do so because she did it in front of two different cop cars and nobody blinked.
We kept turning off the main roads onto more and more rural roads until we commonly saw thatched roofed houses, flocks of geese in the road and in yards; cows, goats, horses, etc. trotting along the road wherever they wished, or with an old man or woman behind them with a stick/staff. I looked up once to see an old woman in her front yard milking her brown cow. She had the traditional kerchief on her head and was sitting on an upturned bucket. We saw horse-drawn hay carts and tons of flowers in peoples yards again. One yard I saw had coral-colored gladiolas planted all throughout the yard. Gorgeous.
Another highlight was when a bull charged toward us at full speed. It would have run into us too except that it was tied to a rope. *whew* The ladies in the car (taxi driver, Vika, and Aisya all laughed at me when they “heard” my reaction!) (The taxi driver looks *exactly* like Cathy Harris, btw, only with short hair. It was freaky!)
We finally came to the end of the road and I held my breath when I started to see the boys at the camp. Some of them looked in pretty tough shape, and I felt really bad for a lot of them. I wondered if our Misha was going to be in worse condition than what we were told. We got out of the car and the boys ALLLL (and I’m talking about over a hundred kids) all looked over at us or came over to greet us. Everyone kept saying “Misha” to each other looking for him. Misha had heard earlier today that we were coming, so the word had gotten out. The camp director read our letter and said, “Ok,” and called for Misha himself. Out of the crowd comes a boy version of our Valya. He was sooooooooo cute! He was so happy, yet hesitant to show his feelings. He was slightly shy at first, though absolutely thrilled to be so completely in the spotlight. Try as he might, he just couldn’t hide that smile, though he was definitely shy with it.
I should mention that I saw no obvious problems with his left hand or arm. He may not have complete dexterity in his hand, but you’ll never be able to tell that by looking at him.
We were introduced, and John shook his hand, and I gave him a giant hug. I was crying. Half of the other ladies were crying. Vika told him he needed to go say goodbye to his caregiver, and he b-lined straight over to her. She did come over to us, but she was quiet, and looked very sad to see him go. I was sooooo thrilled to see such a bond between them. She gave him a Pooh journal and a pen and inscribed it. I took a picture of them both, but she wasn’t smiling. Very typical Ukrainian lady. Formal and emotionless in all pictures.
We piled him into the car and we were gone. Just like that. The rest of the boys waved and hollered their goodbyes. I was in tears. Still.
Once we settled in the car, Misha asked if we were also adopting his sisters. He was visibly relieved when we said we were. He loved looking at the pictures and video of us with them. He let us know right away that he eats anything, but hates peas. We assured him that we don’t like them either. After that, we were all good! (Later on, just to be sure that we understood how bad he hates peas, he mentioned that he “might even need a doctor if he eats peas.”) Ok! Ok! No peas! :O)
We stopped at an outdoor-vendor of some tiny village in Nowhere and had some fabulous homemade apple pastries. These put the other ones completely to shame. Mmmm. We also had some liquid yogurt drinks. Very good too. Misha was too excited to sleep, and he made himself stay awake the entire drive back to the orphanage. I dozed a bit and put my head to his to test how long he’d let me keep it there before he’d pull away. He never did, and seemed to relax more and more. I held his hand for a while. He looked us in the eye a few times while talking, and enjoyed thumb-wrestling with John. He’s a keeper alright! My son is wonderful.
We got back to the orphanage after 1:00am, and I begged John to post pics of the kids on the website anyway even though it was Way Too Late. It felt good to Unpack what I had packed up this morning when I was Miss Pessimist of the World and figured we’d be on our way back to Kiev tonight. Then I went to bed.
What a wonderful, wonderful day.
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