Monday August 16 2010 - Week Two

 

This is the week we bond with Max and David. We worry that this week of bonding followed by six weeks of absence might be hard on all of us, but the social workers insist that we do it - mainly for our sake. Our appointment with the orphanage director isn't until 4pm, so we spend most of the day relaxing in our flat; Emma reads and I write in my journal and play on the Internet. We talk about how lucky we are and how 'at peace' we are with our decision to adopt three boys. If you had asked us a month ago if we would take three boys the answer would most likely be a resounding "no, are you crazy?". But this really feels right to us - meeting Vanya sealed the deal. He will be helpful in these first few months bringing stability for his younger brothers (and to us!), as well as helping me with taking care of them. Any feelings of doubt or concerns of "can we do this?" have faded away - at least for the moment!

The support we have received from family and friends has been wonderful. I can't express the gratitude we feel to everybody following our journey and posting comments of good wishes and "well dones". Everything from "you guys are so great for doing this", to "you all look like a family", to "wow, we are so amazed and proud of you two!!". Everybody has been so positive - it really reinforces what we are doing and we thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts for your kind words and strength!

One special young lady has really surprised me with her comments and clever postings. My fifteen year old daughter Sara has made me cry and filled my heart with pride with her reactions, thoughts and comments. To read her insightful and profound comments really brings tears to my eyes, knowing how excited she is to be a big sister to these three boys.

 

What really did me in was when she posted this message on her 'Tumblr' account (I didn't even know what that was!): "It's just now setting in...HOLY SH...my Dad...I think he found the kids he wants to adopt. Him and Emma. God, I don't know why I'm crying, it's just so amazing. I already love them. I love that my Dad is going to name one of them after himself because my Dad's just so ridiculous, and I love that they look like their possible new parents and I hope everything goes smoothly. I pray for all the other children in need of families everywhere. It's such a sad situation, but hearing about everything that's happening over there makes me feel like...well, to be honest, like there's hope. Corny, corny, corny - but I can't wait to meet them. God I hope they'll like me, I'm going to be an older sister...I mean, wow. Wow". And then she adds the link to 'Here comes the Sun' with the caption "It's raining, but I hear this song anyway. Good luck, Dad. Those kids are going to have wonderful parents".

Sara - you continue to amaze me, and yes of course they will love you!! What a great Christmas we will all have! Hopefully Lisa will join us and we will have all five kids together. ;^)

Before heading to the orphanage for our 4pm appointment with the 'scary orphanage director', we walk down to the local kids' store to buy some presents and toys for Max and David. The shop is filled with everything you could ever need for babies and children of all ages. We pick out a few balls, a new drum (to replace the one Max broke on Friday), a set of building blocks and a story book written in Ukrainian and English. And of course we need to bring cookies!

 

At 4pm we wander over to our lawyer's office where we meet our new translator (another Katja) and to sign papers. But Natasha's side of the street has been without electricity all day so nothing is ready. Katja has been hired merely to help translate - she isn't an adoption coordinator - just coming along to help us with the director, our lawyer and our fun but crazy driver Gregori. She is very young and speaks excellent English and she seems quite busy in the town translating for various agencies etc.

We get picked up by Gregori and we all head out to meet 'THE DIRECTOR'. She has a very powerful influence at the orphanage and you can tell she runs a tight ship in the way everybody respects her and reacts to her. We are lead up to her impressive office and told to wait outside until she is ready. She is a short stocky blonde woman, very professional looking with a confident and motherly demeanour. Emma charms her with a few Ukrainian phrases (spoken with an excellent accent she is told) and she warmly greets us into her office (brownie points for us with that!). She explains through our translator Katja, that her focus is on the well being of all 'her children' and she asks us many questions of our intentions and most importantly whether we are planning on taking all three brothers. Apparently a family recently petitioned to adopt Max and David, but couldn't handle the older boy, so she rejected them. We promised that our intentions were good and that we certainly wanted all three boys to stay together. We showed her pictures from our visit to Vanya on Saturday, as well as our visit with the younger boys on Friday, which produced smiles of satisfaction. She handed us our official invitation form allowing us to visit the boys (10 - 11:45am and 3:45 to 5pm) which we must bring every day, and then wished us good luck. We promised to show her pictures of our home when she has more time as she is still catching up on things after her vacation. As we left I asked her if there was anything the orphanage was in need of and she replied "we can talk about that later". She will think about it and let us know.

We were escorted down to the playroom where we first met Max and David to await their arrival. Everything seems a bit more relaxed, and there are only the three of us waiting, as they walk into the room and immediately come running over to hug us and see what we brought them. We spend what's left of our hour long visit playing with the new balls, building blocks and musical instruments. David shows off a few of his dance moves as he plays with his new castanets. The boy loves to dance!!!

Katja helps with the communication but she tells us later that she won't come any more so that we can focus on each other instead of her translating everything (very good idea actually). The boys love the balls and the cars, but we are told that they really weren't too crazy about the jig-saw puzzle. It all seems a bit more relaxed and casual, altho they still ran circles around us! Time passes quickly, but first we get to experience Max's first temper tantrum after we take Katja's expensive sunglasses away from him. Kids are the same wherever they are from and it's nice to see he has passion. You can feel them warming up to us and we take hundreds of really cute pictures. In fact, David takes my camera (as did his brother Vanya) to take a bunch of his own photos, most of which will be deleted, as they usually pointed down to the ground. One excellent picture he took was a closeup shot of Katja's cleavage (that's my boy!!!).

 

We say goodbye to them at 5pm sharp and head back to our flat to relax, eat dinner, read and play on the Internet. We reflect back on our second visit with the boys and re-affirm our decision to do this. We know it will change our lives dramatically and that it won't be easy, but it is exactly what we wanted and it all seems to be falling into place nicely. With every visit, the bond continues to grow and soon we will all be a family. Good night...everybody out there!