Meeting Our Son!!

We’ve not had good internet luck since we arrived in our son’s region, so I was not able to blog yesterday. Occasionally I can get on facebook, but it’s usually pretty brief and unreliable and mostly, in the middle of posting an update or comment, I lose my connection. We are told this issue will be corrected this evening, so hopefully I can post this blog.

As for the last two days, ummm, today is Friday? Yes, I think so. The days are already running together. And I cannot remember what I included in my last blog (and I cannot access it without internet). So I will start with the important part. Yesterday, our facilitator took us to our son’s orphanage where we met with several “officials”, some from the local government and some from the orphanage. We were told about our son’s social & medical history. In short we were told he is healthy and smart (good in school).

The whole meeting is like an out-of-body experience. Whoever is speaking looks right at you and rattles off what seems like a thousand words a minute in Russian. The whole time I’m thinking “how on earth is our facilitator going to remember everything this person is saying?”. And when they’re done speaking, we look at our facilitator and in about 10 words, she tells us what the person speaking in Russian said. Anyway, after about 15 minutes of them informing us about our son, they ask us if we would like to meet him. Uh??? Da!! So they go to get him.

It is my understanding that until they went to get him to meet us, he knew nothing of us. We weren’t sure if he would know about us or not because we have written to him several times but our facilitator kinda indicated it is unlikely he was given our letters. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good rationale for their decision to do this (and maybe they held the letters and will give them to him sometime before he leaves the orphanage, who knows?). This is kind of disheartening to us, but again, whatever their reasoning, we trust it is in his best interest.

So anyway, on to the good part. All of the sudden, there he is! He walks right in the room. And just like when we met our daughter for the first time last summer, I think to myself “this child looks so perfect & so breakable”. And I say to God “if you say so” (meaning: if you entrust this child to me, who am I to reject the privilege and responsibility?). And it appears as though our son is being told about who we are and why we are here for the first time. As they are speaking to him, the corner of the table is kind of between us, so I reach out and shake his little porcelain hand. And about the same time, it appears as though he puts it all together and he simply lights up and as Richard reaches out to shake his hand, our son steps in and hugs him. And I am bursting! Thinking I am not going to survive meeting this child! And I’m gonna cry any second now but I don’t want to scare my kid off first thing!! And I certainly don’t want to look like a lunatic in front of all of these important people who really need to believe I am sane so that they allow me to take this child to be my own. So I pretty much hold it together (on the outside). And I got my own hug soon enough. And I think to myself “my children are so tiny (both of them!) please don’t let me break them!” Really, he looks breakable! And he’s adorable with piercing blue eyes! He really is a beautiful child.

We spend the next hour or so getting to know each other through our facilitator interpreting. We look through the picture book we brought him (fyi: google translator translates “silly” in English to “stupid” in Russian, so our dog now has something to prove – that he is NOT stupid; but simply “silly”!). Honestly, at this point, our son seems a little glassy eyed. He is pretty shy & quiet but considering the magnitude of what has just happened to him and how his world has just changed in what seems to him like an instant, you can imagine his little processor is working overtime! He warms up to the iPad (mostly playing Cut the Rope which he teaches himself on the fly) very quickly and is suddenly a typical kid! And we are nearly invisible. But he did tell our facilitator that at Christmas time he asked Santa for a Momma and Poppa. I wonder if he thinks we’re a little late…

We couldn’t have asked for anything more during our first time together! I do notice that occasionally he puts down the iPad and looks at his photo book. We load him up with candy to share & part ways for the day.

Another family is also in the region and we joined them and our facilitator to celebrate them having had a favorable hearing earlier the same day and us meeting our son for the first time. Our facilitator told us this day was a religious holiday in Ukraine celebrating all that is love (I’m sure I got that all wrong but it sounds good so let’s go with it!), so we have a toast for all three!

Today we made our official application to adopt our son and our facilitator, after spending a little time with us and our son at the orphanage, left the region to return to submit our application in Kyiv. We will spend the next few days visiting our son two hours a day at the orphanage (without any interpretation!) and then we will return to Kyiv early next week to start this same process with our daughter. And while we are going through these motions with our daughter, our application to adopt our son will be processed and we will receive a court date. And the same thing will happen with our daughter. It’s kinda crazy and sometime a bit too much to think about! So we are day-by-day for now! It’s all good…

As for our time with our son today, it was all about either the iPad or games on the laptop and cookies (they have amazing deserts here!). He’s all boy! He found every “action” game on the laptop that we didn’t even know we had! And when I asked what subjects he liked in school he shook his head and said “sports”.

To sum up where we are with him at this point all I can say is that I hope our he is not disappointed the day he realizes that having American parents means more than just being provided a vast array of games and treats (he asked us to bring him chocolate and Coke!). But for now, we are content with how we are building our relationship with him. He welcomes our hugs and attention. When we asked how school was today, he said he didn’t go because he was waiting for his Momma & Poppa. He likely has no idea what loving parents and family means…

We went to the market and enjoyed a cafeteria style meal for less than $6.00 for both of us and we bought groceries to prepare all of our meals in the apartment for the next three or four days for about $40. So that’s the upside of life in Ukraine!

Everyone has been very friendly and helpful. For the most part we feel safe & welcome here. The locals are quick to help, especially if you make an effort to speak to them in their language.

We have been blessed by every wonderful part of this journey (except the internet thing!)