Happy Victory Day!

May 9th is a rather big deal in Russia. This day marks the day the Russian Army marched into Berlin, and the German's surrendered to Russia at the end of World War II.

Victory Day is celebrated in Russia like we celebrate July 4th in the US. There will be parades, fireworks, festivals, and military remembrance. The orphanage was already starting to prepare for the holiday with decorations when we were there on the 29th.

By now, the holiday is over for the boys, but I hope it was fun for them!

Novokuznetsk Day 1 Afternoon

We left the orphanage around noon and went back to the hotel to sleep. It was the first real sleep we'd gotten in 31 hours. As we fell asleep we talked about the boys - how they were exactly what we expected.

We primarily discussed the medical information. We expected that there would be some developmental delays, both speech and motor skills. After talking with the doctor, and putting pieces together, here is what we know about the medical conditions of the boys.

Sam has some significant motor development delays of the right side of his body. We noticed this the second he walk into the room. He has a slight limp on the right side, and reached for things with his left hand. He uses the right hand, but it's not as strong. The doctor said that initially he did not use his right side, arm or leg, at all, but he has made vast improvements, and she expects that to continue.

The doctor said that Rowan has some motor development delays, but nothing significant that we could see by the end of the visit. He is walking well, and using both arms and hand equally and as expected. He does have some significant speech delays. He did not talk at any time during the visit.

Both boys were born with syphilis. The doctor said that when the boys were taken from their mother, they were taken to a special hospital to treat syphilis. Both boys have been treated. Syphilis is a bacteria that, if left untreated, can cause delays in development in children. While it is not know, our best guess is that the boys were not treated until they were taken from their home, which is probably why Sam has more significant delays that Rowan.

There were also some minor findings that are considered normal. Overall, all the medical conditions are treatable. Thankfully, I know a guy who happens to work at a children's hospital. The other thing we kept in mind is that these are the boys God picked just for us, and he knew their medical conditions before we did.

At 3:45, we headed back to the orphanage for the afternoon visit. This time Rowan didn't cry when he saw Steve. Steve spent most of this visit sitting with Rowan, getting him used to being around a man. They mostly sat by themselves and played with the bunny, the trucks and the balls. Eventually, Rowan allowed Steve to pick him up and hold him. Steve took him off to the side, away from all the hustle and bustle of the room. He said that immediately he was much more focused and less timid. Our theory is that Rowan is an overstimulated child. Often, children in orphanages experience so much that their little brains can't process it all, leading to over excited reactions, or shutdown reactions. When in all the chaos, Rowan shuts down. When by himself, he becames more able to function.

Sam continued to be his fun loving, active self. He went from playing with the balls, to playing with the bubbles, to reading books, to trying to climb all over me, to looking outside, to kicking the big balls, giving hugs throughout. At one point, he became suddenly fascinated by Steve's beard. He reached over and gently stroked the hair on his chin, and started laughing. He was please with his new find.

During one of the book reading sessions with Sam, I was drawn to the back of his head. While his hair looks black in the photos, it is actually black with quite a bit of red mixed throughout. Just over a year ago, when we decided we were going to adopt from Russia, I had a dream. In the dream, God clearly told me that the oldest boy would be named Samuel, that he would be 3 years old, and he would have red hair. In that moment, while holding my son, I realized that by the time Sam comes home, he will be 3, and he has read hair. One day, I'll write down all the "God things" that have happened throughout the adoption.

At one point in time, the "head caregiver" came in to play with the boys, and meet mom and dad. Sam understands Russian pretty well. He speaks Russian jabber really well, and has the basic words. The caregiver looked as Sam, and asked the equivalent of who is poppa. She pointed at Steve and said poppa, which ironically enough, is Russian for dad. After repeating this a couple times, Sam looked at Steve and said "poppa." I cried. Sam called Steve poppa. Whether or not he really understands the concept is a different matter. He called Steve poppa, and my heart melted. She also pointed at me and said momma to Sam. Sam repeated the word, but wasn't really looking at me when he said it. Such is life.

Soon after it was time to say goodbye for the evening. We would have a few more hours the next day with them.

We headed back to the hotel, and then out for the great Roman adventure...but I'll let Steve tell that story. More pictures in another post.

Request

This post is a break from the activities of last week, but it's something that has been pressing on me.

Steve and I are asking for prayers that the 10 day waiting period prior to finalizing the adoption be waived.

Russian law requires a 10 day waiting period before parents can legally take custody of adopted children. The option to waive the waiting period is up to the judge in each region. Until recently, the waiting period was being waived quite frequently.

Due to recent actions, which you can read about here, the waiting period is not being waived. So what does this mean?

1. For the 10 days following the court date, adopted children must remain in the orphanage. Additionally, the orphanage retains the power to regulate how often the adoptive parents see the children, which includes the possibility of not at all.
2. The waiting period prolongs the time before the children get access to more advanced and specialized medical care, which some children may require.

This also adds to the expense of adoption as it would require more time in country.

Americans adopting Russian children are not looked upon very kindly by Russians because of the situation mentioned in the above linked article.

We are asking you to pray that the 10 day waiting period be waived, not just in our adoptions, but for all adoptions of Russian children. Please join us in prayer, and help not only us, but other families bring their babies home sooner.

More photos from our visit.

Blogger does not like photos...so here are some additional photos....

Sam playing with stacking cups

Rowan playing with the balls

Momma and the boys

Sam was fascinated by the camera. Here is he trying to look up the lense to see me

Blowing bubbles with poppa

Novokuznetsk Day 1 - The First Orphanage Visit

At 9:30am, with little sleep or food, we headed off to the orphanage. The time in the hotel leading up to that was nerve racking. I honestly felt like I was about to give birth. I was meeting my sons...my sons. I was nervous and anxious...would the take to me, what would they really be like, would they understand who I was, would the orphanage workers think I would be a good mother? I was nauseous. I paced around the room. We prayed for peace, for the nervousness to go away, because we both knew God made this possible, and we needed to pull it together for the boys. So, at 9:30 we loaded the van to drive the half mile to the orphanage.


The orphanage was a 3 story, gray brick building, shaped like a large U. In the yard areas on each side of the main entrance were typical playground equipment - swings, a slide, a jungle gym - all of which looked worn.

One of the social workers at the orphanage greeted us as we entered. We were then escorted to her office, that we affectionately dubbed "the principal's office." As we entered the building, and before we left, we sat on the couch in the office.

First we learned "social" history about the boys. Here is what we know:

• Mom was 18 when she had Sam, and Rowan followed 11 months later
• Nothing is known about the fathers, of which are different
• The boys were removed from the home, and taken to a hospital for treatment
• The mother was deprived of her legal rights to the children
• Sam arrived at the orphanage in January 2008, and Rowan in December 2007

We were then escorted to the "play room." This room was on the second floor of the building. I noticed the stairwell was brightly painted with cartoon like images. It seemed to be welcoming and cheerful. We were greeted by a Russian woman in a white coat. She was the physician that would review the medical information with us. I had my notebook out, ready to take careful notes and ask questions. Before she could start talking, I heard jabber coming from the hall...and in walked the 2 most beautiful boys I'd ever seen, one on each side of the social worker, holding her hand.

They were beautiful. They were just like the photos. They were my sons.

I heard nothing the doctor said after that. Steve walked over to say hello to the boys...and Rowan started crying. The boys had never seen men, and Steve is a bit intimidating. All of the orphanage workers are female. All of them. I immediately put my notebook down and went to comfort him. He cried large tears for a good half hour, and I didn't have anything to wipe them. I eventually snagged a tissue and wiped away his tears. Sam came over to say hello as Steve finished taking notes about the health status of the boys.

I knitted little blankets with bunny heads for each of them. I gave each boy his bunny, and both seems kind of excited. I grabbed some graham cracker that we packed, and gave one to each boy. Sam quickly ate his and in Russian asked for another (at least I think that's what he wanted). Rowan held tightly to his cracker, one in each hand. Rowan sat in my lap for a while, not doing much of anything.

We brought bubbles for the boys to play with, because who doesn't like bubbles? I showed Sam how to dip the stick in the solution and blow the bubbles. He nor Rowan were impressed with the actual bubbles, but Sam wanted to do it himself. After me showing him once, he grabbed the stick, dipped it in the solution, and held it up to his mouth to blow. His mouth was mid-stick, but he got the concept - dip and blow. Once Steve was done with the doctor, he came over and continued blowing bubbles with Sam. For the hour we were there in the morning, Sam would blow bubbles, asking to hold the bottle himself. He tried to take it from Steve once, and most of it ended up on him. Sam also gave lots of hugs.

Rowan kept quiet and still. He eventually ate his crackers, but not before there were smashed to crumbs. Near the end of our time, Rowan and I started to play with the balls from the ball pit, but he did not speak, and he did not show much emotion.

Before we knew it, lunch time had arrived, and the boys were whisked away. We would be able to return later that afternoon.

Here are some photos from the morning of our visit.


Rowan and momma...the green stuff is ointment for mosquito bites.






Sam, kind of unsure.

Moscow Day 3 - Novokuznetsk Day 1 Morning

These two days ran together, literally. By the time it was all said and done, we were up for 31 hours with sporadic 30 minute naps.

The third day in Moscow was not that exciting. We had to check out at noon, but our driver was not coming until 5:00pm. We slept in as long as possible, and then hung out in the lounge for the afternoon eating the complementary snacks - it became clear we were unsure when our next meal would be.

Traffic in Moscow is horrible as mentioned. We asked our driver about the typical "rush hour." He replied from about 6am to 10am, and again from 3pm to 8pm. And we thought Cincinnati was bad. The airport was 46km from the hotel (about 28 miles), which is about how far the Cincinnati airport is from my house. The drive took over 2 hours, and there were no accidents, no rain, just traffic.

We arrived at the airport and checked in with plenty of time to spare. Fortunately, all the airport signs were in English so it was easy to locate the gate and restrooms. Unfortunately, none of the menus at any of the cafes were in English, and few employees spoke English, so we settled for some bottled waters, coca-cola, and Russian chocolate from one of the shops.

Russia has a very loose open container policy, in that if you can open it, you can drink it. One of our guide books actually said that Russians love their beer as much as they love their vodka. It's true. We especially enjoyed the airport vending machine that dispensed the canned beer along with the coca-cola. We didn't get a picture of it, but laughed none the less.

There are 3 major airports in Moscow. One handles primarily international flights and is the major hub for Aeroflot, the Russian airline. Delta flies into this airport. One we didn't see, and the other handles primarily domestic and some international flights. This airport was very unique in that it had gates for planes to park, but didn't use them. All the plane parked on the tarmac, and passengers were shuttled to and from. Russia has similar airline policies as the US, including to stay in your seat until the plane is parked and the captain turns off the fasten seat belt sign. Well, since Russians are used to the plane just stopping and parking in any location, 95 percent of passengers are up, in the aisle, ready to deplane as soon as the wheel hit the runway.

So we start boarding at 10pm. We walk out the door onto a bus, which takes us out to the tarmac, up the staircase (I felt a bit important at that point), and onto the plane. The planes were the same larger aircraft you would expect to see in the US. We left at 10:30 for a 4 hour flight that would get us to Novokuznetsk at 6:30am (or 2:30am if we are still talking Moscow time). This particular airline served a full meal about an hour into the flight. The Russian "red eye" is not the same as the American counterpart. The flight attendants spoke enough English to know that I didn't speak Russian, and to tell me my choices were chicken, beef or fish. I went with chicken. The food was airline food, nothing spectacular.

Russians like their airplanes hot. About halfway through the flight Steve and I could no longer sleep and were shedding as many extra clothes as possible. All those around us seem to be completely ok with the temperature. We finally arrive at our destination and welcomed the cold Siberian air. All others on the plane had heavy coats and hats on before the plane landed.

Novokuznetsk is an industrial town of about 700,000 located in the Kemerovo region of Siberia. This area is tucked in between Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Our translator would tell us that the town is one of the largest steel and coal producing towns in Russia, but since the global economic downturn, the jobs and the industry are drying up.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was about a half hour. The countryside reminded us a bit of Montana mixed with West Virginia...wide open spaced, rolling landscapes, mountain in the distance, small houses that by American standard would be considered dirty and dilapidated. The city itself is what I imagine Pittsburgh must have looked like just after the height of it's steel hayday. There was nothing that stood out about the city, no fancy buildings, no bright signs. Most buildings were high rise apartment buildings that reminded me of the southside of Chicago. To be honest, it was a bit sad. Very few cars were on the roads as public transportation or walking are the preferred methods.

We arrived at the hotel at 7:30am, and by the time we got checked in it was almost 8:00. The orphanage was expecting us at 10:00, so we needed to leave at 9:30. We had an hour and a half to prepare ourselves for the days adventures.

The hotel room was nice. It was a suite, by American standards, two rooms, bed in one, couch and tv in the other, fridge, tea pot (would prove to be gold later), bathroom. The showers in Russia were very small, at all the hotels. Russians do not have traditional tubs like in American, and the shower often is located in a corner, and is the size of a matchbox. One wrong move of the elbow while washing the hair and you could get freezing or scalding water. For those who don't know Steve, he is a larger man...6 foot, 270. I'm pretty sure that when he stood on the diagonal, he touched both the door and the shower control knob. For those of you who know Steve, you just realized how small this shower really is. Needless to say, I heard many joyous shouts from the bathroom.

Ok, there really is too much here for one post. There is so much that happened at the orphanage that I want to capture is all. Stay tuned...I promise the photos are coming!

Back from the USSR

Well, it's not quite the USSR, but there were some Lenin and Stalin sightings.

We are home. Landed in the good old US of A on Saturday evening. Surprisingly, the transition from time zones has been relatively smooth (thank you Jesus). My plan for the week is to blog about each day in Russia, so you will have to wait for all the pictures (or friend me on Facebook). Honestly, there was so much that went on that it's way too much for one post. Hang with me, I promise it will be worth it.

In the mean time, here are some photos from Moscow.

The museum at one end of Red Square

The Presidential Residence at the Kremlin

St. Basil's Cathedral

Red Square

Two crazy American tourists.