This week has been like nothing I could ever have imagined. The emotion, the intensity, the craziness, all of it. We have only been here 4 days, and such an incredible amount has happened. I know you all have been waiting to hear what’s happening, but there was no way to communicate it. We didn’t even know what was happening. I’ll start from the beginning, which is actually an incident from before we left.
Jaden’s kindergarten teacher, Norah, holds a beautiful ceremony for each child’s birthday in the classroom. During the ceremony, she tells a wonderful story of the child coming to his or her parents as a star before he/she was born and asking if they would be his mommy or daddy. In Jaden’s story, she also added a part about his new brother coming to Jaden as a star and asking if Jaden would be his brother. It was very sweet and touching. A few days later, we were leaving the school. We were the very last ones there (no surprises there), and as we walked to the car, I walked out way ahead of Jaden. A few minutes later I heard him saying, really excitedly, “Mommy, mommy, you won’t believe it! My brother just came to me as a star and asked me to be his brother, I heard him whisper in my ear!” Dead earnest. I said “Wow Jaden, that’s amazing, what did you say?”. He responded, “I just danced a little jig.”
Keeping this in mind, fast forward to Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, Thursday, March 15th. After sitting around all day Wednesday, we woke up Thursday morning, and headed out to the orphanage. The place was better than I had imagined in some ways, and the reality of it is much worse in others. More on that another time. We went into a big room with a couple of couches and a couple of rugs on the floor. Our local coordinator, Zhana, and translator, Galina, were with us (as was Jaden). The head doctor came in, along with the pediatrician, the head caregiver, and it seems like there were some other people in the room? There was another adoptive mom there with her soon to be son, whom she had met only 5 days earlier.
The head doctor asks us a bunch of questions: “why are you adopting”, “is your son your biological child”, “if you can have children, why don’t you have another one of your own”, “what do you do for work”, etc. She also asks what type of child we are interested in: totally healthy, some correctable issues, etc. I respond that some minor correctable issues are OK, as I have been warned by our agency that here they view most children has having some disability, and we should answer this way as they don’t think any children are totally healthy. Apparently the condition of being born sets you back from the get-go. Suddenly, and with no warning, a door in the corner swings open, and these two small boys come literally running into the room, like two birds released from a cage. The minute I looked at them my heart sank a bit. I wasn’t entirely sure they were there for us to meet, as no one had said anything, or prepared us in any way, but it was soon obvious that’s exactly what was going on.
One boy had a huge smile on his face, but had what seemed to be some obvious neurological issues, as he held his arms in a strange position. He wouldn’t respond to his name when anyone called him. He found a balloon leftover from a party they had, and ran around the room crazily chasing it, trying to put it on top of things, etc. I couldn’t get him to stop, slow down, make eye contact, nothing.
The other boy had a strange expression on his face, a totally flat affect. He also started to play with a balloon, but in a way that just seemed off. He would make eye contact, but seemed very shut down and overwhelmed. I thought that seemed like it could be understandable, given the number of people in the room, etc. I tried interacting with him, with some limited success. Both boys were between 2 ½ and 3 years old. While we are trying to process what’s going on, the door opens again, and two more small boys come into the room holding hands, in shorts and t-shirts, spindly pale legs and all. It seems this did NOT meet with the head doctor’s approval, as she immediately had them taken away, and returned with long pants on and new shoes. In the meantime we are told they are brothers, 2 ½ and 3 ½. Wow. That puts a whole new spin on things. Although our paperwork is approved for us to adopt 2 children, this is not seriously in our plans, but more of a ‘just in case’ scenario.
The doctor asks if we are interested in babies, as they have two boys, one 7 months, one 9 months. As we are saying ‘no, we really don’t want an infant’, two caregivers enter the room, each carrying one of the babies. How is the doctor orchestrating all this?!? She hasn’t left her chair, and yet kids keep appearing as if on an invisible conveyor belt. The babies are Oh So Cute, as only babies can be. Zhana, our coordinator, takes one and talks to him, and brings him over for us to look at. The other one makes funny faces at the doctor. We resist (I more than Bruce I am sure) to hold them. Jaden says “Oh Mommy, they are so cute!” I knew this was going to be rough, this is just different than I expected somehow. In this middle of all this at some point, Jaden informs me that he thinks the second boy, who is 2 ½ and named Timor, might be his brother, the one who came to him as a star. Oh my. I am totally stunned. What to say to that? I have no idea what to think.
When the brothers return, there are now 6 children in the room, including Jaden and the other little boy being adopted. There are about 9 adults, most speaking rapid Russian. The boys with the balloons are still chasing them crazily about. And now the brothers want balloons to play with too. So Bruce gets balloons for everyone (they are stuck on the walls), and begins a wild game of balloon toss with the kids. Jaden is pretty wound up, and about twice the height of any of these kids. He looks like the Jolly Green Giant next to them. I am trying to assess the whole situation and interact with each of the kids a bit. One of the brothers hits the others, and they are abruptly taken out of the room, again with nothing said. Then the other two are taken out. We are told these are the only children that are available for adoption at the moment. The doctor looks at us and says (through the interpreter) “Do you have any questions?”. Oh maybe just one or two….
We start asking questions about the kids medical histories, etc. We start with Timor, for a number of reasons. We ask what they know about his medical history. They tell us he has been at the orphanage since he was one month old, and is somewhat delayed developmentally. We aren’t too surprised at that, as many children who live in orphanages have some degree of delays. Bruce then asks if anything is known about the mother. We are not prepared for the answer. The doctor responds, that yes, she knows the mother well. She is an alcoholic. I felt my heart sink further. “Did she drink while she was pregnant?” asks Bruce. “Well, yes,” came the reply, “She drank a lot”. “What about the brothers?” we ask, wondering exactly what our options are here. “Yes, she drank, but not as much” came the reply. “And she was homeless. She took the children back a few times, but the last time the police found them abandoned on the street.” We asked a few more questions, but were pretty dazed by this time. Then the doctor says, “Well, what is your decision?” It seemed grim humor, but she was totally serious. We told her we would go home to think and return in the afternoon.
Bruce and I could hardly speak. What was there to say? We came so, so far, with so much hope in our hearts. We were faced with two children who seemed likely to have major health issues including possible Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), two with possible alcohol exposure, although they seemed fairly healthy, but meant turning our family of 3 into a family of 5, and two infants. It hardly seemed that there were options to consider. Nonetheless, we tried. Hard. We talked and thought about the implications of each of these situations. We ruled nothing out, except the boy who wouldn’t connect at all, as he seemed too disconnected to us. And at 4pm we went back to the orphanage, a totally different journey than the one we had taken just that morning. Once again, the room filled with people. This time someone had let the orphange’s pet cockatiel out of it’s cage, and it flew around the room, nibbled at people’s earrings, and ate it’s own poop. We asked to see the brothers and Timor again.
Again the balloons came out. Bruce insisted that we be allowed to take photos of the children, knowing we would want feedback from the International Adoption (IA) doctor we are working with. I started taking photos as we played. The head doctor fortunately left the room. There are very specific criteria used to diagnose FAS, and so the pictures needed to be taken a certain way. I crawled around trying to take as many photos as possible, play with the kids, keep Jaden from getting too crazy, and not take so many photos that the orphange staff became irritated or insulted. The brothers seemed like great kids. Timor still seemed shut down, but there was something there that made us think it was worth considering. At the end of the day, we told the doctor again, we would have to go home and think about this. We also asked again if there were any other children we could consider, including girls. No, we were told, this was it. I asked if there were any coming off the registry any time soon. No. They urged us to take the brothers, and told us that Timor was quite delayed, and they didn’t think we should adopt him. We went back to the apartment.
We got immediately busy downloading photos, uploading them to a web album for the doctor to view, and trying urgently to get our IA doc on the phone. We left a message for her to email us with a time to call. We continued to talk and try to find some way through this. We researched FAS and FAE (Fetal Alcohol Effect) online. Nothing we found gave us any comfort. FAS is irreversable, and can be very severe, including heart defects, vision and hearing problems, ADD/ADHD, behavioural issues, learning disabilities, poor impulse control, poor social interactions, etc. We talked some more. We decided that we could not adopt 2 children. We didn’t know if we could handle the pressures it would place on our family, and of course there is no going back. We have great respect for all of you that parent 3 or more children, and we see the demands it places on you and your families. As great as the brothers seemed, and as much as we wished we could do it, we ultimately felt it wouldn’t be a fair decision, for us or for Jaden. Around 2am we finally got a response from the AI doc. She could do a call at 6am our time. We called our adoption coordinator at the agency in California to tell her what was going on. We went to bed.
After talking to the IA doc, we realized we needed more photos. We also felt we needed to spend some time alone with Timor to see how he acted when there was less stimuli. So we returned to the orphanage that morning with toys and markers, and our camera. When we arrived, we were told that our agency coordinator had talked to someone who talked to someone… and maybe there was a child that would be coming off of the registry soon. They were going to check, and if so, they would show him to us in the afternoon. We hung out for about 2 hours, and were surprised at how well this child played. He had good motor skills, good understanding of how things worked, etc. He didn’t communicate verbally at all though, or really even non-verbally for that matter. No noises, no attempt to talk, no change in facial expression. We realized he likely had a vision issue, as he holds everything quite close to see it. We were a little encouraged, but the fact that this child had yet to show an emotion of any kind was concerning. As we took more photos, we felt he likely didn’t have FAS, but there was clearly something not right. We went back to the apartment. We emailed more photos, we had lunch, I took a nap. We ruled out the idea of adopting an infant. We discussed what it would mean to go home without our little brother, without our second born. We were all really drained.
We went back in the afternoon. We met the new child, a small boy named Tirmilanu. He just turned two, and seemed cute and bright. It was hard to tell, partly as we were so taxed at this point. Zhana asked him some questions “Where is the bear’s nose?”, “push the button on the phone”, etc. He seemed so much more aware in some way than Timor. It was hard to focus though, as there was a lot of conversation going on. In part, about the fact that this child wouldn’t be available for adoption until after April 12th. We couldn’t even start the process until then. And we were somewhat invested in Timor at this point, at least in seeing it through, getting all the answers we could so we could make a decision. Here I have to add that our IA doc has been invaluable. She advised us before we left ‘not to fall in love right away’. She suggested trying to keep emotion out of it for the first 48 hours. And she has been kind and supportive of our family unit as a whole, asking how we are, how Jaden is holding up, etc. Great woman.
We spent some more time with Timor. We had Zhana and Galina ask him some simple questions to see what he could understand. It wasn’t very promising, as he responded to nothing. He would look at them, seeming listen, and then nothing. One of his caregivers gave him a ball and asked him to take it to me. She asked at least 10 times before he did. He didn’t seem afraid, he just didn’t do it. My heart really broke for this child. What could he become given the right environment? Could our family handle the ‘What if’s?” We have all constructed these lives one tinker toy at a time, stable but fragile in some ways. We have seen some of the effects of two much strain on the system in the lives of some of you, our friends. We know how you have borne up when you have had to, how some of you have struggled, still struggle to keep your lives together under very difficult circumstances. Did we want to create this situation for ourselves by choice? Even given the best scenario, this child would be very difficult to bring out, and we have no way of knowing if it would even be possible. We went back to the apartment.
We talked last night about everything. We emailed with the IA doc again. We talked about what we felt we could do as a family, how much risk we could take and hold the whole together. My heart broke every time I thought of Timor. And yet we knew that it was more than we could do. I think I will hold that pain forever. I so wish I had it in me, that I could push myself over that line. And if it were just me, maybe I would. But I can’t take my family there, as selfish as it feels. I want to know if there is something we can do for this child. He has no future here, of that I am certain. We talked about our options, and decided to return again to visit with Tirmilanu again. Zhana is not happy about the delay. We talked again with our coordinator in California. She tells us to take our time, don’t feel any pressure. “You will have emotions, they will have emotions”, she says, “Just do what you need to in order to make the right decision for your family.” She promised to call again tonight to check in. We talked about what we would do if we had to wait nearly a month to start the adoption process if we felt Tirmilan was the right child for us. We decided that going home and returning in 3 weeks was not an option. But Bruce needs to be able to work, so there’s that to consider. And as Jaden put it, he’s “summer-sick”. Kind of like being homesick….
Today we went back to visit with Tirmilanu. This time, they opened the door and pushed this little 2 year old in, all by himself. It was only us, no one who could speak Russian. Yesterday he was happy to play with toys, play ball with me, etc. Today he looked at us for a minute and started to cry. Then he headed for the door. I picked him up and carried him around. He smelled like graham crackers. “Oh, that’s so sweet” Jaden said when I told him. His nickname is Tuma. He continued to cry. I showed him the bird. I showed him some toys. I tried to think of something to say with my 6 words of Russian. He cried. He started to calm down when someone opened the door to his playroom. He cried harder. Finally Zhana showed up. She took him and calmed him, but only a bit. Then she took him back to his room. The kids went outside, so we followed and watched them play. They took great delight in throwing shovelfuls of snow at Bruce. Jaden is the big dancing clown in their midst. We went back to the apartment.
In the afternoon we returned. Again the brought Tuma in. Again he cried. This time Zhana calms him for a few minutes before he starts again. She goes and gets his snowsuit. He let’s me help him put on his boots and his hat. He won’t let me hold his hand down the stairs though. We go back outside and hang out playing with the children for about an hour and a half. We walk back to the apartment. During dinner, our translator calls. Good news, she tells us, they can file our paperwork for the court date on March 29th, and then our second court date will be after April 12th, so it will all work out OK. Great we think, amazing. We have decided this little boy will be our son. I finally unpack. We go through our list of names over dinner, crossing out this one and that one, giving stars to the ones we like, trying to figure out what to use as a middle name, a nickname, a given name. After dinner we get another phone call from Galina. “How is your mood?” she asks. “How is it about to be?” I respond. She tells me that now they have called to Astana, and no, they cannot process the paperwork until after April 12th. We are not even supposed to meet this child until after April 12th. So sorry. We believe this child is our son. We consider our options. We contemplate 3 more trips on that train. We run through possible destinations and time zones. We discuss what to do with all of the stuff we have brought. Bruce explains to Jaden the concept of making lemonade out of the lemons life sometimes hands you. We plan our trip to India, to the beaches of Goa, to the land of high-speed internet access, to await April 12th. Which also happens to be our 10 year anniversary. Is it kismet?
As Bruce’s friend in Bombay said to him via IM today, ‘in Buddhist lands we believe the path to happiness is through suffering…’ As our agencies info packet said, ‘this is your chance to adopt a child, if it is what you really want, don’t give up even if things don’t go as you expect.’ As my son said, “Mommy, Tuma was the star who came to me. I am 100% sure.”
We will miss you all for another month, turn our lives upside down a little longer. We will hope for the best, as this journey is far from over. Hopefully we will return early June, with our 2 children, both borne in our hearts. Here is the face we hope you will see then, when you come to hang out this summer in our backyard, or when we next we meet with you, our friends and family from further away. Thanks for reading this
far.
Jaden’s kindergarten teacher, Norah, holds a beautiful ceremony for each child’s birthday in the classroom. During the ceremony, she tells a wonderful story of the child coming to his or her parents as a star before he/she was born and asking if they would be his mommy or daddy. In Jaden’s story, she also added a part about his new brother coming to Jaden as a star and asking if Jaden would be his brother. It was very sweet and touching. A few days later, we were leaving the school. We were the very last ones there (no surprises there), and as we walked to the car, I walked out way ahead of Jaden. A few minutes later I heard him saying, really excitedly, “Mommy, mommy, you won’t believe it! My brother just came to me as a star and asked me to be his brother, I heard him whisper in my ear!” Dead earnest. I said “Wow Jaden, that’s amazing, what did you say?”. He responded, “I just danced a little jig.”
Keeping this in mind, fast forward to Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, Thursday, March 15th. After sitting around all day Wednesday, we woke up Thursday morning, and headed out to the orphanage. The place was better than I had imagined in some ways, and the reality of it is much worse in others. More on that another time. We went into a big room with a couple of couches and a couple of rugs on the floor. Our local coordinator, Zhana, and translator, Galina, were with us (as was Jaden). The head doctor came in, along with the pediatrician, the head caregiver, and it seems like there were some other people in the room? There was another adoptive mom there with her soon to be son, whom she had met only 5 days earlier.
The head doctor asks us a bunch of questions: “why are you adopting”, “is your son your biological child”, “if you can have children, why don’t you have another one of your own”, “what do you do for work”, etc. She also asks what type of child we are interested in: totally healthy, some correctable issues, etc. I respond that some minor correctable issues are OK, as I have been warned by our agency that here they view most children has having some disability, and we should answer this way as they don’t think any children are totally healthy. Apparently the condition of being born sets you back from the get-go. Suddenly, and with no warning, a door in the corner swings open, and these two small boys come literally running into the room, like two birds released from a cage. The minute I looked at them my heart sank a bit. I wasn’t entirely sure they were there for us to meet, as no one had said anything, or prepared us in any way, but it was soon obvious that’s exactly what was going on.
One boy had a huge smile on his face, but had what seemed to be some obvious neurological issues, as he held his arms in a strange position. He wouldn’t respond to his name when anyone called him. He found a balloon leftover from a party they had, and ran around the room crazily chasing it, trying to put it on top of things, etc. I couldn’t get him to stop, slow down, make eye contact, nothing.
The other boy had a strange expression on his face, a totally flat affect. He also started to play with a balloon, but in a way that just seemed off. He would make eye contact, but seemed very shut down and overwhelmed. I thought that seemed like it could be understandable, given the number of people in the room, etc. I tried interacting with him, with some limited success. Both boys were between 2 ½ and 3 years old. While we are trying to process what’s going on, the door opens again, and two more small boys come into the room holding hands, in shorts and t-shirts, spindly pale legs and all. It seems this did NOT meet with the head doctor’s approval, as she immediately had them taken away, and returned with long pants on and new shoes. In the meantime we are told they are brothers, 2 ½ and 3 ½. Wow. That puts a whole new spin on things. Although our paperwork is approved for us to adopt 2 children, this is not seriously in our plans, but more of a ‘just in case’ scenario.
The doctor asks if we are interested in babies, as they have two boys, one 7 months, one 9 months. As we are saying ‘no, we really don’t want an infant’, two caregivers enter the room, each carrying one of the babies. How is the doctor orchestrating all this?!? She hasn’t left her chair, and yet kids keep appearing as if on an invisible conveyor belt. The babies are Oh So Cute, as only babies can be. Zhana, our coordinator, takes one and talks to him, and brings him over for us to look at. The other one makes funny faces at the doctor. We resist (I more than Bruce I am sure) to hold them. Jaden says “Oh Mommy, they are so cute!” I knew this was going to be rough, this is just different than I expected somehow. In this middle of all this at some point, Jaden informs me that he thinks the second boy, who is 2 ½ and named Timor, might be his brother, the one who came to him as a star. Oh my. I am totally stunned. What to say to that? I have no idea what to think.
When the brothers return, there are now 6 children in the room, including Jaden and the other little boy being adopted. There are about 9 adults, most speaking rapid Russian. The boys with the balloons are still chasing them crazily about. And now the brothers want balloons to play with too. So Bruce gets balloons for everyone (they are stuck on the walls), and begins a wild game of balloon toss with the kids. Jaden is pretty wound up, and about twice the height of any of these kids. He looks like the Jolly Green Giant next to them. I am trying to assess the whole situation and interact with each of the kids a bit. One of the brothers hits the others, and they are abruptly taken out of the room, again with nothing said. Then the other two are taken out. We are told these are the only children that are available for adoption at the moment. The doctor looks at us and says (through the interpreter) “Do you have any questions?”. Oh maybe just one or two….
We start asking questions about the kids medical histories, etc. We start with Timor, for a number of reasons. We ask what they know about his medical history. They tell us he has been at the orphanage since he was one month old, and is somewhat delayed developmentally. We aren’t too surprised at that, as many children who live in orphanages have some degree of delays. Bruce then asks if anything is known about the mother. We are not prepared for the answer. The doctor responds, that yes, she knows the mother well. She is an alcoholic. I felt my heart sink further. “Did she drink while she was pregnant?” asks Bruce. “Well, yes,” came the reply, “She drank a lot”. “What about the brothers?” we ask, wondering exactly what our options are here. “Yes, she drank, but not as much” came the reply. “And she was homeless. She took the children back a few times, but the last time the police found them abandoned on the street.” We asked a few more questions, but were pretty dazed by this time. Then the doctor says, “Well, what is your decision?” It seemed grim humor, but she was totally serious. We told her we would go home to think and return in the afternoon.
Bruce and I could hardly speak. What was there to say? We came so, so far, with so much hope in our hearts. We were faced with two children who seemed likely to have major health issues including possible Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), two with possible alcohol exposure, although they seemed fairly healthy, but meant turning our family of 3 into a family of 5, and two infants. It hardly seemed that there were options to consider. Nonetheless, we tried. Hard. We talked and thought about the implications of each of these situations. We ruled nothing out, except the boy who wouldn’t connect at all, as he seemed too disconnected to us. And at 4pm we went back to the orphanage, a totally different journey than the one we had taken just that morning. Once again, the room filled with people. This time someone had let the orphange’s pet cockatiel out of it’s cage, and it flew around the room, nibbled at people’s earrings, and ate it’s own poop. We asked to see the brothers and Timor again.
Again the balloons came out. Bruce insisted that we be allowed to take photos of the children, knowing we would want feedback from the International Adoption (IA) doctor we are working with. I started taking photos as we played. The head doctor fortunately left the room. There are very specific criteria used to diagnose FAS, and so the pictures needed to be taken a certain way. I crawled around trying to take as many photos as possible, play with the kids, keep Jaden from getting too crazy, and not take so many photos that the orphange staff became irritated or insulted. The brothers seemed like great kids. Timor still seemed shut down, but there was something there that made us think it was worth considering. At the end of the day, we told the doctor again, we would have to go home and think about this. We also asked again if there were any other children we could consider, including girls. No, we were told, this was it. I asked if there were any coming off the registry any time soon. No. They urged us to take the brothers, and told us that Timor was quite delayed, and they didn’t think we should adopt him. We went back to the apartment.
We got immediately busy downloading photos, uploading them to a web album for the doctor to view, and trying urgently to get our IA doc on the phone. We left a message for her to email us with a time to call. We continued to talk and try to find some way through this. We researched FAS and FAE (Fetal Alcohol Effect) online. Nothing we found gave us any comfort. FAS is irreversable, and can be very severe, including heart defects, vision and hearing problems, ADD/ADHD, behavioural issues, learning disabilities, poor impulse control, poor social interactions, etc. We talked some more. We decided that we could not adopt 2 children. We didn’t know if we could handle the pressures it would place on our family, and of course there is no going back. We have great respect for all of you that parent 3 or more children, and we see the demands it places on you and your families. As great as the brothers seemed, and as much as we wished we could do it, we ultimately felt it wouldn’t be a fair decision, for us or for Jaden. Around 2am we finally got a response from the AI doc. She could do a call at 6am our time. We called our adoption coordinator at the agency in California to tell her what was going on. We went to bed.
After talking to the IA doc, we realized we needed more photos. We also felt we needed to spend some time alone with Timor to see how he acted when there was less stimuli. So we returned to the orphanage that morning with toys and markers, and our camera. When we arrived, we were told that our agency coordinator had talked to someone who talked to someone… and maybe there was a child that would be coming off of the registry soon. They were going to check, and if so, they would show him to us in the afternoon. We hung out for about 2 hours, and were surprised at how well this child played. He had good motor skills, good understanding of how things worked, etc. He didn’t communicate verbally at all though, or really even non-verbally for that matter. No noises, no attempt to talk, no change in facial expression. We realized he likely had a vision issue, as he holds everything quite close to see it. We were a little encouraged, but the fact that this child had yet to show an emotion of any kind was concerning. As we took more photos, we felt he likely didn’t have FAS, but there was clearly something not right. We went back to the apartment. We emailed more photos, we had lunch, I took a nap. We ruled out the idea of adopting an infant. We discussed what it would mean to go home without our little brother, without our second born. We were all really drained.
We went back in the afternoon. We met the new child, a small boy named Tirmilanu. He just turned two, and seemed cute and bright. It was hard to tell, partly as we were so taxed at this point. Zhana asked him some questions “Where is the bear’s nose?”, “push the button on the phone”, etc. He seemed so much more aware in some way than Timor. It was hard to focus though, as there was a lot of conversation going on. In part, about the fact that this child wouldn’t be available for adoption until after April 12th. We couldn’t even start the process until then. And we were somewhat invested in Timor at this point, at least in seeing it through, getting all the answers we could so we could make a decision. Here I have to add that our IA doc has been invaluable. She advised us before we left ‘not to fall in love right away’. She suggested trying to keep emotion out of it for the first 48 hours. And she has been kind and supportive of our family unit as a whole, asking how we are, how Jaden is holding up, etc. Great woman.
We spent some more time with Timor. We had Zhana and Galina ask him some simple questions to see what he could understand. It wasn’t very promising, as he responded to nothing. He would look at them, seeming listen, and then nothing. One of his caregivers gave him a ball and asked him to take it to me. She asked at least 10 times before he did. He didn’t seem afraid, he just didn’t do it. My heart really broke for this child. What could he become given the right environment? Could our family handle the ‘What if’s?” We have all constructed these lives one tinker toy at a time, stable but fragile in some ways. We have seen some of the effects of two much strain on the system in the lives of some of you, our friends. We know how you have borne up when you have had to, how some of you have struggled, still struggle to keep your lives together under very difficult circumstances. Did we want to create this situation for ourselves by choice? Even given the best scenario, this child would be very difficult to bring out, and we have no way of knowing if it would even be possible. We went back to the apartment.
We talked last night about everything. We emailed with the IA doc again. We talked about what we felt we could do as a family, how much risk we could take and hold the whole together. My heart broke every time I thought of Timor. And yet we knew that it was more than we could do. I think I will hold that pain forever. I so wish I had it in me, that I could push myself over that line. And if it were just me, maybe I would. But I can’t take my family there, as selfish as it feels. I want to know if there is something we can do for this child. He has no future here, of that I am certain. We talked about our options, and decided to return again to visit with Tirmilanu again. Zhana is not happy about the delay. We talked again with our coordinator in California. She tells us to take our time, don’t feel any pressure. “You will have emotions, they will have emotions”, she says, “Just do what you need to in order to make the right decision for your family.” She promised to call again tonight to check in. We talked about what we would do if we had to wait nearly a month to start the adoption process if we felt Tirmilan was the right child for us. We decided that going home and returning in 3 weeks was not an option. But Bruce needs to be able to work, so there’s that to consider. And as Jaden put it, he’s “summer-sick”. Kind of like being homesick….
Today we went back to visit with Tirmilanu. This time, they opened the door and pushed this little 2 year old in, all by himself. It was only us, no one who could speak Russian. Yesterday he was happy to play with toys, play ball with me, etc. Today he looked at us for a minute and started to cry. Then he headed for the door. I picked him up and carried him around. He smelled like graham crackers. “Oh, that’s so sweet” Jaden said when I told him. His nickname is Tuma. He continued to cry. I showed him the bird. I showed him some toys. I tried to think of something to say with my 6 words of Russian. He cried. He started to calm down when someone opened the door to his playroom. He cried harder. Finally Zhana showed up. She took him and calmed him, but only a bit. Then she took him back to his room. The kids went outside, so we followed and watched them play. They took great delight in throwing shovelfuls of snow at Bruce. Jaden is the big dancing clown in their midst. We went back to the apartment.
In the afternoon we returned. Again the brought Tuma in. Again he cried. This time Zhana calms him for a few minutes before he starts again. She goes and gets his snowsuit. He let’s me help him put on his boots and his hat. He won’t let me hold his hand down the stairs though. We go back outside and hang out playing with the children for about an hour and a half. We walk back to the apartment. During dinner, our translator calls. Good news, she tells us, they can file our paperwork for the court date on March 29th, and then our second court date will be after April 12th, so it will all work out OK. Great we think, amazing. We have decided this little boy will be our son. I finally unpack. We go through our list of names over dinner, crossing out this one and that one, giving stars to the ones we like, trying to figure out what to use as a middle name, a nickname, a given name. After dinner we get another phone call from Galina. “How is your mood?” she asks. “How is it about to be?” I respond. She tells me that now they have called to Astana, and no, they cannot process the paperwork until after April 12th. We are not even supposed to meet this child until after April 12th. So sorry. We believe this child is our son. We consider our options. We contemplate 3 more trips on that train. We run through possible destinations and time zones. We discuss what to do with all of the stuff we have brought. Bruce explains to Jaden the concept of making lemonade out of the lemons life sometimes hands you. We plan our trip to India, to the beaches of Goa, to the land of high-speed internet access, to await April 12th. Which also happens to be our 10 year anniversary. Is it kismet?
As Bruce’s friend in Bombay said to him via IM today, ‘in Buddhist lands we believe the path to happiness is through suffering…’ As our agencies info packet said, ‘this is your chance to adopt a child, if it is what you really want, don’t give up even if things don’t go as you expect.’ As my son said, “Mommy, Tuma was the star who came to me. I am 100% sure.”
We will miss you all for another month, turn our lives upside down a little longer. We will hope for the best, as this journey is far from over. Hopefully we will return early June, with our 2 children, both borne in our hearts. Here is the face we hope you will see then, when you come to hang out this summer in our backyard, or when we next we meet with you, our friends and family from further away. Thanks for reading this
far.
1 comment:
Wow! I feel like I'm there with you. Both of your posts are so vivid and raw. Bruce likes to say "no pain, no gain." You guys must be gaining emotional and spiritual strength like wildfire! Its amazing that Jaden recognized his star. Sometimes it takes the simplicity of a 6-year-old to see through the intellectual and emotional thickets.
Be strong and be well!
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