First Visiting Day
Today is our first visiting day at the orphanage. We’re allowed to visit from 9:30 am to 12, then again from 4 to 6. Today, we have to first visit the notary public to drop off forms, then we get to the orphanage about 10 am. Later, we will have to miss the afternoon appointment to travel with the translator to another town up north, past Simferopol, to find the oldest brother who is rumored to be going to an agricultural vocational school. He’s 17.
We get a more thorough tour of our daughter’s stomping grounds, including their beds lined up in two neat rows in a most fantastic cobalt blue room with huge windows billowing with curtains. The bed pillows are fluffed up in a distinct triangular shape on the bed, and all in all, it looks very much like the pictures in Madeline, if you’re familiar with the children’s book. Her teacher shows us the great room, painted in pink, with various fairy tales painted on a wooden entryway. She makes sure to point that we are not to step on the oval rug. Later, we tape the first part of their musical time, where the children enter in single file to the beat of a marching song plinked out on the upright piano. They follow the outside outline of the rug. First, they’re to go slow. Then, with swinging arms. Then, on tiptoe. And so on.
We even get a glimpse of rows of children sitting on the pot, which they do every morning for a designated time. Hilarious! We see their schoolroom, which is painted an airy light blue (through the windows you can see the Black Sea) with rows of tables and chairs and gobs of toys lined up along the back wall. We are pushed into a room with tiny tables and chairs, and the teacher is able to explain to us by pointing, that the symbols on the backs of the chairs (for instance, a blue dot) correspond with each child’s height documented on a wall chart. Very clever. The ceilings are high, and the walls are cheerily painted. A parakeet cocks its head at us from a large bird cage in the corner.
Then.
We get to spend all morning with her (while the translator waits for all the appropriate documents to be signed at the Government Center). At first, she seems tentative, but then, she wants to be held. And held. And held. We bring out bubbles and animal crackers, both of which she loves. At first, she doesn’t seem interested in the bubbles, but later, after she’s seen me blowing through the wand, she dips the wand into the bubble jar, withdraws it, and brings it up to her pursed lips…then nothing happens, and she puts it up to my lips. Just working the wand into and out of the bottle consumes a large amount of time. At one point, I begin to hum “Hush, Little Baby” to her softly, and immediately her whole body sinks into mine, and she puts her ear up to my mouth. She is utterly mine in that moment. Ach, how can I explain it? Then, later, when we’re both sitting with her, Dan starts tickling her, and she comes out with the happiest belly laugh, throwing her head back against my arm. It is like she’s let down her guard just for a minute, and it is so exhilarating to see.
We take more video footage than stills, and since that’s the case, we’ll try to include one soon, so you can see her in action.
We have to leave her too soon. We meet our translator back at the notary public to sign the official applications to have our daughter become ours. We then jump into the car and begin the long trek back up through Simferopol and to the town where the vocational school is. We arrive about 3:30 and wait outside while the translator does all the work.
At about 5, she returns to the car and says, “Shh, I will explain to you everything in the car.” As soon as we exit the school grounds, she explains that the boy is not there. He has run away, and no one knows where he is. Since this is the case, and since he is not trying to contact or visit his little sister, she gets signatures to confirm his disappearance, even has them issue a police alert for him, and this should be enough to satisfy the social offices (she had called back to Yalta before leaving the office, just to make sure). And then she adds, “We hope they do not change their mind.” Of course, we’re a little worried–that we could be bonding with this child (okay, we’re already attached!) and then it will all be nullified because we can’t find one missing brother. She assures us it will work out. Again, she says, “Pray.”
Dan and I tell the translator and driver we’ll treat, if we can stop for dinner. We stop at the same place we ate at on Sunday, and this time we sit out on the outdoor terraces. The pine trees arc over us, and the food is magnificent, and we’re happy that so much has been accomplished.
There’s still much to do, but we’re hopeful that the authorities will see how beneficial it will be for this little girl to come with us. It’s sad–the situation here. The Ukraine wants to be a part of the EU, so it has to comply to certain regulations, one of which is to take care of its own. So, instead of allowing international adoptions, they are encouraging Ukrainian parents to foster children. The thing is: the parents are doing it solely for the money they receive to take care of the children. The parents take the money, then neglect the children–no medical care, no proper food. While we were sitting in the office yesterday, waiting for our little girl to make her first appearance, they were discussing a sad situation of a beautiful girl from this same orphanage who was placed into foster care, and soon after, she died. This angers the Ukrainian adoption and orphanage workers (and us!), because they are the true advocates for children, and the system, as it is presently, is corrupted, and will remain so, if the government keeps offering subsidies for taking children. It gets worse. The government is so strongly against abandonment (that part is good!) that if a mother applies for temporary care for her child, she receives money plus orphanage care for her child, as long as she visits once a week. So, the translator told us early on, “You’ll see such beautiful children at the orphanage who can’t be adopted because their mother visits them every week. She keeps getting money, and as long as she visits her child, the child is protected from entering the adoption pool.” It’s a vicious cycle.
Upon arriving once more in Yalta, we pick up our luggage at the hotel and move to an apartment closer to the orphanage. It’s a spacious apartment with a lovely Italian-looking garden, that we’ll share with the translator two more nights until she returns to Kiev to await a court date. The court date is important because that’s when Karina becomes our daughter.
Before we go to bed, we give the translator the spelling of our daughter’s new name, because although we love her name (Russian through and through), ours does not sound so different, and it means something to both of us…and hopefully, to her someday. More on that tomorrow.
Thank you all for your encouraging and wonderful notes. We’re not through this journey yet, but it feels so good to know we’re so loved. Thank you, thank you.