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| What about all the ones left behind? |
Clarke:
We are so bored
today. Kris is reading a power bar label to me. We have waited at the Regional
Orphanage inspector’s office of Tamara for 1 hour now. The Italians have beaten
us today. Though we arrived here from the train depot first, Tatiana (the
Italian family translator) has come out and left 15 minutes ago. It is 11:00 and
it looks like we will miss our morning visit today. Natalie will be upset! I
think our signatures are needed this morning sometime. There appears to be no
other reason for us to keep waiting in the car at every stop. Our first ½ hour
wait this morning was in vain because their typewriter broke. Can you remember
the days of making a typo at the end of a page with no whiteout? We are parked
facing the street, and it is helping to pass the time. The cars here seem to be
all goofy! I feel like we’re stuck on a movie stage between Roger Rabbit and
Hogan’s Heros, only much more gloomy and serious. The cars here all race about
without regards to any fixed set of rules or order. Many streets have only one
or two paths available through all of the potholes. Strangely, this does not
keep them from speeding toward each other like a game of chicken. At the last
moment, one of us will dodge to the side, dangerously close to a pedestrian who
is un-startled. At 11:20, we are very suspicious that something has gone wrong.
Why in the world would we be still waiting instead of seeing Natalie? 11:22,
Georgiy has returned, and the mistake has been corrected, it’s off to the
orphanage for a quick visit.
Natalie is back to her orphanage clothes and playing
outside. It’s about 45 degrees outside, but all the kids are bundled up so much
their arms stick out to their sides. Its hard to see which little face is ours. A tiny
but talkative little tike asks who we want (I think). We say “Natalie” and he
shouts out “Natasha!” our little orphan Annie waddles our way with a smile on
her face.
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| This heart appeared on the orphanage wall when we picked up Natalie |
Now we wait for her passport, late in the day. I have signed
for it. George and I walk out together; George says that we are now free after I asked. He says it is so simple and plain, that it is not clear to me what has just happened.
I asked again to be clear.
It is final!
From Ukraine perspective, Natalie is
ours! We were not expecting this until tomorrow, so we are elated! Our first
question is “when can we have our Natalie?” We drove straight to the liquor
manufacturing plant to buy Vodka, Champagne and chocolate! Then, to the
orphanage to ask Inna if we can take Natalie tonight. She says of course you
can have her now! As we have been late again, Natalie has resumed her normal
schedule with her groupa.
She is dressed in orphanage clothes, again bundled up
to the tilt. Only the face of rosy cheeks and smiles are visible. Almost all are jabbering
away….’mama, papa!” one of her friends recognized us before Natalie saw us
coming. Her friend grabbed her by the hand and brought her to the center of the
mob, (where we were standing) Natalie's pointed red hood was tattered and worn, her brown scarf tightly wrapped, and her brown coat buttoned to the top. Her boots, a
little big, were laced very loosely, like all of the kid’s shoes, for slipping
on and off.
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| Natalie is in the orange hat |
Her smile was pleasant, and of course she was very quiet. As I
picked her up to my side, she was raised above the sea of orphans. The loud
noises and excitement from the kids all became quiet in my mind as I starred
into her bright and willing eyes.
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| Our sweet Natalie is officially our daughter on April 3, 2003! |
The symbolism of her rising above was almost
too much to bear.
The caregivers all had a bittersweet look on their faces,
knowing what a gem they have lost. A rush of emotion came over us all as we
exclaimed “Das Ve Danya!” (good-bye!)
We marched inside to rid her of her
orphan Annie clothes. We dressed her in new clothes and came to Inna’s office
for a quick toast! Champagne and chocolate for all! Everyone says goodbye!
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| Sasha, Clarke and George stocking up on gifts |
Natalie sits patiently while we finish, but points outside, her only
communication that she knows what is going on. Meanwhile, we retrieve two calls on our cell. (2 out of 3 so far in Ukraine) it is Jeff Yuska, our
neighbor, and Annette. We share our news and start spreading the announcement
across the globe!
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| Natalie is patiently waiting to leave |
We arrive at our flat and enjoy the best feeling in the
world, watching her devour all the food we gave her. We guard against over
feeding her, but it is hard to say no to feeding a child wanting to eat. Sasha will be returning
with Luba and little Sasha.
We decide to give her a quick bath, and boy was it
quick. This little angel of few words is absolutely petrified. It takes
everything we have to get her clothes
off while she screams “NI NA DA” she
says over again at the top of her lungs. I can only move her to sit on quick
moments. She is worse than a cat in water. Kris ends up jumping in with her
clothes and we force her a quick bath. Wow, was that ever painful! Nikoli has
graciously dug out a crib for her to sleep in. we tucked her in quietly, and
joined the others for a toast and snacks of meat, cheese, fruit, chocolate and
wine. The wine was fruit liquor which tasted a bit like cough medicine. We tool
pictures of each other until I could no longer stand the flashes.
Kris and I
thought we herd Natalie singing herself to sleep. We thought this was the most
amazing and precious thing in the world. We gently cracked open the door to see
her standing at the edge of her crib softly repeating “Za Peeza kazoo!” (this
meant that she has to go potty!) it is too hard for her to sleep with all this
wonderful activity and food everywhere. We try one more time to put her down,
but soon she (and we don’t know how) climes out of her crib and comes out and
joins us. She is overtired, and falls asleep in Kris’s arms.
Kris:
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| She is our sweet daughter! |
Last night Sasha found a Chinese restaurant. Oh boy, what a
experience! The food was ok, but a little oily! There was even a live band. And
we were the only table in the restaurant.
They turned on the lights in the dining room when we showed up.
We just picked up the papers from the train station! YEAH!
And now we are waiting for Georgiy, he is visiting with the inspector, Tamara,
to do something with the papers. We arrived at the building and Georgiy jumped
out of the car and did a slow run up the
stairs.. following close behind was the
Italian translator, Tatiana. It was like a race, and at the moment we were
winning. We met the Italian couple at the orphanage. They have decided to adopt 5-1/2 year old boy named Valero. They have been up in the same
room with us playing and bonding with their son. They seem like a nice couple.
The man is in his m id 50’s and she is 40ish. They have wanted to adopt 2
brothers, younger, but the NAC said it was not possible. The Italian couple had
their court hearing right after ours. Unfortunately for them , they have to
wait for 30 days and come back to Lugansk to take home their son. I think that
is a law by the Italian government. I am so glad that we do not have to wait!
It is 10:10 am and we are still waiting for Georgiy. I hope
Natalie is not crying because we are late!
What a day this is! After driving, waiting, driving, more
waiting and never knowing what is going on! Georgiy is great, but often keeps
us in the dark about the progress of what steps we have left to do! It is very
frustrating because we have really no control over all the steps and don’t
understand the process.
So at 4:30 Georgiy comes outside form one of many stops
with Natalie’s passport and says “we are done!” what does that mean? Done for
the day? Done with the passport? Is our adoption done? Do we go get to pick up
Natalie? Is she our child? It is so anti-climatic! All’s that Georgiy wants to
do is go by chocolate and vodka to celebrate with the director! It was very
strange. We asked Georgiy if we could
take Natalie home tonight, and he said, “yes” if it is ok with Inna.
So we went
to buy the chocolate and booze and headed off to pick up our Ukraine Angel!
When we arrived at the orphanage, we did receive permission
to take her tonight. We went outside where she and her groupa were playing. We
did not get to see her today because of all the running around. Poor thing!
Clarke and I went to get her and swooped her up above the crowd. All of her
friends just crowded and swarmed around us!
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| Natalie and Mom |
It was the moment I will never
forget!
We took Natalie inside and washed her up and put on her new coat and
shoes. We went to Inna’s office, and had a toast with some chocolate. It was
very nice, but strange and odd at the same time. Finally, we said our goodbyes
and hopped into Sasha’s car and went to the super market to pick up some items
for dinner.
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| Natalie kept on eating..and eating..and eating |
We went back to the flat and made Natalie some dinner. Cheese,
hard-boiled eggs, bananas, bread, cold cuts and juice. She ate until it was
all gone. I thought she was going to explode! Then we wanted to give her a
bath. Oh my, did she not like it one bit! It was not enjoyable experience for
her or us! Clarke and I took charge and just got it done. She screamed! Wow,
she speaks! Little Russian words! We quickly wash and dry her and calm her
down. We dress her in PJ’s.
Nikoli, Nadia, Sasha, little Sasha and Luba all come for a
celebration. It was very nice! Luba baked a cake. We also had wine, cheese,
bread, cold cuts and fruit. During the celebration, we decided to lay Natalie
down for the night. Nikoli had set up a bed for her, like a crib. She seemed to
be calm and laid down just fine. In about 20 minutes we heard her singing. We
listened and Clarke could understand her little saying for “I have to go pee”
so we took her to the bathroom. After she finished up, we laid her down again.
In about 20 minutes, Natalie came out of the bedroom. How could she get out of
her crib? She did not want to go back to the bedroom. So Clarke and I said our
goodnights and all 3 of us went to bed.
I held her and rocked her to sleep. She
slept all night until 7:00 am!
I couldn’t sleep at all!
Besides coughing and
thinking about our past, present and future, I laid awake what seemed to be all
night. My mind raced all over the place. Clarke is coming down with the flu
too.
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