Very sad looking. Very tiny for her age. But very cute.
Her medicals looked pretty bad. A communicable disease. Cerebral palsy. Couldn't talk. But otherwise healthy.
We didn't know what to do. Hepatitis B can be serious. So can cerebral palsy. Not talking at nearly three years old? Not unheard of, but made us wonder.
After a couple days spent browsing and googling, we decided to go for it. After all, even though Hep B is contagious through blood contact, there are vaccinations available for it.
We sent out an e-mail to all our family and friends reminding them that any adopted child could come home with a disease that could be passed on. We strongly recommended that everyone get their vaccines, feeling that our warning would be sufficient and that we wouldn't have to feel guilty for life if our daughter happened to pass on a disease that certainly wasn't desirable.
Then we sat back and waited. And prayed.
We knew that if something just didn't feel right when we finally got to meet our children face to face that we could decline at the last minute if we needed to.
Not that we needed to worry about that.
On February 16, 2008, we finally boarded a plane bound for Russia. What excitment there was. What nervousness.
February 19 we met our children for the first time. Any fears that we had went fluttering out the window the second we saw them walk through the door. We didn't care what kind of problems they may have had, we loved them. They were the children that God had for us. We knew it. And signed the papers on the first day.
That first day was delightful. Neither of them wanted anything to do with us for the first little bit, which was a super good sign in the attachment area.
Addie was very unsure about us. She would only look at us out of the corner of her eyes. She clung to Ludmila...the social worker. Anytime one of us would get too close, she would declare "Nyet". Meaning "No. Go away." We were thrilled that she didn't want us. Sounds odd, I know. She finally started to glance at us full on, but would look away if we happened to meet her eyes. By the end of that first visit she sat in both our laps, though we never even saw one hint of a smile. She obviously didn't have an overly bad case of CP, if any. And if she ended up truly having Hep B, there are treatments available and she would live a pretty normal life. She was our little girl.
Will didn't want anything to do with us at first either, but he warmed up fairly quick. He just ignored us and went cruising around the room on his stubby little legs...giving us a hint of the activity that was to come. Very rarely he would be okay with perching on our laps for a tid-bit, but it never lasted very long. He had far greater things to accomplish than learning to know his new parents.
We left that first day on cloud nine, if not a little higher. Emotionally, we were exhausted. Physically, our bodies were protesting from jet lag. Fifteen hours time change is significant, I suppose.
We knew we only had a few more days time to learn to know as much about them as we possibly could before we had to leave and come home.
We made the most of it.
***Sidenote: Upon arriving home with both children four months later, we had extensive testing done on both children. Both are perfectly healthy. I hate to think how our life would be different had we not trusted God with their health concerns.
***Sidenote two: For any who have never had contact with adoption, a child not wanting anything to do with you likely sounds like a horrible thing. It can be extreme and that isn't necessarily good. The good thing about the way our children acted upon first meeting is that they had obviously attached to their caregivers. They didn't come running to perfect strangers. They sized us up before accepting us. To me, it's not a good attachment sign at all if a child (adopted or not) is completely at ease with a perfect stranger. If a baby/toddler doesn't care who is holding him/her I get a tad concerned. If a child in town runs up to me and gives me a hug without knowing me, I get concerned. Maybe it's not as big a deal as I make it, but we dealt with an attachment issue a few months after bringing our children home. To me, it's not a laughing matter.
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