The doctor from Moscow

We decided to have a  pediatrician from Moscow examine Sonya at the orphanage. This had been recommended to us  by our adoption agency because  the medical records and tests  provided by the orphanage are not always reliable.

I was lucky to reach the doctor  by email. She was a pediatrician who worked at the American Hospital in Moscow. She had been recommended by the adoption agency.  She was willing to fly in for the day for $1000 + the cost of airfare. It was a lot of money, but we were willing to spend it in order to assuage any anxiety regarding Sonya's health. I  felt  confident that she was in good health, but still wanted   some sort of confirmation from a reputable doctor.

The doctor arrived on friday, our last day in Perm.  Artur picked her up at the airport and we all drove the long drive together to Bereznicki. She was a young doctor in her 30's or so. She spoke perfect english and was very attractive with a halo of dark curly hair. I believe she was of turkish origin.

We arrived at the Bereznicki Baby home as the orphanage was called. We  asked for Sonya and was told that she was at the eye doctor. We were surprised by this since we had told the assistant director that we would be coming with our doctor today. Sonya's eyes were red and infected the previous day. Perhaps they wanted to treat her before our doctor arrived.

It seemed that the orphanage was often shipping the children out to be examined by local clinics.  I had the suspicion that this was some way of spreading the government money to many different clinicians. 

The assistant director and the other caregivers at the orphanage were  very respectful towards  the doctor.  It was obviously a big deal to have this doctor come all the way from Moscow. 

They brought us all tea and cookies, something they had never done before. They let the doctor look over the medical records and all of the paperwork while Sonya was at the eye doctor. 

Finally, Sonya  returned and our doctor was able to examine her.

The doctor poked and prodded her and looked into her mouth, eyes, ears and nose.  She listened to her heart and  checked her reflexes - She took copious notes. She looked at her hands and feet. After much examination, she declared her to be  a healthy and intelligent baby who showed no signs of  fetal Alcohol Syndrome. We were much relieved. 

The doctor re-translated all the medical information for  us. She also found the letter of relinquishment  by Sonya's birthmother. She showed it to us and remarked at  how nice her handwriting was. This was evidence that she had been well  educated . This was precious information to  us. Indeed, her handwriting was  very neat and careful. 

We were leaving Perm that afternoon. This would be the last time we would see Sonya until our return in a few months. I fed her formula out of the funny bottle, and kissed her good bye. her caregiver took  her away  to her crib in the nursery.

 At the last second, I asked if I could see her one last time in her crib. They brought me upstairs where the children slept.

 The nursery was a  long and  narrow room   with back to back cribs.  There were six in a row. I noticed that the special toy we had brought her, the woozit,  was already hanging up, out of her reach.  The nursery was old fashioned looking, but very clean  - Everything was white. It looked like a sanitorium in an old movie.  I  walked passed all the babies in their cribs. and found Sonya. She was still awake and lying on her back, wrapped in a blanket.  

She looked so sweet in her crib, yet lonely too. I kissed her  and waved goodbye. I told her not to worry because we would be back for her very soon. Perhaps I was consoling myself more than her at that moment. 

I kissed her Goodbye, feeling sad and dazed  to be leaving without her. 

We left that day, and didn't return again for 3 months.

Our Second Visit to the Orphanage

The orphanage was not in the city of Perm. It was 21/2 hours from the city in a small town called Bereznicki. Our driver, Artur would drive us there- It was an arduous trip on a bumpy two way highway. The russians drive very fast and jut their cars out when they want to pass a car in front of them  to make sure there are no cars coming the other way. It is terrifying. 

 Our 21/2 hour drive was broken up by a stop at a petrol station about halfway there -  We would go inside where there was a  rumpled but cozy little restaurant/bar where we were served hot tea and pastries.  After a few days, the proprietors let us use their special bathroom, which I think was a privilige. 

Our translator on our first trip was named Olga. She was a very large and friendly white Russian who was a trained linquist. Since there are very few jobs, she was happy to pick up cash being a translator. She was a warm and funny woman who definitely towed the soviet  party line. She was disparaging of the russians who had immigrated to the United States, and seemed to think that struggling in life made you strong. She reminded me of a character in a Checkhov play. She seemed to be in a marriage of convenince with a kindly man who provided well for her. They had a house and her evenings were taken up fixing up her garden which seemed to be her pride and joy. Each day when we met her, she would tell us about her plants and vegetables and how well they were doing. Since  the sun set late, there was a lot of time to work in the gardens in the spring and summer.

I enjoyed those drives to the orphanage. It was a pensive time in which to contemplate our future and our new lives as parents.  I was anxious to get to the orphanage, and yet scared of the experience as well.  

When we returned to the orphanage that second day, the same caretaker brought Sonya to us. She was still holding onto the "woozit" we had given her the day before.  We always visited and played with her in a room with a wall of french  windows. It was the music room,  I believe. On the stairway up to this room, there were cute paintings of unfamiliar cartoon characters and some framed children's art. The walls were a  medicinal blue color. 

The interior of the orphanage was far cleaner than the outside. There were also some very cute children's chairs in the music room - They were painted red with  black designs on them -  There were a few old looking toys and a big cabinet with a selection of american toys, apparently given by other adopted parents.  There was the distinct feeling that the toys were rarely played with.

Sonya seemed happy to see us the second day. She moved easily into my arms, and she never cried when being given over to us. I believe the caretaker allowed me to feed her formula out of a bottle that ressembled something you would feed a baby calf. 

 On this day, we read her books, put her  in a exersaucer  that they had and we put her into a pool where there were those plastic balls. It was on the second day that  I  put her in the cute hat from Baby Bird that made her look like a million bucks.  

When the baby nurse came, Sonya  smiled at her and seemed happy to return to her arms. Who could blame her, I suppose.

No Longer a mamainwaiting

It has been years since I have posted anything on my blog.  So much has happened in the interim. For one, I am no longer a "mama in waiting", but a mother with a 3 1/2 year daughter named Sonya.

I'm not sure why I stopped blogging. Perhaps  I was too busy taking care of my new baby.   I was so busy just adjusting to my new wonderful life that I didn't have the wherewithal to sit down and write about it.

Life has been amazing since we brought Sonya home from Russia. Our two trips to Russia were also incredible and I plan to write about them as well. 

I have read through my  posts during the year leading up to the adoption and I am moved to read about my feelings and thoughts at that time. There was so much anticipation and anxiety regarding what was about to happen and when it would happen. The not knowing was very stressful.

The exterior of the orphanage in Bereznicki  was probably the most depressing building I had ever seen. The grounds of the orphanage were decrepit and slovenely.  As we drove into the entrance to the orphanage,  my throat was dryer than I had ever experienced. I was terrified.

We were greeted by the  assistant to the director of the orphanage, a small round woman in a white lab coat. The director was on vacation.   We sat down with our translator, Sonya's  social worker and our driver in the office of the  director,  and they proceeded to give us information about our daughter, her mother and her mother's family. We were also given medical information about Sonya. It was information that we had already known, but we nodded our heads as if we were hearing things for the first time. 

 We had prepared certain questions to ask, and we did so.  It was complicated to understand all the information since it was being said in Russian and translated to us.  It was probably one of the most confusing conversations I have ever been involved in.

We learned about the birthmother's health ( good), her siblings (3) and her parent's and grandparents.  We were told that Sonya's birthmother had another child ( a son), and that she relinquished her parental rights at the hospital where she gave birth.  She was 24 years old.

After about an hour of this, a very sweet looking woman who I assumed was Sonya's caretaker came in with her and put her in my arms.  She was wearing an old fashioned looking onesie with a peter pan collar. It looked as if they had dressed her up especially for the occasion.

It was a stunning moment. My baby was in my arms.  I can still feel the weight of her. What a pleasure it was to hold her. She looked at me quisically as if she was trying to figure out who I was. She didn't smile but stared intently.

 She had big brown eyes, like my own and a very thin covering of red hair. She was beautiful. I held her in my arms and made cooing sounds to her - I  walked around, talking to her, saying silly things  which I can't even remember. I might have told her about her cousins who were waiting for her at home.  I probably said your grandmothers and grandfather are very anxious to meet you and  shower her  with love and affection. We gave her toys to play with like a woozit which she held onto throughout our first visit.

 She started sucking her thumb and this, of course, reminded me of my twin, Louise, who sucked her thumb until she was 6 or 7. It seemd like fate  that Sonya and Louise shared  the same endearing habit.

As I sat with Sonya, and she looked at me, my first thought was that she was a calm and thoughtful baby. I was impressed with the quiet intensity in which she was observing me and taking  me in.   Something in her demeanor made me immediately feel that I had received  the perfect baby  for my disposition. 

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. Jeff and I were busy putting stickers on her forehead to measure something so that Dr. Jane Aronson  in New yoark   could  determine if she had FAS, which I knew she did not. How could she. she was perfect.

 Jeff fumbled with my camera and we took dozens of photos, all of which were wrong and needed to be repeated the next day.   We performed some other "tests'  that we had been  taught  to determine  what developmental stage she was at. Her eyes followed our fingers as they darted from side to side.  She was obviously a very bright little thing. I did notice that she didn't smile that first day , and she couldn't sit up, which is typical of babies who live in orphanages. Can you really blame her for not smiling? 

I remember noticing that, although we were having a complete life altering moment, our  driver and translator were  busy on their cell phones as if it were like any other day of the week.

That was ok. It was our incredibly special,  miraculous day. A birth of sorts and probably one of the happiest days of our lives.

Before leaving the orphanage that day, I presented the assistant director with all the gifts we had brought for them. Art supplies for the other children, scarves, jewelry and trinkets for the staff. . I was feeling very giddy and handed out the gifts zealously, thanking everyone for their support and care of our baby.

We then drove the 21/2 hours back to the city of Perm. I felt a mix of happiness and dread as we returned to town. I was overwhelmed by the experience, frightened, anxious and concerned that Sonya had not smiled at me.   Jeff and I fell asleep immediately when we returned to our hotel.

when did Henry get so tall

It is amazing how tall Henry has become. It really seems like he grows a couple of inches every week. He is tall, lanky and very  handsome.

Looking back at his  baby pictures, I am taken with his cuteness. What an adorable child -bowl cut blond hair,  saucer size blue eyes.

 

I remember falling in love with him the moment I saw him at the hospital the day he was born. At that point,  his hair was jet black and he looked like a character in a Sendak book - Pierre as a baby.  I remember the clear plastic bassinet being whisked down the hall and seeing the baby Henry.  It was love at first sight.

 Now,  he towers over me,  and tells me how to properly pour a can of soda.

 Yesterday, I called to see if he were home - Yes, he was home and was desperate for food - "Can you buy us  two pizzas?". " Two pizzas?", I replied. how come so much. " Well, I need one, and Jack and Ian will eat the other..." he replied.

 I bought them two pizzas and gallons of Root Beer and Pepsi. I delivered the pizza and he sat down to eat them with his friends  They were busy watching a movie,  and I overheard Ian say  "it's incredible what great films the Japanese make..."

Sitting, watching Henry devour his pizza pie, I wondered again, when did he become so tall.

It seems like it happened over night.

The Children's Museum

I have wanted to be a mother for a long time now. I was reminded of that today when I took my niece to the children't museum in Manhattan, a wonderful, inventive place filled with educational and artistic interactive exhibits. I had spent so many hours in that place with my nephew when he was 4,5 and 6 years old. He is now fourteen years old, and bearly gives me the time of day, except to ask for money or to buy some pizza.

I remember enjoying my time with him there as well as feeling the longing to be a mother myself - and for that matter, to be married. I envied all the moms and dads with their beautiful children - and although it was fun to pretend that my nephew was my "own", It still stung not to be a mother myself. Time passed, boyfriends came and went, and came and went again - and the longing continued. And when I met my husband, I was elated to join the ranks of the married - I really felt that I had arrived, albeit, a bit late at fortyone. Nevertheless, I was to be a wife and mother.

But alas, life is never easy and a pregnancy was not forthcoming. There was the rollercoaster of infertility doctors, treatments, bloodtests, IVF procedures, progesterone shots, eggs donated and transferred, an ectopic pregnancy, operations - and the realization that this wasn't going to work - And then the resolve to stop the medical procedures as I was getting older - and what I really wanted was a baby to love and to create a family. So the adoption process was begun with all the myriad of papers, notaries, apostiles, homestudies and general bureaucratic nonsense.

And here we are a little over a year later, getting ready to meet our daughter, Sonia ( born, Svetlana ) and to travel to Perm Russia, Throughout this process, my husband has been supportive, loving, pragmatic and exemplary in all ways. He never batted an eye giving me too many to count shots in my ass and other body parts. He has been wonderful and our marriage has blossomed through this adversity. We are lucky that way. Well, we deserve to have something to go right, don't we?

So it was bittersweet today to be at the children's museum. I noticed that many of the mothers were a bit overweight, carrying their baby fat ( baby phat) with them. I found it rather charming to see. This is something I probably hadn't noticed in the past, so busy idealizing all the moms. Of course, I noticed how many were pregnant again, and I did feel that tinge of envy, but it didn't sting half as bad as it had in the past. That's because I am going to be a mother myself. Yes, I'm going to be a mother.

New York Lifer

When you have grown up in New York City, and continue to live here in your adulthood, it is hard not to be constantly reminded of the geography of your memories. The"this is where that happened" syndrome, or the "there used to be a... but now it's gone" reverie.

It is melancholy sometimes to be constantly reminded of how life has changed. One day I was walking on broadway and 76th street, and they were removing a Duane Reade sign. Underneath it was the old signage from the Gitlitz delicatessan - It was such a poignant moment to remember the deli and the many meals I had shared there wiith my family. It was where I was first introduced to an open faced turkey sandwich with all the fixings. Gitlitz was one of many old Jewish delicatessans that used to dot the upper westside.

I think that much of my childhood was spent shopping so I have keen memories of stores that used to exist. There was a little button store on broadway that sold only buttons, thread and sewing supplies. That is no longer there. There was the old Henri Bendels on 57th street that was chock full of chic accessories and clothing. It is no longer there. There was the old FAO Schwartz on the corner of 58th street and fifth Aveue. Not the glitzy, shopping mall it has become. I adored that store and often imagined running through it and grabbling as many toys as I possibly could in an allotted peiod of time.

There was the original Betsy, Bunky and Nini, a hip little shop in the east 60's. I believe Betsy Johnson was involved with it and it had the most glorious selection of hippie-chic clothing, vintage garb and wonderful jewelry... There was the store on the corner of Bank Street and West 4th that carried incredible tie dyed outfits made famous by Janis Joplin in her heyday. That, needless to say is no longer there.

I was reminded of these past memories by the debut of David Duchovney's new film " The House of D".
Although I have not seen it yet, the title refers to the old women's house of detention that was in what is now a public garden between 8th and 9th street and 6th avenue in Manhattan. I used to pass it on a weekly basis when visiting my grandmother who lived nearby. You could hear incarcerated women yelling out the window to their loved ones looking up from the street. I was always a little afraid of these women bellowing out of that prison. And I think I was relieved when they tore it down.

I moved to Park Slope only 5 years ago. it has been a kind of joy to have no memories of the streets and stores here. I have begun to create my own history - this is where I shop, this is where I have my cup of coffee - no past memories invading the present. It's a relief to not be stepping over my past as I do so often in Manhattan - And yet, soon, this too will be a place of memory. Sooner than I might think

Waiting for Sonia

Going through this adoption process has been more stressful than I had anticipated. I didn't spend a whole lot of time deciding whether to adopt. My experience with infertility treatments had failed and I was very, very sad - I felt like my body had failed me and I was depressed. The whole experience had been so extreme - moments of hope followed by terrible disappointment and dispair. What I did know at the end of it was that I still wanted to be a mom and to create a family. So adopting seemed like the logiical next step. I knew there were many risks, but I did what I often do - close my eyes and dive in -
So here we are a little over a year later, waiting to meet our Russian baby Sonia. We have her photograph which was taken when she was 3 months old ( we think) and she is now 7 months old. When we see her, she will look a whole lot different. I have no idea what to expect. I met a nice woman who told me that she felt attached to her daughter from Ukraine almost the moment that they had met - And the little girl ( elana) almost immediately began to hang onto her and hasn't let go 2 years later.

The children in orphanages apparently don't necessarily drink milk and eat very strange food like Fish Soup every day. When you get them, you have to be very sensitive to their diet and not introduce foods they may not be used to, like sugar or milk. Also, their eyes are very sensitive and you need to have them wear sunglasses when they go outside. Apparently, they are not taken outside very often so their eyes are sensitive to sunlight.
The woman also said that we should introduce our daughter to Russian speaking people. If they enjoy "talking" to the Russians, it means they have fond memories of their time in the orphanage - if they recoil, they did not. She also said we should start looking for a speech therapist since we will probably need one. So there are a lot of things to think about. She also said that one of the first things you will do at the orphanage will be to read to your child. It helps the bonding process. She also said her daughter is so attached to her it makes her laugh to think about all her concerns about Attachment disorder.

So what did I do? I went to Barnes & Noble and bought "Good night Moon" and "Pat the Bunny". I also bought some developmentally positive rattles and toys. Also, a very cute pair of pink "robeez" - soft little shoes. These are the little things that help me to prepare to be a mom - to assuage my worries and to imagine my new life.