One Year Ago . . .

It is 9:45 AM November 20th right now in Ekaterinburg - one year ago right now I was at the Department of Ministry receiving my referral for my beautiful twin girls.  As soon as we received the referral we headed off for the first of many long drives to go visit the girls.  They were 19 months old and were not walking yet.  Camryn (Polina) thought she could walk and kept getting up like she was going to go somewhere but before her second step she'd be back down.  They weren't speaking at all but were very friendly after the initial shyness.

Upon meeting my children (Katy first, then Camryn & Courtney) it was like the moment of "birth" to me.   Both referrals were blind referrals where I was given no pictures and little information.  With Katy all I knew was that I was going to meet a girl under 3 and with Camryn & Courtney I knew I was going to meet twin girls.  I was not given any pictures or videos by the agency although, with Camryn & Courtney, a friend in Russia found a picture of the only twin girls on the database in Ekaterinburg that were then available for adoption.  I had that picture but was not sure if it was them until I arrived and received my referral.  I saw the same photo in the file.  

When I say that meeting my girls was like the "moment of birth" what I mean is I never considered not accepting a referral because I felt that these were the children I was meant to have and whatever the issues might be is what I would deal with.  I know people who have had to decline referrals due to health reasons or various other reasons and I feel very lucky that my two referrals were for healthy children so I was not forced to make that terrible, difficult decision.  But, for me, it was not love at first sight with any of the girls  - it was very much a formality that I had to go through in order to get my children home so I could then let my maternal love grow for them.   I feel a little guilty admitting that but I knew that once I got the girls home I would fall in love with them more and more everyday and hoped that it would be the same for them.  I think everybody reacts and feels differently but I felt my reaction was very honest and realistic.    I was more worried about them growing to love me then I was about my love growing for them. 

I actually thought Katy was extremely funny looking when I first saw her and had scared myself so much by all the reading I had done about institutionalized children that I was imagining that I was seeing all sorts of  issues with her.   In addition to all of the fear I had, I was also accompanied by 4 or 5 orphanage and agency people watching and waiting for the love to gush out of me over this naked baby they had laid on the floor in front of me.   The reality of the moment (the entire first two visits) was that I was watching this 11 month old baby and looking for all of the "institutionalized" issues to see what was going to be permanent and what was correctable.   

They, the orphanage caregivers, were displaying this baby for me as if I was having to make the decision whether I was going to bring her home or not.  They had stripped her down before I could say anything and laid her out on a blanket so I could see all of her.  They started making all sorts of noises behind her head so that I could see that she could hear (I'm guessing that's what they were doing) and they were clapping and doing all sorts of other things to show me that she was responsive.  The entire experience was very unpleasant for me and, I felt, degrading for her - how could they expect love to be present there?  There were many feelings along with the stress - feelings of empathy for this little baby, feelings of wanting to remove her from there and to protect her but maternal love?  Just like that?  Didn't work that way for me!  All I wanted to do was get me and my baby out of there so we could be together, get to know each other and let our love for each other grow as I knew that it would regardless of what issues this child might have.  In my mind it was very unrealistic for them to expect me to feel the deep love of a mother's love for a baby I had only just met, especially considering the stress of the entire surreal, unpleasant, completely foreign,  and unnatural situation!  I know myself though and I knew that my loving this child would not be a problem but that it would take time without all of the stress and people watching me.

It turned out that Katy had rickets which is not uncommon for children in Siberia whether they've been in orphanages or not.  I didn't know very much about rickets but I learned that one of the signs is a bulging forehead which is what Katy had.   The rickets went away probably within the first month as did the bulging forehead but my fears didn't.  I was still searching physically and developmentally for "post-institutionalized" problems.   She really didn't have any other then having to learn to sleep (she was drugged so she'd sleep at her orphanage) and, of course, learning to rely on me and others.  It took a good year for our relationship to feel what I consider to be "normal" for a mother and child and before I didn't think of her as my "adopted" child and, instead,  just as "my child".  

I learned so much from that first experience that I thought I was prepared for the second and, in many ways I was.   There are many differences with the circumstances of the second adoption including the fact that there are two, the older age and the longer wait between meeting and bringing them home.  The initial visits, one year ago right now(!), were the same experience as Katy's.  They brought the two girls in and I automatically begin searching for the signs of problems that we would need to work on when we got home.   They offered to strip the girls down so I could examine them but I said no thank you.  It didn't matter what I would see, these were to be my girls and I didn't want them displayed the way that Katy was.  I understand the need for the exams but it just didn't matter to me at the time (they're fine by the way - no surprises!). 

Once again, as expected, it was not "love at first sight" for me and it was very much a formality.  This orphanage was much more relaxed about their rules and they actually left me alone with the twins for around 3 or 4 hours!  Never would have happened at Katy's orphanage.  Well, there's one of me and two of them and that's a really long time.  It was pretty much torture for me and I'm sure for them too.  I brought a few toys but nothing to entertain them for that long - I had no snacks for them (or for me) and they had no contained place for me to play with them.  It was an extremely long afternoon and, like the first experience with Katy, I went back to my hotel and scanned through the pictures I had looking for the signs of trouble.  The next day, the same experience.  They had two little plastic cars there for me to entertain the girls with but they couldn't push it themselves so for another 3 hours I held one and pushed the other and would then trade off.  It was November so you think it would have been cold but they had the heat on and I was so hot I thought I was going to pass out.  It was miserable and all I wanted to do was get home so I could quickly do the paperwork and get my girls home so we could begin the process of getting to know each other and letting our love grow.  I knew it was just not going to happen at the orphanage no matter how long I walked around with them in the little plastic car.   And, I was missing Katy terribly and feeling a little sad and guilty about changing her life so drastically.

Returning home I thought I was going to get my paperwork done so fast and well that the judge would be impressed and quickly issue a court date to get those twins out of there.  I did do my paperwork fast - most requests were turned in within a week when my agency said a month was more typical.  It's all I could think about and if a request came through forget anything else I had to do (work, etc), I was begging, pleading and bargaining with people to get me the paperwork quickly.  But, it still took 10 months of waiting and of torture and the judge treated me no better or worse then anyone else that is fortunate enough to make it to her courtroom.  

And now, here we are one year later.  We've been home for just over a month and all my fears are gone.  I don't look at any of my children and look for damage caused by their time in the "institutions" and, even better, I don't look at them now and think of the adoptions.    I have challenges with all 3 children but I have not heard of a child that did not at one time present a challenge to their parents.  Mine happen to need some special treatment/methods right now because of their start in life but, I think the raising of any child has to be personalized to that one child's needs and requirements and, it's never easy or simple.  Watching my brothers and sisters with their biological children it is obvious that born into a family or adopted into a family doesn't change the fact that every individual child is different and requires different handling and care.  This has become especially apparent to me since becoming the parent to twins.  They are so different and although their basic needs are the same, I need to adjust what I do for each one of them. 

Katy is four and is very strong willed but she is very loving and very charismatic.   She is friendly and happy and fun and extremely entertaining and cute as can be.  She is so beautiful and here I thought she was so funny looking at first (in looking back at pictures now she was actually quite adorable then too even with the rickets).  Camryn is happy, happy, happy.   She is smart and she is athletic and she is friendly and she is extremely loving and sweet.  She laughs so easily and it is sometimes such a genuine laugh that it becomes silent and her body is shaking.  She knows that I am her mom and she lights up when I walk in the room.  She wants to be held and she has the cutest laugh which is easily brought out.   If she's doing something and she looks up and sees me she reaches her hand out to me to touch and then smiles the sweetest smile.  Sometimes she goes back to what she was doing but usually she gets up and comes over for a quick snuggle and then goes back.  They don't come any sweeter than Camryn.  Courtney on the other hand is very sensitive and very much my little "underdog" which makes me feel especially tender toward her.  Where Camryn and Katy play together (and bother each other) Courtney is usually doing something on her own.  If she hurts herself she comes right over to show me where she got the "bor-bor" and then tells me the story (in animated jibberish) of how she got it while pointing to where it happened.  She then wants a little hug and goes back.  She is the most quiet of the 3 normally but she is secretly studying everything and I think she's picking things up even more quickly then Camryn.   She has the same laugh as Camryn but doesn't give it so easily, although it is easy to draw it out of her. When she laughs like that she squints her eyes and they have a twinkle in them that is uniquely her - I haven't seen Camryn give the twinkley eyes.  Courtney surprises me with singing the songs - she knows the words (and spider movements) already and she loves to sing them.    She is very sweet too and very sensitive which may be why she has a few behaviors remaining from her early neglect.  But they are virtually disappearing before our eyes.  She also gets excited when I enter the room and comes right to me.  She is a little snuggler too and also a little copy cat (as is Camryn at times) which I hope to see change one day.   She's gone from eating nothing in Moscow to eating fairly large, healthy meals now.   I have many times when all 3 girls are laying on a part of me (all at that same time) and I am lucky enough to have the time right now that I get to also enjoy special one on one snuggle time too which I really enjoy.  

So, one year later, I don't think I could love my girls any more then I do right now.  I was never worried that it would be here but it is so wonderful when it is not about the adoption any longer and it is just me and my daughters whom I, truly, deeply love.  I wonder if the orphanage staff, the agency staff (in country), the social workers, the judges and all the people who testified in court on my behalf about the loving relationships they witnessed during my visits really believed that it was there instantly upon meeting my children as they all wanted to hear me say (and did hear me say).   I don't know if my experience is very different then most and if it is normally "love at first sight" or, if it is typical to need time together without all the hoopla of the adoption looming around us.  But, I know that now my experience (and love) raising my daughters is no different then if I had given birth to them myself.

The entire adoption process is one formality after another and I just followed the steps doing what I was told to do and saying what I was advised to say knowing that I would end up with a child but not realizing the reality of that.  It got me to the two most important, life changing days of my life, December 8, 2005 and October 8, 2008 when I walked out of the orphanages and began the real journey of loving and raising my 3 beautiful daughters.  All the "adoption" nightmare and turmoil is totally gone for me and for my family and I couldn't be happier about it or with my 3 girls.  I still wonder how I have been the one chosen to raise, care for and love these 3 amazing little girls.