A Child Chosen - Perspectives of an Adoptive Parent

Seven Things in Seven Days

by Marcie on October 16th, 2007

One of my faithful readers (I can’t believe I have them!) has sent me a meme and jump-started my “Get to Know Me” section of this blog. Some of you just don’t know who I am yet so instead of a simple seven things…I decided to write “Seven True Things About Me in Seven Days” and I am also passing this on. Look for names at the end of this post. Oh, and Farrah, when the time comes…I am ordering a sling.
Day One: I never imagined myself in this “situation” and I don’t think most of us do. Did you grow up dreaming of getting married (or having a significant other) and adopting or did you dream of a growing belly, reading baby books together, feeling it kick against your tummy, and then, ultimately welcoming it into the world?

Yeah, me too. I don’t know what a baby smells like, or rather, what mine (prefaced, biological) is supposed to smell like. I will always yearn for that moment seconds after birth when a child is placed in your arms.

But, I have a different story…an adoption story. We received AJ’s picture via email on January 31st, 2005. It was shortly after noon and I was teaching. My husband called me before I could get to the email so that I did not open it unaware. Good thing too because I would have not been able to teach the rest of the afternoon.

The moment I saw his picture I was hooked and I have not gotten him out of my mind since.

This picture was taken the moment our representative set him in my arms.

We visited him in March and signed our adoption petition on April 1…yeah, someone fooled me. The rest of this post was written April 3, 2005 and amendments are made in bold.

To make a long story short…our dog Cole ate rat poison two hours before our flight and we had to rush him to the vet in our pajamas. On the way out of Russia our wonderful driver Edward ran into a car that ran a red light. Edward clearly had a green light! Our representative Helen is unfortunately hurt and the car is damaged, but Eric and I are well (not really, I had knee surgery) and we made our flight. Number three mishap was that on the final flight home I was quite cold and lost my wedding band. We frantically searched for it and thankfully found it under Eric’s shoe. I changed it to another finger to be safe…And AJ has the most wonderful infectious giggle that makes my heart melt every time I think about it. Thank goodness I have it on video to get me through 12 weeks…

We flew next to Arkhangel’sk where his orphanage is located. Our representative, Helen, and driver, Edward, picked us up at the airport and took us to the hotel. The next morning we met with the Minster of Education in the region and she gave us permission to go meet him. Unfortunately it was his lunch and nap time so we had to wait again…We were three blocks from him and we had to wait another three hours to see him. Talk about torture…

At 2:30 Wednesday we met with his doctors and social worker to get his medical history and family information. We got two years of medical history in 20 minutes. Russian medical history is quite scary because they have different terminology so we were quite glad we had a 24 hour adoption doctor back in Cincinnati. She cleared all the strange sounding things and we let out a big sigh of relief. We learned about his parents and siblings (He has 3 brothers and a sister all in different orphanages in the same region but all much older.) and about how their financial situation caused their breakup.

After all of that information in such a short time Helen went to get him…and I paced nervously. Very, very, nervously.

Helen walked into the room and handed AJ to me and he was so scared. He took a couple of deep rattling inhales and would not look at me or hang onto me, something I completely expected. You can see his wide-eyed expressions in the pictures, but he was so tense.

We were able to spend about 9 hours with him over three days and each moment was precious. He began to take to us after that first day and we learned so much about him in that short time period. We have a lot to learn but he will certainly teach us…he was not shy.

9 things we learned about AJ in 9 hours…

1. He has an infectious giggle and a gorgeous smile.

2. He loves movement…especially flying with Daddy. I wish they made toddler swings for indoors. They do. Check out IKEA.

3. He is extremely ticklish, and he loves it. But, when he has had enough he will certainly tell you even though he can’t speak
yet. Ahh, yes…Why couldn’t someone have told me about Sensory Processing Dysfunction then?

4. Throwing things seems to be his favorite things to do. He tastes the object to see if he likes it and then throws it. When he is done with the toy, he throws it. If he does not like it, he throws it. If he does like it, he throws it…Basically, he throws. Unfortunately Dad, he throws backwards. Any ideas for non throw-able plane toys? Thank goodness he now has excellent aim and he is a lefty. But, he still throws when he is mad.

5. He loves cars. Typical boy. Cars, Cars, Cars. Need I say more?

6. He sucks his thumb when he gets tired. No one told us this but I have a gorgeous picture of him doing it because I caught him as he started to get sleepy. It is one of my favorites. He stopped sucking his thumb the moment we landed in New York. Wierd? He started incessently biting this nails…to the point that they would bleed. That stopped, finally, when we chelated.

7. He loves to climb and is extremely curious. Wish us luck. Yes, he is half monkey. And I still need help. We recently had to re-baby proof our house.

8. He does not walk well yet, but knows exactly how to get places without having to walk without assistance from someone or an object. He can figure out how to get anywhere he wants to go. You can see his brain churning…do I hang onto the fence, crawl, scoot my butt against the wall, or hang onto daddy? It was very humorous to watch him get places. The good thing is he has problem solving skills. The BAD thing is that he has problem solving skills. Ever try to re-baby proof a house for a four year old?

9. He is VERY active. Again…wish us luck…lots of it. I still need some. Anyone have any extra?

And, I’m tagging Chronicles of Munckinland, one of my favorites.

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POSTED IN: Countries and Domestic, Reflection