Ok, I FINALLY have time to do a detailed update of all that has been going on. It's Sunday morning and we are at the mall where they have wifi. I can write until I either say everything or my laptop runs out of battery. When we got to Wifi this morning, Jody and I both turned on our phones and had a bunch of emails from family and friends. We embarrassed Ellie because we were both crying as we read them. I didn't even realize how homesick I am until now. I love getting emails from everyone! We really miss the boys! We found out that Ryan hit his 1st home run over the fence in a baseball tournament yesterday. I can't believe we missed it! Way to go Ryan, I guess you will just have to do it again when we get home :) There has been so much going on that i know this will probably be a really long post.
I will start with Thursday. We drove to Zhytomyr to the social workers office to get the permission to visit the kids. We waited outside in a hallway for about 30 minutes and then Alex and another girl came out and we headed to the orphanage. We went in the Directors office and they spoke a lot in Ukrainian. We had no idea what they said but after about 15 minutes we went outside and waited for the orphanage lawyer. While we were waiting, we saw some boys and I thought one of them was Yarik, the older brother. When the lawyer came out, she said that it was. We piled in the car, to drive an hour to the camp where the kids are for the summer. Ellie had to ride on Jody's lap the entire way and it was very hot in the car. Alex drives really and aggressive. Everyone here does. For some reason it doesn't scare me though. I think I feel a little invincible. I feel pretty confident that God didn't bring us all the way over here to die in a car accident. When we pulled up someone was at the gate and told us that we couldn't go into the camp, they would bring the kids out for us. The teacher 1st brought Bogdan out. He held tightly on to her hand. She told him something that included the words "Mama" and "Papa" but he just looked down. We got out a skyball that we brought with us and showed him how high it can go. He liked that and he did play ball with us. While we were playing ball, we saw Tanya heading down the path toward us. When she saw us, she started running and ran to give me a huge hug and then Ellie and Jody. She has always seemed shy in our communicating so I wasn't expecting that but we loved it! Bogdan was much more comfortable with her there. I imagine that before the orphanage she probably was the one that took care of him. You can tell that she loves him so much. It brings tears to my eyes every time I see how sweetly she talks to him and looks at him. We knew Bogdan had some delays but we didn't know they were as severe as they seemed when we met him. It's just so hard to know what delays are from being neglected for 3 years and then in an orphanage for 3 years and what is actual handicaps or delays. Plus, we have the language barrier and he is shy. We played ball for a while with both of them. We stayed for about 2 hours. Alex asked Tanya if she wanted to be adopted and go to America. She said yes. He kept asking her if she was sure and she was very adamant that she did. We drove back to the orphanage. They lawyer was trying to find Yarik because we need a letter from him saying that he gives his permission for Tanya and Bogdan to be adopted. We hadn't had any chance to talk to each other or to Alex because of all the people in the car. While we were waiting, we asked Alex more about Bogdan. He said that the teacher told him that he has Cerebral Palsy. I can't even explain how we felt when we heard that. It was such a shock. We didn't know anything about CP. Does it get worse as they get older? Can they function in school? So many questions. Jody and I still weren't able to talk about it because we were never alone. After we dropped everyone off, we went to eat dinner (we hadn't eaten all day and by this time it was about 5 pm). We couldn't even eat. We both felt sick at our stomachs. We didn't know what to do. I just kept thinking that I don't think I can handle this type of special needs. Many times I have wondered if I can handle 6 kids, and now to think of one with special needs. If we couldn't do it, we would have to tell Tanya we couldn't adopt them. We wouldn't never have tried to adopt Tanya without Bogdan after we saw how much she loves him. Then at dinner, everything hit me and I could not stop crying. Ellie cried when she saw me cry. We cried all the way to the hotel. We checked into our hotel and then we headed out to meet our friends the Quinteros. They had court that morning and were headed to the airport at 1:30 am. They were shocked too. They hadn't spent much time with Bogdan but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. When we think about all of the ways we should have heard about this before we got here, it is amazing that we didn't know. We only know that God chose this time to reveal it to us. We didn't find out earlier because He didn't want us to. When we finally got back to the hotel we were able to do some research on the internet about Cerebral Palsy and Jody and I could talk. Jody said that he didn't think you go in to adoption looking for the perfect child. We are doing this for the kids. A few people suggested that we call this doctor in Ukraine who is very good and evaluates kids being adopted. Jody said that it was pointless to do that. We would do all kinds of tests in the US. Its not like we would have the doctor here evaluate him and then if it is severe, we would say "No, we don't want him." These are the kids God has led us to, and they are ours. If Bogdan was to stay here, he would be put in to an orphanage for children with special needs and you can't even imagine how bad that is. I will post more about that later. But it its absolutely awful. The kids are pretty much left alone to survive or die - which many of them do. This wasn't a surprise to God and He has given us these children. Just like He adopted us as His children with all of our imperfections, that is what He has called us to do. I don't know if we were really ever thinking that we would not adopt them. We were just so shocked and it was hard to accept this because it is not what we had imagined.
The next day we went back to the orphange to see Bogdan's medical records. Alex read every one of them and it did not say Cerebral Palsy anywhere. He has never been diagnosed with CP. His diagnosis is F-70 which means slight mental delay. However, we do know that it is a little more than slight. We would not be surprised to get to the US and find out it is CP. CP can be very mild. He understands everything Tanya and Alex say to him. He doesn't talk very much. He has started warming up to us a little more every day. Yesterday Tanya got him to say "Ellie", which he said very good. He has really warmed up to Alex. Alex let him sit in his lap and drive the car. He loves to play in the car and push all of the buttons. I doubt if he has ever been in one before. It is hard to explain his physical delays. Everything is just a bit awkward. He can catch a ball and he played on all the playground equipment yesterday. He can climb good. It's just a little bit different - the way he moves. Like I said, it is very hard to discern what is a disability and what is a result of his experiences. We will know much more when we get to US doctors. There is a clinic in Alabama that specializes in Internationally adopted children. They have translators and are very familiar with institutionalized behaviors. If we can figure out a way to go there, I think that would be a good way to evaluate him.
We have been to see the kids 3 times now. We love seeing them but it is hard to fill the time. We are so thankful that we brought Ellie with us. She and Tanya play volleyball and soccer. We can see that Tanya is a VERY good athlete. She said that she wants to play soccer when she gets to America. I can't even tell you how sweet she is. She is very observant of other peoples feelings. Her friend was leaving to go on a hosting trip and we gave her a ride back to the orphanage. She was sad to leave and was sitting iwith her teacher waiting on us to finish our visit. Tanya walked over to hug her and her friend started to cry. I looked at Tanya and she was crying too. Another time, we were all sitting and talking. There were a few girls from the orphanage there with us. Actually, they were all talking Ukrainian and we were just sitting there. Ellie got up to play with the soccer ball. Tanya looked over and saw Ellie and immediately got up to play with her. We keep saying that she and Ellie are so much alike. You can also tell that Bogdan is very sweet. He will now look at us and has a huge smile on his face. When he first comes out, he goes over to the bag with toys to see what we brought that day. He likes to go through each thing and open packages. After he looks at everything, he puts it back exactly like it was. Then when it is time to leave, he wants to take everything with him. We let him take the ball the first day and we haven't seen it since then. So, we leave some candy with him and tell him we will bring everything else back the next day. We will try to find something today that he can keep with him, maybe a toy car (macheena) or something. Yesterday we got to walk with the kids down the road to the playground. It looks abandoned but this is where they actually play. I will post pictures of it.
Alex left us yesterday to go home to Kiev. He has been married only 6 months and he is gone all the time. He works so hard and he is really good at what he does. He has great relationships with everyone we come in contact with. We found out that he doesn't use his car AC because he thinks it made him sick. Jody keeps teasing him about it so he turns it on for us. Then, Jody started sneezing and getting a runny nose. I think its allergies but Alex insists that it is the AC in the car. When Jody told him he was allergic to something in the air, he went and washed his car because he thought Jody might be allergic to the dust on his car. Funny. He is really great and has a good time teasing us. It's so hard without him here. We don't eat much because we hate trying to order when nobody understands us. Today at the mall where we have wifi, we have been typing things into the translate program on our phones and showing it to people. That has been a little more successful. Right now Ellie is ice skating again. She is getting better. We had to walk about a mile and a half to get here so we will probably hang around here most of the day. Ok, enough talking, here are some pictures. Thanks for praying! I haven't answered emails yet but I will try to do that later today if I have enough battery :)
I will start with Thursday. We drove to Zhytomyr to the social workers office to get the permission to visit the kids. We waited outside in a hallway for about 30 minutes and then Alex and another girl came out and we headed to the orphanage. We went in the Directors office and they spoke a lot in Ukrainian. We had no idea what they said but after about 15 minutes we went outside and waited for the orphanage lawyer. While we were waiting, we saw some boys and I thought one of them was Yarik, the older brother. When the lawyer came out, she said that it was. We piled in the car, to drive an hour to the camp where the kids are for the summer. Ellie had to ride on Jody's lap the entire way and it was very hot in the car. Alex drives really and aggressive. Everyone here does. For some reason it doesn't scare me though. I think I feel a little invincible. I feel pretty confident that God didn't bring us all the way over here to die in a car accident. When we pulled up someone was at the gate and told us that we couldn't go into the camp, they would bring the kids out for us. The teacher 1st brought Bogdan out. He held tightly on to her hand. She told him something that included the words "Mama" and "Papa" but he just looked down. We got out a skyball that we brought with us and showed him how high it can go. He liked that and he did play ball with us. While we were playing ball, we saw Tanya heading down the path toward us. When she saw us, she started running and ran to give me a huge hug and then Ellie and Jody. She has always seemed shy in our communicating so I wasn't expecting that but we loved it! Bogdan was much more comfortable with her there. I imagine that before the orphanage she probably was the one that took care of him. You can tell that she loves him so much. It brings tears to my eyes every time I see how sweetly she talks to him and looks at him. We knew Bogdan had some delays but we didn't know they were as severe as they seemed when we met him. It's just so hard to know what delays are from being neglected for 3 years and then in an orphanage for 3 years and what is actual handicaps or delays. Plus, we have the language barrier and he is shy. We played ball for a while with both of them. We stayed for about 2 hours. Alex asked Tanya if she wanted to be adopted and go to America. She said yes. He kept asking her if she was sure and she was very adamant that she did. We drove back to the orphanage. They lawyer was trying to find Yarik because we need a letter from him saying that he gives his permission for Tanya and Bogdan to be adopted. We hadn't had any chance to talk to each other or to Alex because of all the people in the car. While we were waiting, we asked Alex more about Bogdan. He said that the teacher told him that he has Cerebral Palsy. I can't even explain how we felt when we heard that. It was such a shock. We didn't know anything about CP. Does it get worse as they get older? Can they function in school? So many questions. Jody and I still weren't able to talk about it because we were never alone. After we dropped everyone off, we went to eat dinner (we hadn't eaten all day and by this time it was about 5 pm). We couldn't even eat. We both felt sick at our stomachs. We didn't know what to do. I just kept thinking that I don't think I can handle this type of special needs. Many times I have wondered if I can handle 6 kids, and now to think of one with special needs. If we couldn't do it, we would have to tell Tanya we couldn't adopt them. We wouldn't never have tried to adopt Tanya without Bogdan after we saw how much she loves him. Then at dinner, everything hit me and I could not stop crying. Ellie cried when she saw me cry. We cried all the way to the hotel. We checked into our hotel and then we headed out to meet our friends the Quinteros. They had court that morning and were headed to the airport at 1:30 am. They were shocked too. They hadn't spent much time with Bogdan but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. When we think about all of the ways we should have heard about this before we got here, it is amazing that we didn't know. We only know that God chose this time to reveal it to us. We didn't find out earlier because He didn't want us to. When we finally got back to the hotel we were able to do some research on the internet about Cerebral Palsy and Jody and I could talk. Jody said that he didn't think you go in to adoption looking for the perfect child. We are doing this for the kids. A few people suggested that we call this doctor in Ukraine who is very good and evaluates kids being adopted. Jody said that it was pointless to do that. We would do all kinds of tests in the US. Its not like we would have the doctor here evaluate him and then if it is severe, we would say "No, we don't want him." These are the kids God has led us to, and they are ours. If Bogdan was to stay here, he would be put in to an orphanage for children with special needs and you can't even imagine how bad that is. I will post more about that later. But it its absolutely awful. The kids are pretty much left alone to survive or die - which many of them do. This wasn't a surprise to God and He has given us these children. Just like He adopted us as His children with all of our imperfections, that is what He has called us to do. I don't know if we were really ever thinking that we would not adopt them. We were just so shocked and it was hard to accept this because it is not what we had imagined.
The next day we went back to the orphange to see Bogdan's medical records. Alex read every one of them and it did not say Cerebral Palsy anywhere. He has never been diagnosed with CP. His diagnosis is F-70 which means slight mental delay. However, we do know that it is a little more than slight. We would not be surprised to get to the US and find out it is CP. CP can be very mild. He understands everything Tanya and Alex say to him. He doesn't talk very much. He has started warming up to us a little more every day. Yesterday Tanya got him to say "Ellie", which he said very good. He has really warmed up to Alex. Alex let him sit in his lap and drive the car. He loves to play in the car and push all of the buttons. I doubt if he has ever been in one before. It is hard to explain his physical delays. Everything is just a bit awkward. He can catch a ball and he played on all the playground equipment yesterday. He can climb good. It's just a little bit different - the way he moves. Like I said, it is very hard to discern what is a disability and what is a result of his experiences. We will know much more when we get to US doctors. There is a clinic in Alabama that specializes in Internationally adopted children. They have translators and are very familiar with institutionalized behaviors. If we can figure out a way to go there, I think that would be a good way to evaluate him.
We have been to see the kids 3 times now. We love seeing them but it is hard to fill the time. We are so thankful that we brought Ellie with us. She and Tanya play volleyball and soccer. We can see that Tanya is a VERY good athlete. She said that she wants to play soccer when she gets to America. I can't even tell you how sweet she is. She is very observant of other peoples feelings. Her friend was leaving to go on a hosting trip and we gave her a ride back to the orphanage. She was sad to leave and was sitting iwith her teacher waiting on us to finish our visit. Tanya walked over to hug her and her friend started to cry. I looked at Tanya and she was crying too. Another time, we were all sitting and talking. There were a few girls from the orphanage there with us. Actually, they were all talking Ukrainian and we were just sitting there. Ellie got up to play with the soccer ball. Tanya looked over and saw Ellie and immediately got up to play with her. We keep saying that she and Ellie are so much alike. You can also tell that Bogdan is very sweet. He will now look at us and has a huge smile on his face. When he first comes out, he goes over to the bag with toys to see what we brought that day. He likes to go through each thing and open packages. After he looks at everything, he puts it back exactly like it was. Then when it is time to leave, he wants to take everything with him. We let him take the ball the first day and we haven't seen it since then. So, we leave some candy with him and tell him we will bring everything else back the next day. We will try to find something today that he can keep with him, maybe a toy car (macheena) or something. Yesterday we got to walk with the kids down the road to the playground. It looks abandoned but this is where they actually play. I will post pictures of it.
Alex left us yesterday to go home to Kiev. He has been married only 6 months and he is gone all the time. He works so hard and he is really good at what he does. He has great relationships with everyone we come in contact with. We found out that he doesn't use his car AC because he thinks it made him sick. Jody keeps teasing him about it so he turns it on for us. Then, Jody started sneezing and getting a runny nose. I think its allergies but Alex insists that it is the AC in the car. When Jody told him he was allergic to something in the air, he went and washed his car because he thought Jody might be allergic to the dust on his car. Funny. He is really great and has a good time teasing us. It's so hard without him here. We don't eat much because we hate trying to order when nobody understands us. Today at the mall where we have wifi, we have been typing things into the translate program on our phones and showing it to people. That has been a little more successful. Right now Ellie is ice skating again. She is getting better. We had to walk about a mile and a half to get here so we will probably hang around here most of the day. Ok, enough talking, here are some pictures. Thanks for praying! I haven't answered emails yet but I will try to do that later today if I have enough battery :)
This is the orphanage
Tanya said this is where the boys at the orphanage go to smoke.
This is another building at the orphanage and the soccer field.
More of the orphanage.
This is the gate to the camp where we visit the kids.
Soccer
Bogdan loves soda - anything sweet he likes.
This is the only shaded spot where we can go. We played UNO.
Bogdan driving the "macheena".
This is the bathroom at the city hall in the village where the kids mom lives. We didn't use it. We make sure to go to the bathroom before we leave so we don't have to use one of these!
This is the playground at the camp.
Tanya and Ellie get along so good, even though they can't understand each other :)
We were surprised how strong Bogdan was when he was climbing on the playground.
Vincent and Letty - the girls miss you! We had fun visiting with them yesterday. Maya was talking to us in English and doing very good.
Papa with the girls!
Mama and Tanya
Mama and both of her girls!
This is them walking back to the camp. I guess they stayed a little too long because the teacher was not happy when she came to get them.
This is on our drive to the camp. We pass a ton of horse and carriages.
This is a building on our way - one of the nicer ones that we see.
We stopped on the side of the road and got fresh strawberries yesterday. They were really good. Bogdan washed them for us and he ate a ton of them. When we left, we took them with him to share with his friends.
Our son Dennis has mild CP... in fact it is so mild that the specialist said he is too functional to be called having CP though he has some general central nervous system disorder. He is hypotonic which means his muscles lack tone which makes him unsteady. He may be ataxic which simply means he has problems processing sensory information.
ReplyDeletePhysically he gets stronger and stronger being fed well, vitamins, and doing things like riding his bike, walking/running independently, etc. Everyone sees how fast he's making progress physically. He falls sometimes and has bruises and scars to show for it... he'll likely always be a little unstable. He also definitely has some difficulties learning, retaining, and communicating but is progressing.
We went into this knowing the possibility that he will live with us our entire life. I actually don't think that will be the case but we wanted to set our expectations appropriately. We also set our goals for him here reasonably... focusing on physical growth, English, and integration with the family... education is secondary.
He's a great kid with lots of smiles and loves to have fun... he LOVES having a family. Our family is better off having him as part of it.
Love this update!! I feel like I am there with you and for a few moments I really contemplated if my girls and I could take a little trip to Ukraine this summer :) I miss it so much. It is a crazy time walking through the journey of adoption, but I know that it was also such a precious for us because we just got to experience the Lord at work in such unique and amazing ways. I know you guys are getting to experience the same things. Love your hearts for Him! Can't wait to see you guys all together.
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