2007-Day 2 Vorzel-We meet Kara

We got into Yelena's SUV and I was surprised at how moist my palms were. Were parked in front of this building and the three of us walked in. We saw a few children and a woman approached us and talked to Yelena, all I knew was we were not supposed to come there before meeting with the orphanage director.

We drove down the road to his office and sat outside the room while Yelena spoke to him. After a few minutes she came back out and said we needed to walk across the street to the baby orphanage where Karina was. We followed Yelena along a snow covered pathway, across the street and we saw the orphanage.
So here we were, #5 orphanage, wow, it hard to walk up the walkway with shaking knees, did they have to make that path so long? I thought we would never get there. What would we find beyond that closed door?
The baby house, we were finally there, after over a year of planning and waiting, the time had come to meet our new daughter.

I am certain I looked as scared as I was, the doctor put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. We sat down on the longest sofa and she pulled up a chair.

She read from a 2 inch thick file folder and told us how much Kara weighed at birth, her Apgar scores, that she has a bronchial infection two times, and so many other things that became incomprehensible to me because I was watching the door. I knew Tom and Meghan were there with me, but my whole body was filled with the excitement and some fear of who we would see soon.

We asked questions and then they said Karina was ready to meet us and a caregiver brought her out to us and handed her to me. The video shows us meeting.

A thrill went through me when I saw her, if felt the same way I did when my by birth children emerged from the womb and my arms were aching to hold them, to look at them at last and count fingers and toes. What a beautiful little girl, I was amazed, in awe, and I wondered if they made a mistake, she did not look like she had Down syndrome at all. I remember looking at her pinkies and seeing the two bones and the crook of them, and smiled, there was a marker afterall.

Kara was stinky, she actually smelled like, well, poop, and her hands smelled like she had them in her diaper, so when she stuck her hands in my mouth, I was not thrilled. LOL I picked her up and bounced her to get her hands away from my face, I felt like retching, not a good thing to do on first meeting...still I took one look at her and I thought "My Lord, she is just a baby!" and then I thought "I hope she will be ours" it was that quick for me.

I just had to hug Kara, but you could tell she was not used to it, and was stiff in my arms.
Meghan was just having none of her mom paying attention to this little baby, she interjected herself between Kara and I quite often, I was glad she was going to be there 3 weeks to get to know Kara and get used to the idea that she would come home with me later.

However, Meghan was so excited to see Anna (what she called her then) and was in her face, not something that made Kara happy, she pulled Meghan's hair and it truly hurt Meghan's feelings.
Meghan retreated to a safe distance while mommy and daddy played with this stranger, how much did she understand about Kara? We were not certain, but we tried to include her and help her feel better, she got a lot of hugs too.

Meghan trying to figure out who Kara was, she kept asking me if it was Anna, (Oksana) and I kept saying no, this is Karina honey.

I played with Kara while Tom looked on, a huge smile on his face. I handed her over to him and grabbed the camera, I wanted to get some pictures of this very important day.

We were trying to get her to smile, she was having none of it, the look she gave us we got used to, she often looked this way those first few weeks with us. She only smiled if we played with her.

we brought a bunny and a book for her, and all she wanted was the Ziploc bag. we still have to keep those away from her, she puts them over her head, hum, not so safe.

Tom getting to know Kara, and Meghan again trying to be a part of it, she kept saying "I got her" she wanted to hold Kara, but Kara was grabbing noses and glasses, and pinching and pulling hair, so we thought it best to wait a few days before they "bonded".

Another attempt to get our beautiful new daughter to smile, no way, until she finally showed us her beaitiful little smile.

After a bit of the doctor and Yelena looking on, Yelena said "Kristina, the doctor wants to know, do you accept the referral" and "She says you can take a few days to decide if you want" I looked at Tom and said "Well, what do you think" I know my face and eyes said YES to him, he nodded and smiled and said "Oh yes" and we both looked at her and said "Yes, we accept her referral" and Yelena left us, saying could we walk back to the room, she needed to get back to Kyiv and the next day she would tell the SDA we accpeted the referral and get the adoption process started. We said yes, we did not mind walking, it was already getting dark outside, but we were so elated, we did not even notice it ot that it had begin to snow. Soon after Yelena left, a caregiver came in with a buggy full of food for the children and they told us it was time for Kara to eat.

We handed her back to the caregiver and put on our coats, hats, and gloves and walked outside.


You can see how happy Tom was walking back, I was throwing snowballs at Meghan and we were all giggling and playing, three Arizonans who were not used to so much snow, and just thrilled to be where we were at the moment. I was thanking God for finding us such a sweet little girl. We walked back to the dining hall to eat dinner.