Our Story3





		The caregivers brought 2 children in to the room, a girl and a boy, around the same age. One had blond hair and one had brown hair. We immediately reached for the blond haired child, while the other family reached for the brown haired child. We were immediately corrected and the caregivers placed a brown haired, brown eyed infant boy in my arms. He was beautiful and at the same time, nothing that I had expected. He immediately began to cry, for I too, was nothing like he had expected !! (for one thing I sounded different, I looked different, and I smelled different.) I comforted him as best I could and he began to smile and laugh at me. It was amazing how much he studied my face and looked into my eyes. He responded to my husband in the same manner. We had enlisted the medical assistance of Dr. Eric Downing, a Canadian Pediatrician from Moscow. He had come to Ekaterinburg to evaluate the health of our child. It was well worth the money we paid him and the piece of mind he gave us. He was wonderful with the hospital doctors and with the children. He told us that this little boy was perfectly healthy and that we didn't need to see any other children. My husband and I were torn. We had traveled a long way with dreams of adopting a toddler. We felt very connected to this infant, but we knew that there were other children we could visit. We felt that what ever decision we made would be for a lifetime and we needed to be absolutely sure. We had also been approved to adopt 2 children, so we left the hospital and traveled 5 hours north to the city of Serov. The whole time I clutched the photos of the infant boy I had spent the morning with wondering if he truly would be my son. In my heart I knew he would be. It was a day of great emotional turmoil for us. We arrived for dinner at the orphanage in Serov. Again we were greeted with warmth and happiness. We had a simple Russian meal and spoke with the director. We were allowed to look around the orphanage. In one room there were probably about 30 infants. It was heartbreaking. We then met a little boy, who was, by all accounts, the child we thought we desired. He was two years old with blond hair and blue eyes. We spent several hours with this child, playing games, talking and just sitting. As much as we wanted there to be a connection, we just didn't seem to get through to him, nor did he show much interest in us. We made the painful decision that his troubled past appeared to keep him from opening up to us, and that we would be taking on risks that we weren't prepared to face. 1 2 3 4

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