Sunday, August 5, 2007

The 6 from Russia

We heard of our son, Jacob thru a hosting program and friends who had adopted thru this agency. Jacob had been hosted 7 months earlier and was not adopted yet. He had severe scoliosis and was having trouble breathing. He had even been hospitalized because of it. We got our dossier together in record time and traveled to Vladikavkaz, Russia for him and 2 other children.... ( We heard of him in late June and traveled Sept. 5). This was to the Chechnya region very close to Georgia. We met our Isaac who was the age of 5 but the size of an 18 month old . We were told he never talked... never uttered a word the 5 yrs he was there. We had him for 2 days in Moscow and he was speaking Russian to his sister, Lily. ... Then just 6 weeks later he was totally english speaking. A few yrs later we asked him why did you not talk.... His response was priceless....," I did not have anything to say." He had major dental needs and when he came home he had to have 4 hrs of surgery in a hospital to repair and remove teeth, and gums . He lost most of his teeth (baby) but it did not affect his weight gain.... He would eat everything and was able to gain weight and some height... However, he is still short in stature. Lily was in the orphanage with Isaac. She was 2 yrs old and has esotropia (severe-crossing of her eyes, no depth perception and was in glasses and bifocals for farsightedness). She is also very small but full of life...

While on a visit to our agency to let them meet our new children we were shown a picture of a baby with hip dysplasia that no one wanted... there were those words again..... She was very small and paralyzed on her l leg. They wanted us to help find a family for her... We took one look at her picture and knew she was ours... She is our Mya. Thus we began the paperwork for her adoption. This was at the end of Oct. and we got a call on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving about her. We had to wait for the 12th family to decide to adopt her or not.... They said if we could get our paperwork in by the Monday following Thanksgiving we could go on our first trip in Dec.... For this to happen we had to get an updated homestudy, police clearance and USCIS approval.... all in a short few days with a holiday.... God saw us thru and the USCIS director even came in on the Sat to receive our pkg... so we could get the approval Monday.... So away we went to Russia again. When we got there we asked to see children that were hard to place. We met and fell in love with our Anna- she was 7 and still in the baby orphanage with Mya. It was obvious that Anna was a FAS child and she had a severe cleft lip/palate. We also met in another orphanage a 3 yr old boy with kidney problems- our Josiah. We returned in Jan. 2003 and were able to adopt the girls. We had to wait and return for Josiah in April. When Mya came home she was almost 13 months old and weighed only 11 lbs.. They said she would have died by the summer if we had not gotten her when we did. She was taken to several doctors and finally we found out what she had.... polio. She had serial casting, pt, and braces and walks now with no help... but with a diff. gait. She too is a tough little one full of lots of life and love for others. Anna has had several cleft surgeries and her eyes were drifting outwards and has had 2 surgeries to repair her eyes.... Anna's cleft and FAS issues are on going but she too has overcome much. Josiah's kidney problems turned out to be a very large kidney stone that he had to have surgically removed because it was so big ( the size of a marble). He is doing well and thriving . We were able to have surgeries done and therapies for the children and they all have made amazing progress. It has been almost 5 yrs ( Sept. ) that we began our adoption journey into Russia.

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