Chapter 3 -- The call

November 8
The call came today! Just yesterday we were at the end of our rope. Today photos, video, medical information is on its way to us. Now I know that in a couple of days we’re going to see our babies.

They tell us that in the video they are 15 months old. Lina and Igor, born 7/17. That makes them going on 16 months old now.

Lina apparently has chicken pox in the video. She has dark hair. Weighed 5.24 pounds at birth, 20.72 pounds as of last month. Report says she is more active than her brother. Likes the “fresh air. Can drink from a cup.

Igor was born breech at 4.72 pounds (weighs 27.5 pounds now). He likes mechanical toys, makes good eye contact with others and his sleep and appetite are OK.

They are their mother’s fourth pregnancy, four different fathers. First daughter lives with her father. Second child, a son, adopted by a Russian family. Don’t know what happened in the third pregnancy. Fourth and fifth children – Igor and Lina – now up for adoption. Don’t know why she gave them up for adoption or what happened to their father.
Suddenly this is all becoming real.

November 11
Video, photos, information arrived first thing this morning.

So odd. Fed Ex – our stork – came to the door just before 10 a.m. and left me standing there with a red, white and blue envelope. I knew what was inside. And yet it seemed so odd, so impersonal, to meet our children like this.

Didn’t know what to think when Igor first appeared on my TV screen in his fuzzy blue blanket sleeper. He was sitting on a rocking rooster, smiling, laughing, making sounds with the grown ups on the tape. Expected love at first sight. But no. First thought abject fear. What in the hell am I thinking, doing. I know nothing about this child. I have nothing in common with him. How can I love them just because someone across the globe put my name on their file?

Video starts with Igor. At first he’s just sitting there, perched on a rocking rooster (imagine a rocking horse in the shape of a rooster). Eventually he starts rocking. Then he smiles His eyes are very expressive. When the caretaker makes noises, he responds with similar noises. He blows bubbles and does raspberries. And he’s a bruiser.

Lina in a pink fuzzy blanket sleeper (like we might not be able to tell them apart). She too is seating in a rocking toy, starts out just sitting there. But then she too gets it rocking. Then all of the sudden she smiles and laughs.

Next the caretaker slides them together. They rock side-by-side. He reaches out and holds her rocking rooster. And they laugh.

I expected them to be delayed. I expected hollow eyes, no emotion, gaunt. I didn’t expect so much animation.

November 13 (taking the video to Pat and Lisa’s)
It’s funny, I’ve watched the video so many times now that I know exactly what comes next. At the same time, each time I watch it again I see something new. The clock hanging on the wall. The time stamp on the bottom right corner (October 15. Wonder what I was doing on that day, at that moment).

I wonder how many boys have worn that blue blanket sleeper. How many girls have worn the pink one. Do they put all the children in these suits for their American videos?

November 14
Imagine the shock today to learn the one in the pink is the boy and the one in the blue is the girl. Igor is Lina. Lina is Igor. Our little girl is a bruiser.

Sent the video and other information to a doctor who specializes in reviewing this information for adoptive parents. He discovered the switch.

Now it appears Lina weighs 20 pounds, Igor less than 17. Doctor says he’s concerned about the discrepancy in their size. Of course, Igor was smaller at birth. But the doctor thinks he should have caught up by now. He thinks there may be some motor skills development problems, which could mean something serious like Cerebal Palsey. I looked up CP on the Internet. It’s basically a term used to describe a birth-related brain injury. Could happen in eutro or during birth. Common in twins, breech birth.

So confused. We expected them to be small, to be delayed. They’re in an orphanage. But how much should a baby born at 4.75 pounds weigh at 15 months? There is four pounds between them. Is that really all that much?

And if he is sick, if he does have CP, how much difference does that make? I know we said healthy infant. But we could do this if we decided to. How to decide? If he does have CP, we might be his only hope. Might be her only hope too, since it’s likely the officials won’t want to split up twins. If we don’t adopt them, I would imagine they might never get adopted. Finding a home for twins must be hard enough. Finding a home for twins with problems must be nearly impossible.

And I don’t even know if we’ll get the answers we’re looking for. There is an element of this that is a risk no matter how much information we get. There is an element of risk when you have a biological child.

I know I said it wasn’t love at first sight. The still photos were grainy. Watching the video for the first time almost shocking. But now, after looking at it again and again, after seeing them smile with their eyes, I am falling in love.

November 16
Still waiting for answers to the questions we sent to Russia.

Still thinking a lot about Igor and what we’ll do based on the information we get back.

Part of me says, “so what.” If Igor has CP, or some other disorder, we’ll make it work. It’s not like if we don’t adopt him, he’d be cured.

But then I wonder if that’s realistic.

November 18
Shared our fears and concerns with a friend today.

He seemed appalled that we had not yet decided what to do.

“It’s not like you can choose when you give birth,” he said.

But he’s wrong. You do get to choose. When you get pregnant you choose not to drink, do drugs, smoke. You choose to seek prenatal care. You choose the best doctors. Even before you get pregnant, you choose your mate.

You get to make so many choices that we don’t get to make. Of course there are no guarantees. But you get to make choices to better your odds.

Oksana made those choices for us.

November 20
Why can’t things get easier? Still waiting on information from Russia. And today we learned INS lost Mike’s fingerprints. They treated us like cattle when we were there be printed back in August. Got an appointment card in the mail and showed up at the appointed hour only to be told to take a number and sit and wait. Why schedule an appointment if you’re going to make people sit and wait. And now Mike may have to do that all over again.

Want to buy things. But don’t want to allow myself to get too attached since we don’t know what’s going to happen. So bought books. I figure you can’t go wrong there.

December 5
Igor is healthy. Or at least that’s what it sounds like. Wonder what gets lost in the translations.

Still, they’re ours now. Of course things can still go wrong, and we have to remember that. Until we get there, a Russian family could pre-empt us and adopt them out from under us. I’m just hoping that few Russian families want twins, fewer still would be starting this process at the beginning of a hard Arctic winter.

Celebrated with vodka shots. I bought that bottle back in August and have been waiting for this day.

Took the bottle to a friend’s house. Toasted to the sound of the Beatles “Back in the U.S.S.R.” Danced.

Now I can let myself bond with them. I wouldn’t allow myself to rename them until this point. They were Igor and Lina. Now they can become Nicholas and Elena.
The agency tells us we should travel in January. That’s just weeks from now.

December 11
Been wondering, years from now, how will I feel if Nicholas and Elena want to search for their birth mother? What if they do it during their teen years, when parents can do nothing right? I remember during those years I wished I would find out I was adopted and I’d have a “real mom” out there. One who would understand me. One who would be cooler than my mom.

How will I feel when the adoption becomes an issue?

December 12
I’m realizing this is the last Christmas as we know it. Next year it will be a whole new world. Two 2 1/2-year-olds unwrapping presents. It’s a world I can’t wait to join.

December 17
Finished our paperwork and sent it to the agency today. Should arrive in Russia before Christmas. Then it needs to be translated in Moscow and sent to the orphanage. Then they can schedule our visit.

December 26
Next Christmas will be a whole different thing. I can’t wait. Nicholas and Elena will be 2 1/2. We’ll stay up late getting everything ready. Then we’ll be up early with the twins. Everyone in their jammies.

January 2
It’s time. I’m thinking we’ll hear about our first trip to Russia the week after the Russian Orthodox Christmas (which falls on 1/7). We could be there by the end of the month. Early February at the latest.

January 9
It’s almost like someone turned Mike’s switch “on.” Until a couple of days ago, he didn’t want to talk about the babies. He admitted he was scared. Now he can’t seem to stop talking about them.

January 13
One month from today we will be on our way back from Arkhangel’sk, Russia.

I knew we would hear this week. In fact, this morning I suddenly felt that the call would come today. I had kind of given up hope though when we sat down to lunch. Just then my cell phone rang and I recognized our agency’s number.

We’re told that on the first day we’ll meet the babies, fill out some paperwork. Then we’re done all the official stuff and we can focus on playing with our babies.

With each milestone it gets more real.

January 21
Trip arrangements are made. Now we just have to wait.

I expect them to cry, to hate us at first sight. The whole experience must be so unsettling for the children. They certainly know something is going on – strangers, people who look weird, who talk jiberish, who smell funny won’t leave them alone. It’s got to be scary. Add to that being ripped away from the only home they’ve ever known, the caregivers who have taken care of them all their young lives. I’m sure they won’t like us very much at the start. But they will eventually.

January 29
I can’t believe we’ll be in Russia in just 10 days. I just can’t see us there. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that Russia was the Evil Empire. It wasn’t a place you went. It was a place that influenced nightmares about nuclear war.

And the adoption is such a life-changing event. I don’t really know exactly what our life will be life after the adoption, after that change.

It’s –17 F. in Arkhangel’sk today. I guess that’s an improvement from a few weeks ago, when we saw wind chills of –45 F.

February 4
We leave for Russia in three days.

At the same time, we seem to be moving toward war with Iraq. The aircraft carriers are on their way. I know we’ll be at war between the first and second trips. I hope it doesn’t somehow get in the way of our adoption.