Edna 's version of Monday

On Sunday we drove about eight hours through the Ukrainian countryside on mostly very bumpy roads with lots of potholes and slow trucks that our driver passed with expert timing. Ukraine has the blackest, richest soil I've ever seen. The fields are barren still in this cold spring, but they must be beautiful in the summer and fall. There were mile and miies of farmland punctuated by small,poor looking villages with crowded, small brick houses. Each square house had its own garden which right now means mud plot. They often have three windows facing the road and the window frames are often painted a bright blue. The one building that is always beautiful is the  Orthodox church. In the towns that have churches, the graceful lines of the church with its  arches and lovely golden dome (s) is the one beautiful sign of hope in the otherwise dreary view.

We stayed in a sixth floor apartment in Donesk. The staircase was unwelcoming concrete, smelled of pee and cigarettes and almost completely unlit but the apartment was clean, comfortable and nice. Even so, we both struggled to sleep and had stressful dreams.

Monday morning we packed up and drove about half an hour to the orphanage social worker's office. She seemed very nice and accompanied us to the orphanage. The orphanage was nicer than I expected with several brick buildings in a nice slightly wooded setting. We went into the assistant director's office and met with her and with the nurse.

The nurse read through the children's medical files. She described birth weight, vaccinations and any illnesses. They were all very healthy, but I started feeling sicker and sicker. Finally, I thought I was going to faint or worse throw up and I knew I had to tell someone so I told Mark I was sick. Our translator and the other women helped me walk me outside where I almost collapsed. The assistant director was very kind and got water for me. She used her hands to slap water on my face and neck and between that and the freezing cold air,I regained my composure and after a few dry heaves was better.

I asked for a moment in the bathroom and was surprised to discover my first squat to use, non flushing, drain toilet complete with bucket of used tp - because you can't put tp in the toilet drains. I should have taken a photo but  at the time felt it was  not appropriate and wasn't feeling altogether well so I hurried out when I could. 

Once everyone was assured of my recovery,( they let me lie down and gave me an antinausea drug  and were very kind) we went to the children's building to meet the little boy.

He was suddenly in the room and was much cuter than his photo. He was a very smart and active boy. He was cute with his little mullet haircut, blue shorts and heavy pink tights. Really, it was endearing. He liked the car we gave him, hungrily ate two bananas, played a game on the iPad, did a puzzle with impressive quickness, and read to us proudly, but his favorite thing was hitting a balloon back and forth with Mark. I was mostly quietly observing and could tell he was intelligent, confident and had great motor skills. He seemed happy to play but didn't look us in the eye much. His interactions were guarded.

After we left, we decided to pursue seeing his siblings who are in the Crimea. We drove back to the social worker's office to complete the paperwork needed for this.That's when complications arose. It took over an hour and many phone calls and we still didn't have permission to go see the kids in the Crimea. It seemed that someone was blocking this process and we had been warned that perhaps the director would not be cooperative for reasons that had nothing to do with us. 

I still felt very stressed and sort of guilty about feeling stressed. Our translator asked if we were sure we wanted to do this and explained that these are great kids but she wanted to be sure we were sure before going through the complicated issues to get us permission and arranging the travel throughout the region which is a long distance from there.
 
The thing is, we weren't sure. He is a wonderful little boy, but was he meant to be our little boy? It was hard, but we decided no. I felt less stress after that decision, but I can't explain why. I don't think I have unrealistic expectations of finding Mary Evelyn over here, but my heart was not engaged and Mark felt as he wrote in yesterday's post. 

We drove back through the night on the same bumpy roads and my heart ached for my Mary Evelyn. Seeing this boy reawakened so much grief I was a mess by the time we unpacked at our new apartment at 3 am. Mark later teased me that I was about one stpe away from becoming a bag lady. I'm better now. 

We are staying in Kiev and will wait until next week for another appointment and a chance that this time the matchmaking will work. We are really hoping for two kids, three likely means selling our house. Even more, we are hoping for inner peace about our decision. We are not likely to be offered such intelligent healthy children next time, but hopefully they will be our children regardless. 

 I feel ok. Like Mark wrote, we need to rethink our approach to this.  I need to open my heart. Right now it's been so full of reawakened grief that there's not much room for anything else so I need to ask for God's mercy in this. I need to be able to focus on the child's needs first. Thankfully, there is every expectation that the three kids we were offered first will be adopted soon as there are seldom 3 smart, healthy kids of those ages available and there are lots of people wanting to adopt. Our facilitators are not looking for groups of three now, they said it is probably more than I can handle and I agree. They are hoping to find 1 or 2 kids for us. I still hope for 1 girl and 1 boy, but it's in God's hands and we will try to connect with whomever we're given next time by hopefully, in God's grace, looking at them with eyes of love and not just grief, fear and loss. 

I am so glad to have this week to spend calmly with Mark in this beautiful  city.