Baby House Part 2

The Baby House - Part 2

Back to the baby house. We went in and waited some more. Finally we went back in to the director’s office and sat down. For most of the time it was the director (on the phone), the MOE official, and us. We waited.

A little girl about 2 1/2 wandered in. She came right over to me. She seemed to have a thing for me and wanted to just stand by me. After a few minutes the director called to her and then gave her a candy bar. She came back over to me to open it for her. I did and she loved it.

By that time the social worker was back as was Zema (our translator). The director asked us if we felt a connection to the girl that was just in the room with us. (After we left, Kara and I talked about it and both of us had a feeling at the time that it was a test of some sort.) Kara replied that we did, a little. We were then asked if we wanted to continue to build a connection with her. Kara replied that no, we were looking for a child who was a bit younger. The director then told us that people who had kids in the home should adopt a child with special needs. Kara again said that we were hoping for a bit younger of a child. This apparently didn’t make the director very happy, but nobody said anything to us about it.

Within a minute they brought in a younger girl. Poor thing looked scared to death. The nurse handed her to Kara, and I could tell that she was more of the age we were looking for. We sat and talked to her for a while. She was definitely scared and looking around trying to figure out what was going on. During that time, they brought another girl in. The third girl was obviously quite a bit older (4.5 we found out), and had a cleft lip and a slight facial deformity. She went right over to Kara and held her hand. She seemed like a sweet little girl who just needed some medical help. It broke our hearts, but she was just too old to fit into our family structure like we wanted.

So we sat and talked to the second little girl a bit more. After a few more minutes, we were asked if we wanted to make more of a connection with her. We said yes, so we got to go to a small room with a few chairs and some toys.

She was still pretty scared - she has a pretty cute scared look - but we just kept talking to her. Kara has a way with babies (one of my co-workers calls her “the baby whisperer”), and the little one started to relax a bit. She had a rattle she was holding on to (all of the toys we brought are still in a suitcase somewhere over the Atlantic) and Kara got her to shake it a bit.

Kara was playing with her and got her to warm up a bit more. Finally, Kara took her and lifted her up into the air with a “zoom.” She kinda seemed to like it, and gave kind of a nervous smile. So Kara did it again. And again, and… well, the little one loves to Zoom. I even got to zoom her a few times, and did find out that she is somewhat ticklish too. We have pictures showing her reaction to the zoom… you can see that she likes it.

After having about 30 minutes alone with her, they told us it was time to go. Zema took her to take her back to her room. She gave us that scared look again, wondering what was going on. We’re looking forward to seeing her again!

This whole process has been a bit intimidating. Of course we were tired so that didn’t help, but sitting there and having them bring in kids like that and then feeling some pressure to take the first one, it was tough. But we feel (so far!) like we made the right decision and will continue to see the second girl that we were introduced to.

All we know right now is that she is about 1 year old, and that her name is Symbat. In Kazakh it means “beautiful.” We’ll find out more on Tuesday, when we’re told we’ll get to meet the doctor and ask questions.