Jeff & Sue - Day 6 - Meet with Anastasiya

Sue – Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Day 6 – Meet with Anastasiya - Mariupol

Here we are, at the orphanage. I’m sitting in the green room, waiting to see “what’s next”, when the door opens, and the Assistant Director is standing there with Anastasiya. The last time I saw her, she was turning and waving good-bye at the SFO airport, going through security. I waved, smiled, got up and ran over to her at the same time she ran toward me. I threw my arms around her, and, not letting go, spun her around. I didn’t ever want to let her go again! I kissed her head, I patted her hair; I wanted to drink her in. It is a surreal moment. I hadn’t seen her since July 25th. I kept looking at her, she kept looking at me. The same dancing eyes, the same cute grin, but she looked so pale, so fragile.

It’s all a blur now, but we talked, using our translator. We showed pictures on Jeff’s computer. We asked her about school. They are on holiday this week, but I cannot tell which holiday, because in Kiev it is the following week and here it is this week. She was a little hesitant at first, but opened up, and spoke a lot more, realizing she had an interpreter at her disposal.

We had “the talk” about names. First, we asked her about her last name. She wanted “Stilwell”, of course.
Then we asked her about her first name. “Keep Anastasiya”? Yes, she wanted to keep Anastasiya as her first name. Then we showed her the two “Americanized” spellings of the name:
ANASTASIYA versus ANASTASIA
We told her you can still pronounce it “ah-nah-sta-CEE-yah”, regardless of which way she spelled it. We pronounced the Anglicized Anastasia, and said this was a Russian princess, and many people know the name “Anastasia”, but said of course she could keep the other spelling, Anastasiya. To our very great surprise, she chose ANASTASIA, and stated that she wanted it pronounced “ah-na-STAY-jah”. I’m not sure about my phonetic thing here, but it’s the way you normally pronounce Anastasia, but instead of “Anna-“, it starts with the Russian-sounding “Ana-“.

What about the middle name? In Ukraine, they say it bad luck for a girl to have a female middle name – it is usually the father’s name, with an “-ova” at the end. We told her about Connor’s middle name, being my maiden name. We told her about my grandmother, Helen, so she could use “Olena”, or “Lena”, the Ukrainian version of Helen, “Neva”, from Jeff’s mother’s name, or “Michelle”(male version Michael), which Jeff and all his siblings have as their middle names (so that would be naming her after Jeff, which Ukrainian custom…). She said she had talked with her brother (15 years old and living with HIS father), about it, and they had talked about using her younger sister’s name as her middle name. She has not seen her in awhile, but has regular visits from her brother. She is thinking about it this. We are pleased to keep whatever part of her past she wants, and it would be a lovely tribute to her little sister.

The brother is sorry to see her go, but realizes that her opportunities are very limited if she stays here, as there isn’t any family for her to take her in. She has a half-brother and a half-sister, but the means are not available to provide for her. So, he is approving of her to be our daughter, as long as we promise to stay in touch with him. We are delighted that she has connection with family here! It is healthier for her, and will be a great reason for her to keep her Russian language skills. In Kiev, everyone speaks Ukrainian, but understands Russian; they are similar. Here in Mariupol, almost everyone reads, writes, and is educated in Russian, but perhaps speaks Ukrainian at home.

Of course, there are a bunch of details that Jeff will blog about, but there is one other critical, emotional impacting, insightful, powerful event I wanted to write about. All along, since we first met Anastasia, I felt that “THIS IS MY DAUGHTER”… “What is my daughter doing in Ukraine?” We have felt a powerful connection to her. She seemed to like us, too!

At the end of the day, Anastasia had to go, so off she went, with hugs, and kisses, and good-byes, and more hugs, and smiles, and waves… she finally walked out the door, then waved one more time.
We were in the green room, packing up our belongings. Our translator told us about an incident the happened during the four months since we saw her last:

A Ukrainian couple had come to adopt Anastasia. She was still on the SDA registry. Until ALL your home study, paperwork, your entire dossier is done, translated, sent in to the SDA, and approved (i.e.: you get an appointment date with SDA - which happened the latter half of September for us), the child is still available. It is a first come, first served system. She was on the local registry for a couple months, then on the Ukrainian national registry for a year; she just became available around the end of August/beginning September for International adoption.
Sometime during August/early September, a couple came to spend their time with Nastiya. They wanted to adopt her….. SHE SAID “NO”!
Oh, boy, here I go again… tears welled up in my eyes. What? This child could have stayed in Ukraine, with her native language & culture, and still see her brother… and…. She said “NO”??!!??
Yes, the translator told us, Anastasia talks about us all the time, about what we did together, about us coming to get her, about us getting approval to adopt her. The translator said Anastasia is very excited about us. We were pleasantly surprised that she, too, feels the connection to us, as we do to her. I was shocked, to say the least. I felt honored. I felt a great wave of relief! We were that close to losing her, but she had faith in us, that we would do what we said we’d do, that we were indeed the right family for her, that she would be our daughter! What a brave little girl! At 10 years old, to have an opportunity to leave the orphanage with a Ukrainian family, but to stay put and have faith that we would come for her.
A very big decision for a very little girl! Okay, now I’m crying.

I’m so proud of her – it seems that she loves us too!!


Jeff – Wednesday, October 21

I love our translator – she is absolutely fabulous. A few more details before we head out the door would be useful

We headed out in the car with the husband of the usual driver in Mariupol. I guess the car that was normally used needed some repairs, so the usual driver was taking care of that. So off we go to get copies of the documents and then a quick stop at the inspector to get the local approval to visit the orphanage. Step two of the process complete! The inspector was so busy, she did not have the time to interview us, and so off we went to the orphanage.

Around 10-10:15, we turned down a tiny street and into a parking lot, and there was the familiar front door with the bright yellow entryway around it. We’ve seen so many pictures that I felt like we had been there before! So what’s the first thing we did? Of course – we took our OWN picture of the doorway. We then went inside; there were stairs just in front of us and a long hallway next to the stairs. To the left is a hallway with the offices; director, assistant director, etc., and to the right are two rooms where we would spend the majority of our time in the orphanage. The first room was fairly large with a couch, a piano, some plants, and an African grey parrot. Continue through that room, and you get to The Green Room. I feel like it needs capital letters after all the different journeys we have read describing the orphanage. But they were both quite comfortable – we spent part of our visit on the couch in the first room, and then quite a bit of time in The Green Room with Nastiya. Oh yeah – you read Sue’s description above, right? So here we were – almost exactly three months to the day since Nastiya had left the US. Of course the first month or so of that time had been crammed full with the paperwork chase, and of course the doctor’s appointments, court record visits (divorce papers for Jeff, etc. marriage certificate for Jeff and Sue!), home study appointments, notary visits, lawyer discussions, and all the rest. The next chunk of time was spent sending the documents to Ukraine, waiting for the date…getting the date…waiting to travel…traveling…

After all that process, after 23+ hours of travel to get to Kiev, after four days in Kiev to get the right papers, after a plane ride and two hour car ride to Mariupol: finally the reason for all of this effort walks in the door and immediately lights up and runs for a hug from her “mama”. A huge weight came off my shoulders: we had made it through all of the process, we had made it through all of the waiting, we had come for the girl, and it all came together in that one instant: this girl will be coming home with us as our daughter.

Just before Nastiya came in, we spent some time with the assistant director and the doctor. They read through all of the files with us: medical history, family history, brothers and sisters and current status of each, living conditions prior to and since she has come to the orphanage. There were lots of valuable details provided during this session. We did bring a small digital recorder so that we captured everything they said. Our interpreter was there, of course, so we got the greater majority of the information, but this way we can go back and listen to it. (Thanks to the notes and blogs that suggested we bring the recorder)

The time with Nastiya was just a blur. We talked about her name (I was truly surprised that she chose the Anglican pronunciation and spelling), we gave her some gifts we had brought with us, we played Uno (she made sure to stick me with all of the “bad” cards” – still loves to tease me – same girl!), we showed her pictures, and when the inspector arrived and asked her if she wanted to spend time with us, she very emphatically said yes and said that she wanted to be our daughter. She also showed some of the pictures to the interpreter and one of her caregivers and referred to Connor as her brother.

We did also get to see some of the other children that had come to visit families in the US, and we were able to give them the gifts and messages that their respective parents had given us to pass along to the kids. It was kind of amusing: the inspector supposedly doesn’t know that these kids have been to the US. When we filed the paperwork with the Ukrainian government, of course we filed a “known child” application, meaning we knew who we were coming for. So of course they asked how we knew here, and we openly discussed the visit to our home. But now in Mariupol, the inspector doesn’t know that we had Nastiya as a guest, and she’s not supposed to know. So all the sudden the assistant director came flying in the room while all these kids were looking at and showing their gifts to each other, and she started talking very excitedly. The kids got very animated, collected their stuff, and disappeared in a heartbeat. We thought we’d done something wrong. Turns out the inspector was on her way in!

The time was over in a blink – as Susie describes. Lots of hugs and smiles, “zoftra”, “paka” (tomorrow, see you later). Off went Nastiya and away we went to the supermarket. We picked up a bottle of champagne (our interpreter’s favorite) to celebrate!

One other quick note on the day: lunch was fantastic! Our interpreter took us to a Ukrainian restaurant named after a folk tale. She told us the story – I’ll have to find it and add a link to this blog. The gist of the story was about a boy who made a deal with the devil to win the heart of his girl, who had told him she would love him if he brought her a pair of the queen’s shoes. (I may have a detail or two wrong – but the queen’s shoes, the girlfriend and the devil were all in there somewhere – language barrier). Anyway, we had borscht (wonderful), some sort of pork with mustard (spicy & very tasty), and a sort of ravioli-type pasta. Ours were filled with meat, and our interpreter got them filled with cherries. The meal came with lots of sour cream and brown bread. Fantastic.