The Presentation of Children

First question:. What gifts did you bring? We carefully and somewhat shyly dug out the “nicer” gifts from the suitcase and reviewed them with Habiba, our facilitator. It was determined we’d give the Orphanage Director a Victoria’s Secret gift box containing samples of all perfumes. Other gifts selected included 2 Victoria’s Secret “Angel” bags with perfume/cosmetic samples and one Chanel bag with samples plus a small bottle of Victoria Secret perfume. Get the picture yet? Victoria’s Secret is hot here. Once the gifts were selected and bagged, we went to the orphanage.

The orphanage is a short walk from our flat but we were driven. The outside looked like any other Soviet-era building. It was two-story, old and had about 50 crib sheets hanging from the clothesline in the back amongst a field full of old metal, discarded equipment along a rutted dirt road. We walked in, exchanged our shoes for our house slippers and went up the stairs to meet with Albina, the Orphanage Director. Through Habiba, we answered a few questions. What age? What sex? Are you OK with Kazakh looking children? We answered, under 2, boy or girl and absolutely yes. She looked at pictures of JC and commented how handsome he looks (the sales part of her job!). Interview over. Time to move to the “big room”. This is a large room with a piano, a few places to sit, 2 large rugs on the floor and a caged blue bird.

With Habiba to translate and Albina in the room, we were suddenly looking at two sweet little girls. They walked in on their own dressed in dresses with matching bows in their hair. They’d both turned 2 this past May. One seemed very shy, the other somewhat interested in us. The shy one, dressed in a blue dress, looked a lot like JC. The other little girl, dressed in a purple plaid dress, was Kazakh as well and seemed more petite. Only a few minutes after the girls arrived, a woman walked in carrying a chunky 11 month old boy. He was handed to Habiba while we continued to try to engage the girls. Only a few minutes later, another worker presented Tim with a 10 month old boy. At this point, there were 4 kids in the room and we were quite confused. I was concentrating on the little blue dress girl. She cried a bit and tried to bury her head into Albina’s lap. I was, however, able to pick her up and show her the bird. Meanwhile, Tim was holding the purple dress girl. Albina said something and a woman appeared. We were told “enough” for the girls and they were escorted out of the room. So, we turned our attention to the boys. The 10 month old seemed very small and frail compared to the 11 month. It was explained that the 10 month old was sick (perhaps a cold?). We saw him very briefly before they took him away and we spent a few minutes with the 11 month old. During this time, another woman appeared with a 14 month old Russian girl with curly hair and green eyes. She was very petite. Soon, women appeared and all the children were gone. We were asked, “which one”? OMG! How to choose? Tim and I talked and asked if we could see each child again. Albina reluctantly agreed and we were able to spend time with the kids again. We had a good interaction with the 11 month old boy. He seemed very engaged with us, laughed a little and even tried to play with a toy that we brought. We also concentrated on the little blue dress girl. Total time at the orphanage was about an hour with maybe 15 minutes with the children.

We were driven back to our flat for lunch. Tim and I spent time asking each other how we’d pick. We narrowed the children down to two, the 2 year old girl in the blue dress and the 11 month old “chunky” boy.

I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed we weren’t presented with younger girls. Two of the three girls had just turned 2 and the other girl was about 14 months. I’ll also admit to feeling a bit disappointed there were no lightning bolts or feelings of “just knowing” which child was meant to be ours. At this point, I just feel a bit overwhelmed, confused, concerned and quite frankly a bit nervous. Do we go with the young, happy boy? Do we go with the 2 year old girl? The girl is only 6 months younger than JC. They’d likely be in the same grade. Is this a good thing? The boy means I won’t get a girl but I’m OK with that although little girl clothes are fun to shop for. Tim must be feeling the same since he’s napping as I write this…. Ha, Ha!

In about 2 hours, we’ll return to the orphanage to spend more time with the two kids.