[Abdulina]

Back to the story. We landed in Moscow and I must give credit where credit is due. The agency's in-country team is phenominal...top-notch. Could not ask for better. Greeted and taken to the Novetel to wait until next flight. Sitting in the lobby while DH is changing money. Coordinator looks at me and says "Did they call you?" I said what do you mean by that? She tried to beat around the bush and I said look, I've been through this before, I know this is a hard region to work with and I probably know a bit more than you right now (and I did!). So I told her to cut to the chase in so many words. She said our daughter was in the hospital, very sick (dying like), and that we were not leaving on Saturday. I looked her in the eye and said "Yana is NOT sick (knew this b/c of my contacts) and we WILL leave on Saturday!" She tried to tell me my daughter had some type of heart trouble (btw, I used to do cardio-pulmonary rehab so I knew all the heart terminology she could throw my way). I told her she doesn't have heart troulbe and she said no, in Russian that word (sorry, can't think of the stupid word right now) means sore throat. I told her get on the phone to Stav right now and find out what's going on. And she did. They had our daughter in isolation. We couldn't wait to get to Stav at that point.

Noneventful flight and then stayed at a very nice hotel in region. But obviously, we couldn't sleep b/c we knew it would be an upcoming battle and fight to the finish so to speak. We were preparing ourselves mentally for it. Next day came and we went to our son's orphange first. Very difficult to see the little child we met on our hosting experience. We knew we were not the right family fo him but still did not make it any easier seeing him and knowing he still needed a family. We went inside and met with the director who asked us why it took so long for us to come...as if she didn't know. Then our son came in. Obviously, he did not quite remember us. And gosh did he ever grow while we were apart. Lost his "baby" face. All the feelings of love were still there though. No big deal. While at the orphanage, we were not allowed to take any photos nor were we allowed to walk around. Felt like a prison. Noticed most of the doors closed and yes, most locked. Said goodbye and left outside. As we were walking to the car, all four of us, DH, me, coordinator, and translator stopped dead in our tracks and turned and stared at each other. It sounded as though a child was being tortured. This was not a normal, I'm punished or being spanked screams, this was more than that. It sent chills up ALL our spines and we discussed it in the car later. We just wanted our son the h*** out of there at this point in time. Urghh.

Onto meeting our daughter. Her orphanage was for the older kids and very poor looking. We were told by the director that our daughter was only the 8th girl ever adopted from there in the 30 years it had been there. This tore our heart apart. We were very anxious to see her. But remember, she was still being kept in isolation. So we walked over to the isolation ward. There were no lights on and the hallway was dark. We heard a voice yelling and running down the hallway, "mama, papa, mama, papa!" Couln't see anything b/c no lights. Felt this tight squeeze all of a sudden. It was Yana. Elated beyond words ot see us. And then the true Yana stepped back, put her hands on her hips and said in Russian "what took you so long?!" Oh, if only she knew what we had to go through to get to that point even. We went to the room she was staying at. No toys, nothing on the walls, nothing to play with or do but stare at walls all day. She did have our photo album with her that we had given her. They left us alone. We knew this was our chance. We shut and locked the door and it was just us, our daughter, the translator and coordinator. We told her to get serious and we started asking her questions. She said they tell me I'm very sick but I feel fine mom and dad. We said, we know. She said they kept taking blood and giving her medicine. We told the translator to tell her to cooperate w/ them under all circumstances. We also told her if she could "save" the pills and spit them out later, that would be good. As we had no idea what in the world they were giving her and she clearly was not sick at all. We said our goodbyes and promised to be back. She was so excited. She promised us before she left that she would do whatever they asked her to. Hard to put her in that position but we all knew in that room that they were finding "excuses" for her not to leave the country. Urghh.

Anyway, we went back and had a wonderful dinner though hard to relax. Next day we visited them again and were supposed to bring donations. now remember, we had already given $500 earlier that year. However, Yana's orphanage was so incredibly poor, we wanted to do something for them. Our younger son's orphanage was given alot of stuff from other families all the time and had humanitarian aide going there as well. This is a fact. Okay, here is the deal, we decided to buy boilers b/c that's what they desparately needed. Well, our younger son's orphanage got wind of this and was furious that we were giving them donations. She said that because Yana grew up there mostly, that we should be giving them all to her. What?! So, the coordinator, translator and us went back to our son's orphanage to try to settle this out. OMG. I was able to witness corruption for the first time in my life. Seriously. Okay, the director was jealous of our gift to the other orphanage. So we said, okay we'll split the gifts up among the orphanages. She wasn't happy with that at all. What pursued was a screaming battle between our coordinator and the orphanage director. My husband turned to our translator and said I wished I could understand what they were saying (we could pretty much only understand the cuss words). She looked at us and said oh no you don't! Finally, the coordinator turns to the director and says what do you want for the orphanage. She said the children could use a new iron. What?! These kids don't iron. They are ages 3 to 7 in that home. It was obvious that she wanted a new iron and was basically holding our son's case hostage. We agreed to it though later we refused to buy into corruption and did not buy her her iron. The joke w/ the coordinator the whole trip was maybe we could buy an iron. This was said every time something went wrong.

Later that evening at the hotel we were grilled w/ court questions. We had to answer them exactly right. This was a very tough judge. Great, just what we needed. And this region requires a precourt hearing as well. We spent the night memorizing 3 pages of answers I had written down.

Next morning court. And now I need to go take care of dinner and some monkeys playing Star Wars Jedis in the living room. Try to write the rest of this tonight or tomorrow sometime. Next part is court-- oh the fun.

[LilyMoon]

Wow...what a story! Your trip makes ours seem like a walk in the park. I can't wait for part 3.

LilyMoon

[dlhall]

What an experience! No wonder you went to Serbia for your next adoption.

Liz

[cici32]

You really believe in leaving us in suspense....LOL!!!

[Schnooks]

Holy cow.. you could get a movie deal with that one! Incredible!

[boatsun]

I've been reading your stories and all I can say is wow. I have no idea how you were able to get through all the challenges that were put in your path.

Our adoption went smoothly and I have no idea how we would have dealt with the issues you did.

[doozer22boys]

Wow! This is fascinating! I can't wait to read the next part!

[angelkisses0102]

Thanks for sharing everything with us....