Meeting "The Man"....or in my case, the Woman

The night before I lay there full of anxiety with thoughts racing through my head. What will the orphanage be like? What will my little girl be like? Will she let me play with her, hold her? Will she like me? What will I do if she throws a fit and doesn’t want to be near me? Will the orphanage people watch me to see if I will be a good mother? On and on the questions went as I fought for the blankets from my sister and tried to drown out her snoring....she’s going to kill me for writing that :)


We were told to be ready at 9:00 a.m. SHARP. So there we stood on the side of the street in front of the hotel at 8:55 a.m. and the driver and translator show up at 9:10. This became a typically pattern; we’re ready and waiting and they are late. No problem, this just gave us more time to take photos, which is a hobby both Beth and I love! Off to the Department of Education to get formal permission to visit the orphanage!

The drive through the city was adventurous and extremely bumpy! The roads in Kaliningrad are in bad shape so we bounced along, swerving around potholes and what seemed to be aimlessly driving in any lane which seemed to be what everyone else was doing. It was similar to a Chicago cab ride but a little slower because we were weaving around potholes. We asked questions about the area and buildings while snapping photos as best we could as we rode in what felt like some sort of carnival ride. There were so many times I wanted to ask them to stop so I could get a photo but we were on an important mission.

We arrived at the Department of Education office and waited in a small hallway for our meeting. I was prompted by people on the internet adoption message boards that many places do not have toilet paper so I packed a few little packages of Kleenex in my backpack. This saved us here! I was so nervous, my mouth was dry, and of course being dehydrated from breakfast wasn’t helping matters. We were taken into the Director’s office where his assistant spoke to us. The Director was out of town but gave her permission to proceed with our meeting which was great we didn’t have a delay. She restated the medical information I had received on the child, which wasn’t much. I asked if they had any other information, they did not, so I formally agreed to go to the orphanage to meet the girl. She was so nice and told us that whenever the Director sends someone to an orphanage, he says the same thing, “go meet your child, take them home and love them.” That was so sweet and brought tears to my eyes, this could be “it”, finally finding my child. So off we went to meet the 22 month old little girl that could potentially be my daughter! After all these years, all these hopes and failures, to say out loud, “my daughter” sounded strange to say and hear but absolutely wonderful.

Off we go for a quick lunch and then the 1 ½ hour drive to the orphanage. They recommended a pizzeria that ended up being very reasonably priced and tasty. Again with the small glasses and no refills! We ordered Coke but noticed that most people were drinking that orange juice. There was a small grocery store a block away where we bought bottled water and of course, chocolate. We noticed they did not have aisles dedicated to soda like the US. They carried Coke, Coke Light (which does NOT taste like Diet Coke) Sprite and orange Fanta. The area was three shelves high and only about four feet long. Not big soda drinkers, the Russians.

A little side story here. I LOVE chocolate and tried it in every country on a 7 country trip through Europe in 2004. I made sure that the chocolate I was sampling was actually made in that respective country. I concluded, based on those countries traveled, that Belgium had the best chocolate to date…..that’s still the case. The Russian chocolate was not that great. I kept the labels of the chocolate bars, created a collage, framed it and it’s hanging in my kitchen. I’ll have to figure out how to get the Russian chocolate label added now.

Standing on the street corner waiting for our driver and translator to pick us up, we observe that all the females up to about age 50 are very thin, wear skirts or straight legged pants and stiletto heels. How they walk on those crumbling streets and sidewalks without breaking an ankle is an amazement to us. It is very busy, lots of people around, but our driver picks us out of this crowd immediately. Uummm, how did he do that, could it be both of our red coats (when everyone else is in black or grey) or do we have a distinct “American look”, other than not being the only two non-size 2 people on the street…..oh to ponder.

~Amy