This is my soon-to-be new niece, Grace Elena. Isn't she sweet? She is still living in Russia right now and we cannot wait for her to come home. My brother and his wife are in the midst of adopting her. They have traveled to Russia once and are waiting to go back for their 2nd trip. It's a crazy process but oh so worth it. They have one biological son, age 6, and Grace will officially be theirs sometime in the spring. She is just getting ready to turn a year old next week.
Watching my brother and his wife adopt has been a wonderful time of reflection for me. We adopted our little one almost 6 years ago, when she was just shy of a year old. It's been much easier for me to "adopt" this time around--as an encouragement to my brother and sis in law rather the one going through the process myself. :-) It was a crazy, stressful, awesome time in our lives when we adopted. My health was terrible (gastritis with chronic pain)and we had a huge financial road to climb but I was beyond excited to travel to Russia to bring our little one home.
I spent hours, just hours, learning Russian from Teresa Kelleher's CD series. I had tried many different kinds of language CDs but the native speakers were so difficult to understand (I am not an auditory learner apparently). I do not have a natural ear for language, esp. speaking. I got so confused and couldn't remember basic phrases unless I had a ton of repetition. I just loved Teresa's series for adopting parents. I'm sure she speaks with a heavy American accent but at least I could "hear" the sounds and imitate them. I could see the phrases in her booklet and copy them phonetically. It gave me all the phrases we needed to speak to our little one plus the conversational pieces for the adults. Important phrases like "It's OK. Don't cry" "I love you." "Are you hungry?" "I am your mama. This is your Papa" "Good girl!" etc. I had seen some parents with their newly adopted children/babies on the plane coming home from our first trip to Russia. Babies crying, parents stressed and not sure what to do....I wondered why they hadn't tried to learn at least some Russian? Just a few hours of their time and they could have had words of comfort for their children, a way of explaining what was happening. It convinced me that I needed to learn some Russian, even though our little one was only 11 mos and not speaking much herself. She would understand, wouldn't she?? She had only ever heard Russian up to this point--I was about to change EVERYTHING in her life, why not at least try to learn some Russian so that I could be prepared, could comfort her and praise her as we got to know each other....It turns out she DID understand my Russian--she got very excited when I asked her about food and juice! :-)
I also wanted to speak at least a few words in the native tongue with the Russian folks I met . How could honor my daughter's heritage if I wouldn't take a few hours to try to learn her native language? I wouldn't say it was easy--Russian can be extrememly intimidating. But I did make little "cheat sheets" for my travel notebook so I could refer back to them in the car, baby home, restaurant, etc. I'm glad I took the time to learn--it went well once we were in Russia. I greeted the baby home director in Russian and she quickly asked me if I spoke Russian. I, in my broken language, said I spoke only a little but she had a big smile on her face, acknowledging my effort. I also loved surprising our driver with bits of Russian here and there throughout the day. Pasha spoke little English and I knew only a few phrases in Russian but he smiled encouragingly at me when I would comment on how tasty a meal was or how tired I was feeling. It actually ended up being great fun!
If I travel with my sister in law to Russia for trip 3, I am definitely going to jump back into my Russian language learning. We have a family at our church with 3 teenage daughters recently adopted from Russia. I think I could arrange for some tutoring to help me along. Part of my problem originally was I had no one to practice with when I was first learning. I felt VERY self conscious when I first spoke in Russia. Although I was worried about learning from Teresa's CDs (with her American accent), my translator said my pronunciation was very good. I think if I could get some practice in prior to the trip, I would be more confident. I hope I get the chance to learn and use more Russian.
(Side note: Our little one has NO interest in learning Russia at this point. She's at the age where she feels self conscious about being "Russian." No worries--I will learn and she can join me when she's older and ready)
Here are a few photos from our adoption and a recent one of our little girl. Isn't she a cutie?
