Meeting Dennis and Dmitri

This morning we woke up early and drove 3 long hours to a town south of here. I do not know the name of the town and couldn’t even pronounce it when Sveta told me what it’s called. I do know that I became carsick as long as I sat in the back of Sveta’s car. Tyler & I took turns being carsick and sitting in the front seat with Sveta.

We arrived and met the orphanage director (who is also a doctor). Sveta said that she is known in the region as one of the best directors and I can see why. She was very friendly and nice and I could tell that she cared for the children. She said I deserved a gold star for taking on special needs children. J

Tyler & I took down the medical and social history of Dennis and Dmitri. That took about 45 minutes. I was amazed at how much history they had. I remember it being much less with Keith & Iryna. The social worker took us to a nice playroom and we met the boys. Until we commit to the adoption of one or both of the boys, we cannot take pictures of them. I can, however, post the referral pictures here:

Left to right: Dennis, Dmitri, & Elijah. Aren't they cute? 

Dennis was lively, all smiles, and ready to play. The caregiver for his groupa told him that he had some visitors that wanted to play with him and he was definitely excited about us. To remind you, Dennis has a heart condition. I don’t understand all of the details but I do know that his heart is enlarged; he has already had one surgery and is scheduled for another surgery next month. Nothing seemed to slow him down, except for his lips became a little blue after a lot of exertion. The caregiver had him sit down, which he really didn’t want to do. This guy has tons of energy! You would never think he had a heart problem. So cute. We really enjoyed playing with him.

I was surprised with Dmitri. We had been told that he was slightly delayed and that he has cerebral palsy. We found out that he has the same and rarer form of cerebral palsy as Keith does – the hypotonic version. How’s that for coincidence? Well, Dmitri is pretty much in the same state as Keith was when we met him. He’s severely delayed mentally and physically. He couldn’t sit up or walk and kept drooling on himself. He also did not seem to be mentally with us throughout the visit. He did like the toys we brought and chewed on them. He liked physical touch. He enjoyed it when we held him. I will be honest in saying that I did not feel much with Dmitri. It didn’t feel like a match to me, but we haven’t prayed yet to know God’s will for Dmitri and for our family.

Tomorrow we will meet Elijah and I think that once we know where he is mentally and physically that we will know whether or not we can tackle Dmitri’s needs.

We went to a quaint little cafe on the way back for lunch. I had a hamburger, hot chocolate and a piece of chocolate cake. The hamburger was supposed to be made from beef, but was light in color and looked more like pork – tasted okay. The hot chocolate was like melted milk chocolate – thick and creamy and good. The chocolate cake was a 2 layer chocolate cake with chocolate mousse in between – very good. Tyler ordered the hedgehog dessert and it was a brownie in the shape of an egg. It had chocolate mousse decorated on it to make it look like a hedgehog and I wish I had taken a picture!

We drove the 3 carsick hours back to Nizhny Novgorod. Tyler & I went to the grocery store, came home to play with the kids and relieve Sarah. Then I made some more potato soup with corn and carrots. The sister missionaries will be here in 5 minutes to eat with us. Good times.