An Emotional Day

I posted 2 other posts today so make sure you check those out first if you're just getting on now!  I'm forcing myself to sit down and write so we can look back on this and remember all the details!

I already posted about this morning and it was quite an emotional morning…I had no idea how my heart would ache during our evening visit. When we went to visit our precious Zoya, we were in the same room as a moma who was visiting her own child. Our facilitator had told us about this woman. She looks to be about my age and is absolutely beautiful, as is her child. Her son was born with down syndrome and she was forced to put him in this orphanage. She visits every day and is heartbroken that she cannot parent him. Women in this country, even if they wanted to parent, are not able to because there is no medical care (or it is very expensive), no programs for children with special needs, no support from anyone, and overall it would be almost impossible to parent a child with special needs here. Our facilitator told us if a mother would choose to take her child with down syndrome home, she would have to basically commit to never leave her house again. It is not acceptable to go out in public (I can’t imagine the looks and words she would have to endure having her child out in public here based on what happened during our morning visit) and there are no programs available for schooling or daycare for these children.


We sat about 3 feet away from her and her baby. She kept glancing over at us with a pained look on her face. She knew we were there to adopt Zoya and I can only imagine her turmoil seeing us and Zoya so happy together. Our facilitator told us this woman keeps asking her mother, “what should I do?” and her mother says, “stop visiting!” I feel so hurt for this woman. It seems nobody understands her sadness and desire to want to parent her baby in combination with not being able to. How hard it must be knowing that nobody else in this country values her precious child. How devastated she must be every morning she wakes up. How large this burden must feel to her day in and day out. The look on her face will haunt me forever. We have only known Zoya for four days and I can’t imagine the pain it would be if we had to leave her at the orphanage forever. Here is a mother who carried this child for 9 months and is not able to take this child home where he belongs. Our facilitator told us this mother hopes for an American family to adopt him so he can have more opportunity. What a loving mother to want her child, who she obviously loves so much, to be adopted by a family who can give him what she cannot. I can’t imagine the sadness and deep hurt she already feels and will continue to feel the rest of her life. We are going to ask our facilitator to get a picture of this precious boy so he can be listed on Reece’s Rainbow and hopefully find a family. Please pray for this poor woman.

Our visit with Zoya was good. We are thinking on the weekends we are only allowed to visit from 10-11 and 4-5, only 2 hours instead of 4. They came out at 11 to take her back in and then again at 5. Zoya is a pretty funny little girl. She was sucking on my chin and then bit it and I yelled OW and she started cracking up…little stinker. She continues to rub our backs while we comfort her. Her personality is coming out more and more every day. The orphanage staff asked us to buy some diapers because she only has 2 left. I wonder what they would do if we weren’t here? Of course we bought some and will take them over tomorrow.

Here are some pictures from tonight:

She LOVES playing with my hair! All the caregivers either have short hair or wear it pulled back so she has probably never seen long hair before!

Here is Zoya making noises with her tongue! She does this a lot.  She will do it and look at Shawn or I and wait for us to mirror her! So cute. 


You can see here for a quick second how she rubs my back. We tried to get her on camera a few times and this was our best shot! Will try to get a better one. She will just start rubbing or patting our backs while we hold her!

You can see in this video her eyes seem to look different colors depending on what she is wearing...kinda like her daddy and moma! Her eyes look green in this video...more like the referral picture we had of her! And you can see she LOVES the camera...we have a toy one for her but it's just not the same according to her! LOL