It's a Boy!

We are madly in love!

Please say hello to our son-to-be, Milan (Milo) Ruopoli.

(We are having internet issues, and it won't let us upload more than a few photos. We will add more asap.)

He is almost 21 months old, and he is precious beyond words. We believe he is a mix of Kazakh and Caucasian. He has medium brown hair, almond-shaped brown eyes, chubby cheeks, pouty lips and a button nose. And he is tall, like us!

He has such a sweet spirit. He is so gentle, smart, funny, silly and incredibly cute cute cute! We are completely over the moon and can’t get enough of him. His personality fits our family perfectly. We feel that we are kindred spirits who have been waiting for each other for a very long time. We can hardly believe what a glorious feeling this is, and any tears we’ve shed lately have been only tears of pure joy.

We are so sorry for the delayed introduction. We wanted to wait until we met with the orphanage doctor, and consulted with our international adoption doctor in the US before announcing him. All is well and he is a healthy boy.

So what has been going on the last few days? Well, we would be remiss to not tell you that we had a shaky start. Here is the full story…

We actually were hoping very much to meet Milan when we came to Aqtobe. We knew of him from reading about him on a couple of other families’ blogs. Several families had met him, but had not chosen to adopt him for reasons I will explain later. But he intrigued us, and we were very much looking forward to meeting him.

When we landed in Aqtobe, we were met by our coordinator, Gulnara (pronounced Gull-nar-ah), one of our translators, Aina (pronounced I-na) and our driver, Ceric (pronounced Sare-ik). We were immediately taken to meet with a man who is the director of all Aqtobe orphanages. His office is in the toddler house. In just that much time, we found ourselves in culture shock. We exchanged brief greetings and he asked us about our families. Frank and I each spoke for about 1 minute. Then he asked to see our passports. After checking them over, he and Gulnara spoke for a few minutes in Kazakh or Russian as we sat on the couch, trying our best to look relaxed and natural. We said goodbye and we were taken to our apartment to do some paperwork with Aina, and freshen up for about an hour before meeting the children.

Ceric and Aina picked us up and took us back to the toddler house. We were met there by Gulnara and a woman from the Ministry of Education, who by law must witness this process. We all went into a colorful playroom and one of the caregivers brought in a little blond, 3-year old girl. She was a cutie pie, although very shy. We spent about 10 minutes playing with her, and managed to get a few smiles. She was darling, but was not the right child for us. Soon we were all off again to the baby house. We were taken into the baby house director’s office and Frank and I sat in 2 chairs while they all spoke for a few minutes. Before long they brought in a sweet 2 year old boy with severe disabilities. He was endearing, although not right for our family at this time. Then they brought in the boy we wanted to meet! We knew it was him and we were so eager to see him.

He toddled in slowly…so slowly…holding the hand of his caregiver. She picked him up and stood in front of us for a minute as he checked us out. He didn’t make a peep. Someone took the 2 year-old boy from Frank’s arms, and the caregiver brought Milan over to us. She placed him in my lap and he sat there, stone faced and still. I talked sweetly to him and tickled his belly a bit. Showed him a couple of toys. He was completely catatonic. He was drooling. He was checked out. Comatose. Frank took him from me and held him on his knee for a while. Frank cooed and spoke sweetly to him. He showed him the toys too. Still nothing. Completely unresponsive. Just more drool. I thought maybe he was mentally retarded. The head doctor told us a little about him…that he is healthy, can even feed himself, and that he had just woken up from a nap. I got down on the floor and sat in front of them, and Frank put Milan down on his feet. I reached to his hands with mine, and he very loosely held on to both of my fingers. I briefly caught his eye, I smiled and cooed, and thought I saw his lips move toward a smile – but almost imperceptibly. Did I imagine it? We looked him over a little as he stood there. His legs looked so long in comparison to his body – way out of proportion. His head looked a little deformed on top. He was wearing a girl’s shirt, disco jeans and big orange sandals. He was a sight! His caregiver then came for him, took him by one hand and they walked out of the room. We watched him go down the hall. So slowly and so stiffly. He could barely walk. His development seemed very delayed for a 20 month old – even for an orphanage child. (It is normal to expect a 1 month delay for every 3 months in an orphanage, i.e. a 20 month old will be more like a 14 month old in even the best of orphanage settings.) But even so, he seemed really far off.

They announced that these were the only children available for adoption at this time, and asked us if we wanted to start the bonding process with this child. We looked at each other and didn’t know what to say. I asked if we could talk it over in the hall for a moment. No problem and no pressure.

“What do you think? What do YOU think? I think we should give him a chance. You think? Yes, let’s give him a chance…he deserves a chance. He just woke up from a nap. And he's scared. Ok. Alright. You sure? Yeah. Ok.”

We let them know, and then we went to lunch with Aina and signed a few more papers. We returned to our apartment for the afternoon. Our first bonding visit would be in the morning.

We were like zombies walking around the apartment, unpacking a few essentials and trying to wrap our minds around everything that was happening. It is unbelievably surreal once you land and start this process. On top of that, we were terrified of the decision ahead of us. We felt pretty sure that we were going to have to go to a different region, as LMI promised if things didn’t work out in Aqtobe. “Don’t unpack yet” we said to each other.

Andrea called and said she heard we had found our baby. I sadly told her that I really didn’t think this was going to work out, but we just wanted to give him a chance – at least for one 2-hour bonding session – since we have heard that orphanage children often are terrified upon first meeting them. They are rarely ever out of their own living areas, and almost never see men unless it is a doctor. He might just be scared stiff.

As we laid in bed trying to sleep when our bodies were on US time, we talked it over a little more. We were so distressed. We considered canceling the bonding session and just going to another city as soon as possible. This little guy just seemed too delayed and we were very concerned about his cognitive development. We decided to follow through with the morning session to show that we at least tried, but to just not do an afternoon session and call Andrea to let her know we’d need to transfer to another region.

We arrived to the bonding playroom – the very one we had seen so many times in other families’ photos. There was the blue carpet with the little bears all over it, the old pianos, the big stuffed animals, the little wooden chairs and the white window blinds. I desperately wished I could have felt happier about it. Aina went to get Milan and he was brought in to us. We sat on the floor with him for a few minutes, showing him all the cool toys we brought with us. As expected, he was still catatonic. We tried everything. When Aina came over to ask me a question, I could not hide the tears in my eyes. I felt bad about her seeing that.

After a few minutes Gulnara told us to try walking around the room with him. Frank scooped him up and we walked around and looked at the big stuffed animals. We looked out the window at the cars. After a few minutes he suddenly pointed to the window with his slobbery finger. Hmmm… he can point. We walked around some more and acted silly with him. I gave him a teething cookie and helped him put it in his mouth. He would not eat it, but just held it in his hand. I took it from him, but as soon as I did he very quickly reached out and took it back. Cute.

We sat back down in our play area and Frank and I laid on our sides with him standing between us. Out of the blue he squatted down and started nesting the stacking cups we brought. Our jaws dropped. We wouldn’t have been any more surprised if he had done a back handspring. Over the next hour he played with the stacking cups, ate all of the cookie, made eye contact several times and gave us some big grins when we tickled him and held him up in the air. He enjoyed the affection we gave him and did not pull back from any of our hugs and kisses. He enjoyed cuddling and being in our arms. Whoa… there IS someone in there! And he is adorable!

During this first visit, we also realized that his big, orange shoes were about 2 sizes too big and stiff as a board. No wonder he was having trouble walking! His mis-shapen head? Simply a bad haircut and the need for a better brushing. His extra long legs? His disco pants were too big for him and practically pulled up to his armpits! All the drooling? He is still teething.

We looked forward to the afternoon visit.

When we arrived in the afternoon he took about 20 minutes to fully warm up to us, but after that it was over. He was a completely different child. He was AMAZING. That was on Saturday. Since then we have had several more visits with him, each one better than the last. He is so good natured, loving and affectionate. Yes, he does have a little catching up to do with his development, but he is normal.

After only a few days together, we are sure that he is “nosh siun.” Our son.

We tell you all of this in detail because we want other adoptive parents to know about our experience. All of the experts tell us to expect this type of behavior upon first meeting some children, especially with toddlers, but there is really no preparation for it, and it totally goes against our nature not to trust such strong first impressions.

Parents, please don’t give up on these kids too soon. It breaks our hearts to imagine not knowing this little guy for who he really is!

So about the reason why Milan was not selected by other families…

He has a very minor correctable medical need. He has strabismus in one eye (it turns inward.) We believe that he hasn’t been adopted up until now because people don't expect this when they travel blind, and therefore are not prepared for it and generally don’t have much knowledge about it. They would naturally feel shocked to see it, and have fears that they don't have the time to research fully.

Having gotten a heads up from reading other blogs, I did a ton of research, consulted with the staff at MUSC Storm Eye Institute in Charleston, and spoke to many parents whose children have had it as well as several adults. It’s such a correctible thing, and medical insurance covers the costs.

Soon I will post more photos fully showing both of his eyes, but for now we just want you to see him, not his eye. He is so beautiful.

We have very limited internet access, but we will post another update as soon as possible!

Much love to you all,
Frank, Regina and Milan