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 | The Road to Brooklyn
by Kelly L. Ayers |
I was totally elated to be on the plane that day and yet it was landing in a blizzard. The locals aboard didn’t so much as bat an eyelash as we descended, but my husband and I sat rigid and wide-eyed. We had never seen so much snow falling to the ground at once before, much less onto a runway. The plane hardly seemed equipped to pull off the landing. In fact, on first glance one wouldn’t even think it was fit to be in the sky, period. But there it was like it was every Tuesday at the same time, snowing or not, landing on that runway. Most of the passengers would unload into an ordinary evening, but it would be anything but for my husband and I, as we were about to meet our child for the first time.
When the plane came to a complete stop, we scurried with the rest of the passengers to grab all of our belongings, including our luggage that was stacked in the rear of the plane, and we had plenty of it for our three-week stay in Kazakhstan. We had flown into Almaty, Kazakhstan, three days earlier. After registering with the country there, we were off again, and now we found ourselves in Semipalatinsk, the city of our daughter’s birth, and where she waited for us in the orphanage. As we grabbed our things from the stacks of luggage we couldn’t believe we were a few miles away from the little girl who seemed to be millions of miles away days earlier. She had been that way for so long it seemed impossible that we were about to finally see her.
I was in a daze but woke up in a hurry when we stepped into the wind chill and headed toward the terminal. My cheeks and ears immediately turned red in the cold evening air and it stunned me. I had never felt cold like that before. The terminal was a small building, dimly lit, with muddy, wet floors from the passing travelers. It was easy to pick out our contacts as they smiled easily when they saw us. We met our facilitator, translator and guide.
We were driven through Semipalatinsk, over the new suspension bridge that we were told was the biggest in all of the former Soviet Republics. I tried to take it all in but my mind was racing. My husband too, was silent and nervous, as we held hands tightly in the back of the taxi and I tried to answer our translator’s flurry of questions. She was such a warm and kind person that it eased me to be there with her, even though my husband and I were about to go through the single biggest event of our lives.
The buildings all looked so similar, Soviet in nature; I struggled to see through the condensation on the window and the rapid snowfall outside. Every time we turned down a street I wondered if we were close to stopping. Was this it? The butterflies in my stomach were almost too much.
We turned down one final street and the car slowly came to a stop in a small driveway outside a moderately sized building. It looked dark, and so cold in nature, and I wondered how many children were inside its walls waiting for someone to come for them.
We went inside, it was early in the evening, but judging from how quiet it was many of the children must have already been asleep. We went up some stairs and down one hallway after another, that led into a tiny room. We went through it and into a feeding area. There were three high chairs and a supply closet. Across the room we could see some exposed pipes in the walls, but other than that it was well maintained. There were murals on the walls that were bright and cheery. In the next room, the play room of sorts, there were shelves filled with donated toys and walkers, a small bench for visitors to sit on, and big wooden rectangular playpens where the children were lined up to lay in between feedings and naps.
We were about to walk into that room where the children of that area were, all infants approximately between 6 and 9 months of age, when we were warned about our child. One of the caretakers explained in Russian to our translator that our little girl did not like to see new people and she wanted us warned that the baby would cry when we picked her up, because she did that with everyone who tried. She said that we shouldn’t let it get us down, that it would change in time.
I nodded and smiled at the caretaker who seemed a little skeptical of my husband and I because of our age. We were both younger than 25, and it wasn’t a common thing for them to see.
We walked in and I tried to recognize the little girl from the one tiny picture our agency had given us. The girl in the picture looked like a deer caught in the headlights, quite startled to have her picture taken, with clenched fists and the funniest head of hair, all wispy and sticking straight up. I laughed when I saw the picture, and cried — she was so beautiful. But as it turned out, that tiny piece of paper with that little face on it didn’t come close to doing the real thing justice. I was still able to recognize her right away, and I gave a tug to my husband’s sleeve and motioned toward her. She was sitting in a little pink walker, looking dazed and sleepy-eyed, but as we approached she looked up at us curiously.
After our warning I was afraid to startle her so I bent down, and whispered hello. She smiled. One of the caretakers grabbed the baby out of the walker and thrust her into my arms. I couldn’t believe that this moment had finally come. I could feel her tiny body in my hands. I tried not to cry because I didn’t want to scare her but I couldn’t help it. Then I realized there was a commotion among the caretakers. I looked around in surprise and our translator came up to us and whispered that they were stunned I was the only one crying. Our baby didn’t cry when I held her. The caretakers said she knew it was her mommy and daddy. She knew us somehow, and that’s why she didn’t cry.
We stood there and enjoyed the moment, passing her back and forth, taking turns kissing her forehead, her tiny fingers, and rocking her so gently as if to say, “It’s OK now, we’re here.”
The visit went too quickly but we were promised that we could come back the next day, for two visits, as was the custom. We made visits for two weeks, which was required by Kazakhstan law and then we had our court-date. Then she was ours. She officially became our little Brooklyn.
After a quick trip back to Almaty for her passport it was on to Moscow, Russia to get her visa. It was nice to get to spend time with her before bringing her home. The weather was cold and nasty for the remainder of our trip so we shut ourselves up in the hotel room and became accustomed to one another.
It is hard to believe this was all almost two years ago. She is 3 now, brilliant and amazing. We can’t imagine our lives without her, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. My heart feels so full sometimes, I swear that it could burst.
Kelly Ayers lives in Idaho with her husband and daughter. She and her husband always knew they wanted to adopt children and that dream came true in 2001 when Brooklyn came home to them. They are currently in the homestudy process of adopting another daughter through domestic adoption.
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