Anna's friends :)



We met two of the sweetest Russian ladies this past week! They are two sisters from Moscow who now live in the USA! My sisters MIL knows one of them and told her about our adoption while we were in the process of adopting Anna. She lives out of state but was coming in for a visit and found out that Anna was finally home and wanted to meet her. She brought her sister who lives just a couple of cities away from us. It was the sweetest meeting! I had tears in my eyes as I watched them speak to her in Russian.  They also brought a Russian storybook and read to her and brought her gifts too! We went out for lunch and it was great hearing them talk about their culture and why Ru$sians believe some of the things they do, their customs, culture and their fears of people with disabilities. It’s all about education people…..education. That country is still living in the past when it comes to people with disabilities. Many of them have never even seen a person with disabilities (because they are hidden away in institutions at birth) so they are naturally curious (why we got the stare down in public) when they see people out in the community with disabilities. Many of the people are so uneducated that they fear they may get a disability just getting too close to someone who has one.

We also talked about orphanages in Ru$sia and how the orphans are treated. It is not pretty. One of the sisters helped out in an orphanage when she was in school and took two of the children “under her wings”. She said that the life of orphans are really sad (as we can imagine) and she talked about the harsh treatments that they endure. I told her that I could not imagine how they get the orphans with disabilities to be as “disciplined” as they are. She told me that it is really bad what they do to them and that I should just not even try to think about it; it is that bad. Our little Anna came to us with several scars on her little body that we have no idea how they happened. She has a couple on her stomach that look like she had some type of laparoscopic surgery, but the orphanage doctor assured me that she had never had any type of surgery. Our pediatrician thought the same thing when she saw Anna’s stomach. She has several scars on her body that have no explanations to go with them. When we took her out of the orphanage she had a big ol’ boo boo on her scalp that left a good sized scar too. I hate to even think about everything this tiny, precious little girl had to experience for her 6 years of living in an orphanage and then a mental institution.

I am so thankful that God made a way for us to bring Anna into our family and make her our daughter. I recently saw a picture of her biological mother on the internet and I just get so sad every time I think about her. She was so young, only 22 and married when she had her. She had no idea what to do with a baby with Down syndrome. I imagine the doctors at the hospital pressured her into leaving her baby at the hospital and sending her to the baby house where she lived the first 4 years of her life. Just two days after she was born, Anna’s mom and dad signed over their parental rights to their precious baby girl. They have no idea just how precious this little girl is. She looks just like her biological mother and I tell her that all the time! She is so cute, funny, playful, inquisitive, a copy cat, smarty pants, girly girl, wrestling tom boy and LOVING, all wrapped up in one little girl. Oh how I just love this girl of mine. Even though I love her to pieces and am so thankful to have her as my daughter, I am still so saddened that her parents will never know all of this about her. They will never know her BEAUTIFUL smile that lights up the darkest of rooms; the smile that takes up her whole face when she does it. They will never see the sweet little hands that are learning sign language, that make me smile every time she does it. They will never know the squashing bear hugs that she gives. They will never know the ability her strong little body has that reminds me of a gymnast. ( I have never seen anyone with DS with the strength and tone that she has-she really should be in gymnastics!) They will never see how cute she is when she puts her hands on her hips and starts to boogie to the music, no matter where she is, and how she taps along with her feet like she has already been in tap lessons, LOL. Her parents will never know how much LOVE this little girl has to give and that she never meets a stranger!

I pray for her parents and hope that one day they will somehow have peace and know that their beautiful daughter is loved and cherished. I cannot imagine the pain that must be in their heart, but I pray that peace and the love of God fills that void that they surely must have for their daughter.