Taras
We arrived in Izmail around 11:00 am Wednesday and met our friend Sasha and his daughter at their apartment we are renting out. After a brief stay we headed for the orphanange. We were SO TIRED but also excited and nervous too…the time had finally come. As we pulled up to the orphanage and walked it in felt like we’d just been here yesterday to adopt Sean...except now it was hot and sunny.
We met with the director first. We showed him pictures of Sean with his family and he asked about Haylee who he’d met last time. (we also showed these to the doctors who enjoyed seeing “Vladik” and asked to keep a couple of them). Then we went to meet with the medical doctors to learn about the children but since they were having a meeting they told us to go see Taras first since Ludmila was napping.
They said they don’t let him nap because if he does he wakes up at night and makes noises. They brought Taras out into the locker area outside his groupa room. He was bigger than we’d thought (long and skinny) and his head was shaved :( they say because of the heat. He has really big beautiful blue eyes and was pretty happy. John held him while he and I asked questions of the caregivers.
They said they don’t let him nap because if he does he wakes up at night and makes noises. They brought Taras out into the locker area outside his groupa room. He was bigger than we’d thought (long and skinny) and his head was shaved :( they say because of the heat. He has really big beautiful blue eyes and was pretty happy. John held him while he and I asked questions of the caregivers.
They said he was a “good boy” and quiet. They said if he cries he will settle down if they put him in a stroller by the window and that he smiles at the other kids when they come by his crib. Taras is pretty low cognitively…physically he can move his arms lacks coordination, he can roll one direction and lift his head up and he has mild contractures in his legs (where they can’t be straightened completely but would improve with stretchng ) He needs to be fed (which we’d been told he could feed himself) and eats soft food Cognitively, Taras is also very impaired—its hard to know what he takes in as he does not appear to track (follow with his eyes) a toy or to respond specifically to sound or his name. He has something wrong with the 18th chromosome and his brain did not develop normally. He has had seizures but has not had any in over a year. We did learn that he has shown changes which is good and that someone has been working with him occasionally (therapist?) who gives him massage and they’ve gotten him in a stander which was surprising. He had a big bed sore on his back from being in the crib so much and the back of his ankle is broken down too, and he had some kind of bites or rash on his belly.
Honestly I was a bit overwhelmed..John seemed very calm:). First meetings for us have been different than you picture in your head. More on that later. Taras was left in the maternity house at birth…he had a single mother and was put immediately in the orphanage. A grandfather visited at first but then he stopped coming too.
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