Coming Home ~ Day 34 & 35

We awoke bright and early around 3:30 am to get dressed and all packed ready to leave. Our ride, Irina, along with Natasha showed up at 3:50 am to collect us to drive us to the airport. I was thinking that this was a bit early since our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 6:30 am, but turned out we needed all the time we had. I was giddy with excitement and Natasha was funny about helping us get our bags downstairs. I was so worried about the weight of my bags being too much after the chocolate purchase I made to bring home. Chocolate is heavy!

We drove to the airport on empty streets. Natasha once again became the tour guide and told me about the buildings we were driving past. I really do love it here and maybe when the amnesia sets in that happens to every mother after she has a new child, I will long to come back here. Today I am just excited to leave!

It’s hard to explain the feelings I have for Ukraine. I love it and I will always have a special place for this country in my heart and my home. It has made me so grateful for all that I have and the opportunity that we are afforded in America. These people literally have nothing. There is nothing for them to look forward to. The college graduates have nowhere to go. I will never forget my conversations with Yana. She couldn’t comprehend the need to actually ‘move.’ Where do we go? Why would we need to leave our home? How could there be something better in a different city? There it is the same life wherever you are unless you can afford to try your hand at living in Kyiv. There may be some opportunity there, but getting there is the dream. These people don’t understand travel for leisure. There isn’t just ‘fun’ to be had. They live to survive and everything they do is to work towards that. Large families do not exist. People just don’t have more than one child. Yana explained that she adores children and loves them too much to bring them into this life. There is no way she will do that to a child. How sad. To be starved of even the blessing of raising children because of the poverty and difficulty of the living situations. It’s a hard place to be; a nice place to have visited.

We arrived at the airport early. Irina and Natasha thankfully walked us in and stood in line. They were determined to make sure that we got through security OK before they left us. I was thankful to them for that. This airport was not a friendly place for me! One of my bags was overweight so I stuffed my chocolate in Vika’s bag. I had to pay the price for having a 3rd bag which was totally worth it. We could have carried it just fine, but I sure didn’t want to. My carry-ons were overweight, (yes, you are allowed your total carry-on weight to be 7 kilos, mine were over 20!) Natasha or Irina handled that and I think there was some lying on the weight of them in all of the commotion of checking in so luckily I didn’t have to pay whatever that fee would have been. We made it through security and before doing so gave our farewell hugs to Natasha. She really is the one of the 2 people I will miss and want to see again someday that we are leaving in this country.

We got on the airplane with about 15 minutes to spare and Vika called Artyom to say one last goodbye. I suppose it’s not really a goodbye with all of the skyping and the phone calls she will make to him, but it felt like we were leaving him since we were sitting on an airplane. She was so excited. She doesn’t say much to me because she knows I don’t understand it anyway, but she was all smiles.

The excitement died down as we sat there longer and longer while our flight was delayed.

Finally she turned to me and said, ‘stacco ne noche’ (goodnight) and went to sleep. I emphasize that she used the Russian term because until now she has been using the English ‘good night.’ It crossed my mind to correct her and make her start using English, but we were much too tired for any of that. We both slept during this flight. She slept the entire thing! I woke her up when we were landing.

Sadly, this is what we were able to see of France.  Someday I will hopefully come back here to see more than a view from the airplane or the airport..

The time change was confusing for me and I had been warned about connections at the Paris airport. We made a very unnecessary mad dash for the door when we landed and ran to the shuttle only to stand there and wait for 10 minutes for them to leave! We got to our terminal and gate very fast and had plenty of time to spare getting on our flight from Paris to home. It was rather funny to me that before we stood in line to board the plane I stopped in the restroom. If you have ever hosted a child who speaks another language you will be able to picture exactly what I am talking about. If you haven’t try to imagine how you would talk to another person without language! We were in the long line of the restroom trying to have a ‘conversation.’ Our ‘conversations’ are more of a charades act with her giving me looks like I am a complete idiot. I was trying to ask her if she was hungry or if she needed to use the bathroom. It seems simple enough, right? We got the message across, but not without this very rude woman staring at us like we had lost our minds! Even Vika noticed. It sure didn’t help Vika want to ‘communicate’ anything back to me. We made it through the passport check and went to find our seats. We were hopeful that we had all 3 seats in the center section, but that wasn’t the case. In fact the super rude woman was sitting on our row. Vika took one look at her and refused to sit in the center seat. Lucky me! I got to sit in the center seat on an airplane for an 11 hour flight home! Vika immediately went back to sleep. That made things easier for me. I couldn’t sleep very well where I was sitting. It was a very long flight. The best part of the flight was that I had the chance to actually talk with the rude bathroom lady and as it usually happens, she turned out to be very nice. She was very touched by what I was doing and cried while asking me about it.

The flight was very uneventful. Vika was visibly excited about finally getting here. She was darling. She dressed up in her ‘best’ outfit. I had Natasha explain to her that when we arrived there would be a lot of people anxious to meet her at the airport. Her job was to be prepared to be smothered with hugs! She thought they would be there at the gate and actually around every corner we turned! She would hesitate and look at me before walking through.

We made it to the passport line and were told that we couldn’t stand in the ‘American’ line, but had to instead stand in the very slow International traveler’s line. It was embarrassing to me how there were 6 windows open for Americans and only 1 window for everyone else. We were 4th in line and didn’t get to a window until the entire room of American’s had been admitted and they opened up the rest of the windows to everyone else. I did have a chance to talk to a very nice Swiss man in line. I was just so happy that I could understand the people around me! I have never been more happy to have a casual meaningless conversation with a stranger before!

We were asked to come to the next window and the man kept asking Vika to do things. I explained that she didn’t speak English but he somehow figured that if he asked her the same thing several times getting louder and louder that she may figure it out. She didn’t! That doesn’t really work. I would try to explain what he needed from her in ‘our’ way. We got through and were asked to collect our bags and sit in an office to wait for help with her immigration. The man helping us was very nice. He asked her to sign her passport and some documents. She had to sign her name in English for the first time! You know I welled up and had to wipe a few tears away. I had to show her the letters to sign and it was more like a first grader printing her name for the first time, but she was happy to try. I loved every second of it.

Finally we were able to go through the door to the open arms of my family and friends. I was so emotionally overwhelmed to see them and to finally be here. Ethan was the first person I saw. I held on to him until Ezra wandered over to me for hugs! Mason was pushed over and Spencer. I really kind of lost track of Vika for a bit because I was so happy to just be with my boys again! She was great. She was happy to hug everyone who introduced themselves. It was the perfect moment.

We were at the airport visiting and hugging for a while then loaded up the car. Ezra was very sad and Vika was not thrilled to get into our gross minivan. I calmed Ez down and we were off.

As we were driving I noticed that Ezra wasn’t really using his left hand. It looked a little blue and he kept having me kiss his ‘owey arm.’ After I would kiss it he would tell me ‘that didn’t work’ and I realized that he really wouldn’t use his arm. He screamed if I tried to move it. Great. I called our pediatrician and they told me they would wait for me to bring him in. Vika almost cried when we told her we weren’t going home, so we dropped everyone else off and just Ezra and I left for the Dr. He had to have an X-Ray and they found that he had dislocated his elbow and had fractured his elbow somehow.

I can’t explain the frustration of missing out on the first few hours of having Vika at home to be at the Dr.’s office. Poor little Ezra and his limp little arm dangling at his side! After she manipulated his elbow she explained that the fracture is incredible painful and he will need to wear a splint for a few days until he is able to use his arm again. I was so sleep deprived and emotionally charged that it was hard for me to keep it together. She manipulated his elbow to ‘pop it back in place’ and after that scream of shear pain, he walked away and started to play. His words were exactly, “oh.” And he was cured! A tender mercy for us all. He didn’t need the splint after all, he was fine. Thank heavens!

We came home and joined the party. Driving down our street we were welcomed by purple and yellow ribbons tied to all off the trees and posts and finally around our entire yard.

She loved the signs and balloons that were there for her. Spencer was having a hard time convincing Vika to eat the dinner our neighbor had brought over. He at least had an interpreter to help with that conversation. My mom was here for a while and I hit my wall. I was finally just done. Too tired to function! I had to get to bed. I honestly don’t really remember much else after coming home. The best part of the day was that we were home!

Now our journey begins…