Photo Perspective

Last night I was looking through V's adoption file. Specifically I was looking for the name of the hospital where he spent the first 21 months of his life. I was hoping maybe I could find a description or pictures of a typical children's hospital so I could understand better what conditions he may have been in. I found a couple of interesting articles describing maternity wards and problems of obstetrics in Ukraine, but haven't found much on the condition of children's hospitals. They did make for interesting reading anyway and gave me a glimpse of what his birthmom may have gone through. Some interesting tidbits were:

- As of 2005, "700,000 abortions were carried out annually, roughly 65-70 women of reproductive age per 1000, in comparison to 10 in Canada and 5.6 in the Netherlands." This was interesting to me because we were told that the birthmom had been pregnant twice before 's birth, but they could not find any records of those siblings. We were told that these pregnancies were aborted. I have always wondered what made her want to carry V to full term only to give him up after his birth. Did she really intend to keep him only to change her mind when she saw that he was born with club feet?

- "Soviet reproductive health practices continue to be followed which treat pregnancy as an illness rather than the beginning of a new stage of life . . . "

- Maternity wards lack even basic amenities such as heat and hot water. The doctors practice with their medical robes over their winter coats. A team investigating the conditions in one maternity ward writes, "While we walk with the head physician, nurses pass us, running newborns from the delivery room to the nursery to ensure that the infants do not freeze!" The delivery room in this particular maternity hospital in the middle of March was barely 63 degrees F and had no running water.

After all that rabbit trailing, I never did find any info on the children's hospital V was in, but I did find copies of the picture taken for his Ukrainian passport. He is adorable, but so, so sad. He had just been taken out of the orphanage, got to ride in a car, and now had to sit for a picture. Can you imagine the fear that he may have been experiencing? "What is going on? Am I leaving forever like those other kids who disappeared? Why aren't those nice people, Mama and Papa, taking me away? I thought I was supposed to leave with them. I like them because they have crackers and juice in their bag."

This kind of remembering is especially helpful for me after a frustrating day with the kiddos. V has survived so much. Remembering this helps me love him even more.