We arrived right on time at 9 sharp for our appointment with the psychologist. She was a nice lady but seemed to drill us for about an hour and a half.
She asked us several questions:
Would treat the adopted children the same as Tucker? (she asked this several times in different forms)
Would we discipline the children?
How would we handle the children wanting to return to Russia? even returning permanently?
How would we handle tantrums from the children?
How would we help Tucker in the transition if he is jealous of the time spent with brother and sister?
How would we handle it when the children say you don't love us as much as Tucker?
These questions seemed to be asked in a very business type tone but she softened up a little and offered some good advice when she heard our responses.
We survived the questioning and were asked to draw pictures for her. She handed us a piece of paper with a large circle on it and said draw your ideal family inside the circle. Greg and I were very glad the test was not to evaluate our artistic ability. We drew stick figures for her. We were then asked to pick a color that best describes each of us, Tucker and the children and explain why. We were also asked to rank 8 colors from favorite to least favorite.
Finally, she asked us to draw three trees. We were to draw them and name them. I drew an Oak, Maple and Ginkgo Yes, I am a botanist daughter and no the Russian people do not know what a Ginkgo tree is, so they had to use google translate to translate it. I tried to explain it to them but I am certain they did not understand that it has fan shaped leaves and turns a beautiful yellow color in the fall. So any of you coming to Russia to adopt leave the Ginkgo out of your drawing of trees. Greg drew an Oak, Palm and Butterfly bush. I told him a butterfly bush was not a tree. The psychologist did not know that tree/bush either so we are not sure how we scored on tree drawing. She asked us questions about our trees, which one represented each of us and our children. She also asked us to explain what we would do for each tree to help it grow. She asked us which tree was the tallest, prettiest and shortest. The exercise was strange. After that we were finished with the psychological interview.
During the wait to meet the director of adoptions for Samara, our translator informed us about the questions the director would ask us and she hinted strongly at some of the answers we should give. The director was a very professional woman and her office was the only one in the building with air conditioning. She asked us some of the same questions the psychologist had asked us. However the director also included questions about disciplining the children...would we spank or in their word beat the children? She also wanted to know how we felt about the parents who had beaten their child to death. Of course our reaction to that would be just like yours, horrified.
After her questions she showed us Baytimir's file (soon to be John Mark Baytimir). The file was in Russian of course but it did have several pictures of him from when he was a baby up to now. We found out his birthday is October 29, 2009. The director asked us would we like to see this child. We said yes of course. She then showed us Polina's file (soon to be Olivia Ann Polina). We saw pictures of her when she was a baby too. Olivia Ann's birthday is September 11, 2009. The pictures of each child were absolutely precious. Both children are blessing for God. After we signed a paper with permission to visit the orphanages the meeting was over.
Our translator said we did great in the interviews and should not be concerned about anything. (not even the strange trees) That was a blessing. We know that all your prayers on our behalf helped us through the interview and helped it all to go smoothly. Thank you so much. Please keep the prayers going on our behalf as we travel to meet John Mark tomorrow and Olivia Ann on Saturday.
After the meeting we were told that the plans had changed for our orphanage visits. We will be seeing John Mark tomorrow afternoon after a 3 hour drive to the orphanage and Olivia Ann on Saturday and then back to see John Mark on Sunday before coming back to Samara Sunday night. This means we will only have one visit with Olivia Ann. We were not happy about that but we did not seem to have a say or choice.
There is a good chance we will not have internet on Friday or Saturday so updates about the orphanage visits may not be up until Sunday. We will do our best to keep you updated as we have internet. Thanks again for your prayers. Love to all.
UPDATE
We got to take a few photo of their baby photos. We were told we would never get to see them again so it was our only chance. Please don't post these anywhere...
John Mark
Olivia Ann
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