Anastasiya Taylor Fields (Nastiya) and Papa (Brian) arrived at DIA yesterday morning to the most amazing welcoming party!!! All that Nastiya and I could see as we came off the escalator were Countless smiling faces from Friends and Family waving flags; home-made welcome home banners; and flowers!!! Before we exited the escalator, Nastiya turned to me with the most largest grin and said, "America!". After lots of hugs, smiles and some tears, we left the terminal and headed home to more celebrating!
For the last two-days I had to continually explain to Nastiya that yes we were on our way home but it would take a long while before we arrived in Colorado-immediately, a frown appeared on her face directly following with a huge smile! Nastiya was a nervous reck at each terminal fearful that we would miss the flight (even though we had two hours before boarding in Kiev, we had to stand right next to the gate to Frankfurt).
We landed in Washington D.C. and after three hours of going through passport control; inspection; adoption packet review we finally thought we were free to catch our shuttle to the hotel. Not so fast as my arrival documents were somehow marked that we were an "agricultural risk". I questioned as to why and pleaded that although we were coming from the bread basket of the world, I by no way partook in the plowwing of the fields or birthing cows or some other form of livestock---finally, a smile from the Homeland security officer who quickly sent us through to the top of the "agricultural check-point". Finally, out of the terminal to the shuttle. This, of course, landed a further Russian-English exchange between Nastiya and I as Nastiya was most certain that we needed to go to the next gate and await our final flight to Colorado. After struggling through my most useful Russian-English translation book gratioulsy received by the Garrett's over a month ago while in Mariupol, the understanding of our night lay-over was finally understood accompanied by great disappointment. The disappointment was short lived! As soon as we opened out hotel room, Nastiya shreeked with delight as she through off the eight plus pillows from her bed, began jumping on the bed (yes, she is a Fields now!) and immediately turned on the large flat screened t.v. and began flipping through the channels! I allowed this ritual to continue for a few moments then began the discussion of the need to go to sleep NOW as we're up in five hours to catch our final flight HOME! She agreed and I only had to remind her once to turn the T.V. OFF!
At the D.C. terminal Nastiya immediately began pacing again sure that her Papa was going to make her miss her flight. Once on the plane, the United monitor began showing photos America. As soon as the Rocky Mountains came across the screen, Nastiya turned to me with another big grin on her face and said, "Colorado?". "Da", was my response. Translation, "Da" in Russian is "Yes" in English-I truly wasn't making fun of her!
Those who were around us on that final flight home quickly understood what was going on and began asking lots of questions and providing words of encouragement. As we exited into the terminal, a few of our fellow travelers smiled as they passed by the welcoming party with a few coming up to congratulate us!
As our "Ukrainian Adventure" comes to an end, and the "American Adventure" begins, the entire Fields Family wants to extend our most gratious THANKS to all of our wonderful family and friends, and our new life-long friends that we've met along this Journey who have supported us through our entire process!
For the commenters regarding our Kyiv Physician experience...I can't locate the medical update for her name but the description is: Female, dark -shorter hair, glasses, age in her 50's most likely, shorter and very abrupt. She informed me, in the midst of our arguing that she is in fact a "cardiologist". Another describing factor but she told me this in an attempt for me to believe that she knows everything about everything. I wanted to ask her if she had received her license in one of those on-line courses but I had caused her blood pressure to rise already that I didn't want her to have a cardiac arrest or the like. I know for a fact (after the fact, unfortunately) that my facilitator had tried to have Nastiya seen by the other Physician (younger, tall, blonde hair, female) but was unavailble. Now I wished we would have waited until she was available as Nastiya cried during our days following the "doctor appointment" when I attempted to encourage her to read the book she picked our prior to our arrival in Kyiv. For those who want more info, I will be contacting our facilitator to identify this "physician's" name and will provide you with it when I receive it. No child should have to experience this abuse by a person in a position of authority.
For the last two-days I had to continually explain to Nastiya that yes we were on our way home but it would take a long while before we arrived in Colorado-immediately, a frown appeared on her face directly following with a huge smile! Nastiya was a nervous reck at each terminal fearful that we would miss the flight (even though we had two hours before boarding in Kiev, we had to stand right next to the gate to Frankfurt).
We landed in Washington D.C. and after three hours of going through passport control; inspection; adoption packet review we finally thought we were free to catch our shuttle to the hotel. Not so fast as my arrival documents were somehow marked that we were an "agricultural risk". I questioned as to why and pleaded that although we were coming from the bread basket of the world, I by no way partook in the plowwing of the fields or birthing cows or some other form of livestock---finally, a smile from the Homeland security officer who quickly sent us through to the top of the "agricultural check-point". Finally, out of the terminal to the shuttle. This, of course, landed a further Russian-English exchange between Nastiya and I as Nastiya was most certain that we needed to go to the next gate and await our final flight to Colorado. After struggling through my most useful Russian-English translation book gratioulsy received by the Garrett's over a month ago while in Mariupol, the understanding of our night lay-over was finally understood accompanied by great disappointment. The disappointment was short lived! As soon as we opened out hotel room, Nastiya shreeked with delight as she through off the eight plus pillows from her bed, began jumping on the bed (yes, she is a Fields now!) and immediately turned on the large flat screened t.v. and began flipping through the channels! I allowed this ritual to continue for a few moments then began the discussion of the need to go to sleep NOW as we're up in five hours to catch our final flight HOME! She agreed and I only had to remind her once to turn the T.V. OFF!
At the D.C. terminal Nastiya immediately began pacing again sure that her Papa was going to make her miss her flight. Once on the plane, the United monitor began showing photos America. As soon as the Rocky Mountains came across the screen, Nastiya turned to me with another big grin on her face and said, "Colorado?". "Da", was my response. Translation, "Da" in Russian is "Yes" in English-I truly wasn't making fun of her!
Those who were around us on that final flight home quickly understood what was going on and began asking lots of questions and providing words of encouragement. As we exited into the terminal, a few of our fellow travelers smiled as they passed by the welcoming party with a few coming up to congratulate us!
As our "Ukrainian Adventure" comes to an end, and the "American Adventure" begins, the entire Fields Family wants to extend our most gratious THANKS to all of our wonderful family and friends, and our new life-long friends that we've met along this Journey who have supported us through our entire process!
For the commenters regarding our Kyiv Physician experience...I can't locate the medical update for her name but the description is: Female, dark -shorter hair, glasses, age in her 50's most likely, shorter and very abrupt. She informed me, in the midst of our arguing that she is in fact a "cardiologist". Another describing factor but she told me this in an attempt for me to believe that she knows everything about everything. I wanted to ask her if she had received her license in one of those on-line courses but I had caused her blood pressure to rise already that I didn't want her to have a cardiac arrest or the like. I know for a fact (after the fact, unfortunately) that my facilitator had tried to have Nastiya seen by the other Physician (younger, tall, blonde hair, female) but was unavailble. Now I wished we would have waited until she was available as Nastiya cried during our days following the "doctor appointment" when I attempted to encourage her to read the book she picked our prior to our arrival in Kyiv. For those who want more info, I will be contacting our facilitator to identify this "physician's" name and will provide you with it when I receive it. No child should have to experience this abuse by a person in a position of authority.
3 comments:
Welcome home! I didn't realize you were Coloradans. :-) We are too and are just starting our home study process. We're friends of Felix and Heidi's and are eager to see the kids God has handpicked for them!
Welcome Home!!!!! I can't wait to meet your new daughter, when life settles down and little bit. I know everything she is experiencing right now is probably very overwhelming but life will settle down and into some kind of "normal" routine.
I will check in when I get home from AZ. on Friday the 14th.
Jean (& Roger, too)
Welcome home!
I guess we caught this doctor on a good day:0 We weren't in her office for very long during the examination. She was on the plane to New York with us, so maybe she was just in a hurry to go on her vacation. She did tell us that Karina had a heart murmur. Our doctor said she didn't. He said she should be experiencing symptoms, but she hasn't.
June
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