Finding Nina

Like our oldest daughter, Olga, we were first "introduced" to our youngest daughter, Nina, through email! An American couple was in the region adopting children from a different town, but kindly offered to visit our Olga at her orphanage.

While there, they videoed some of the girls--one in particular (Nina) who had been personally recommended to us by the orphanage director:

May 2002 - email from the Director (translated through an online translator):

"I advise to adopt Nina. To it(her) of 8 years. She(it) very well goes to school. Helps adults. She(it) very careful girl. The leader! Likes to play dolls and to sew him(it) clothes."

May 11, 2002 - email from the American couple:

"(Director) was also very happy that you are considering another girl. Her first choice for you was a cute little girl (I believe 7) named Nina. She has short brown hair cut into a bob with bangs. She wears glasses and is very proud of herself because she gets all 5's, or straight A's. She said her favorite subject is mathematics. She also likes to draw. You will see her in the video. There are some really great kids there...They each were rewarded a banana for doing the interview. It was so great!"

We quickly informed the orphanage director that Nina was our choice for daughter #2! For a week or more these two brief email messages provided ALL that we knew about "our" Nina, but we still knew that she was OURS!

After the American couple returned home to the States they sent us a copy of the video, and our Nina was the first one interviewed! In the video she was soft spoken and seemed very shy--my how that has changed over time! She recited a Russian poem, "Nasha Tanya" (which she still can recite!) and was very helpful with a younger girl who was later interviewed on the video.

This first "glimpse" of Nina has provided our family lots of cute ways and opportunities to laugh and smile together. For instance, in the video when asked about school Nina boasts that she gets "5's" (A's) "su-vrah-mah", which means "all the time". We quote her often when the occasion arises and she just smiles! We also like to prompt her a bit to get her to recite, "Nasha Tanya"--it's so cute to hear her speaking in Russian!

"Olga is in the hospital!" (little did we know that it was an attempted suicide)

Another adoptive mom who was in regular contact with Olga's orphanage director sent me this email in early May 2002:

"Olga is in the hospital!" She went on to explain that she'd been told that Olga ate some cake from a recent celebration (probably "Victory Day" on May 9th) that had been left out and gone bad.

Then, the next day we received this in an email from an American couple adopting in the same region--they'd offered to go by our orphanage to meet our Olga and take some birthday gifts we sent and make some videos for us:

"We went to the orphanage again today. We could not see Olga as she was in the hospital with a stomach flu. (Director) said she will be fine."

We never questioned these explanations, we had no reason to do so at the time. However, you can imagine our surprise when Olga told us the real story just 5 or 6 months after becoming our daughter--this had been her second suicide attempt in just a few weeks. We can only assume that the Director did not want to alarm us or cause us to have any reservations about adopting Olga.