First I teased. But now I am posting the photos of our first few weeks in Ukraine in January/February of 2007, when we first adopted the big K. The second set of photos was posted last year, here. I only just found this set of negatives during our move. We didn’t have a digital camera with us, so the photos were 35mm.
We spent the first three days in Kiev waiting for an appropriate referral. After spending two full, grueling days sitting side by side trying to look like Time’s parents of the year, we were exhausted, depressed, and DH was completely unable to keep anything down. After the inconvenience, we were lucky to have a great facilitator who drove us all the way from Kiev to Kremenchuk, where K’s baby home was located. It’s about a 4-5 hour drive.
The photos show her evolution from a closed and distrusting little girl with a hard face, to a more open and happy look once she began getting used to us. She’s even more open in the second roll of film, which I posted here.
Edited to add: photo of a caretaker holding Karen. What makes it interesting is to notice that there are toys, a television and a transistor radio in the background. Although broken, the toys are mainly for show. Likely the TV as well. Most likely the radio was used to provide music. We noticed that both Karen and Matan really enjoyed music. In fact, it’s one of the first things that could hold their attention when they each first came home. We think they were both exposed to music, and it was probably one of the main sources of sensory stimulation.
