From Chapter Three, “Are You My Baby?

With two other couples and a mother traveling alone, Marc and I go to Ekaterinburg, Russia to adopt Natalie (whose given name is Nina). We have been directed to bring large boxes full of toys for the orphanage, and – because some Russians object to the international adoption of their children – to stay quiet about the purpose of our trip. OFIA is Our First International Agency.

The airport in Ekaterinburg is a huge quonset hut made of corrugated steel. We arrive from Frankfurt around 10:00 p.m. We have said not a word to anyone about the purpose of our trip, although it has been somewhat difficult: we are bursting with the news, and find it difficult to suppress it in response to the questions that arise during the polite chit-chat with fellow passengers that often punctuates international travel. It has been nerve-wracking to feel that we must travel incognito while lugging huge boxes of toys. But here we are at last, safe and sound.

We emerge from the airplane into the twilit June night, and gasp. Arching spectacularly over the entire horizon is a vivid rainbow, glowing in the setting sun. An omen, surely. A personal omen for each of us, stepping off that plane. But we cannot record it: we have been warned to take no pictures, inside or outside the airport. We amble across the tarmac through the warm liquid night under the rainbow, drinking it in, memorizing it.

Our euphoria is snuffed out the moment we step inside the airport. Inside is scary. It is eerily quiet. Hundreds of people wait in passport lines, silently. Guards and officials are thin-lipped, stern-looking, all business. The airport is barren, all concrete floors and plastic and steel chairs and benches, some of them placed at odd angles, as if they had been dropped in mid-move. The steel and plastic booths that harbor the passport inspectors are fitted with mirrors positioned overhead so the officials can see the back of you as well as the front. We seem to have entered a time warp. It's spooky. Hasn't anyone told these people that the Cold War is over? We fall into line, silent with the rest of them, sober and slightly frightened. We hope the OIA people are waiting for us as promised on the other side.

At baggage claim, Marc is separated from us and questioned. Why are we here? He has a box full of toys. Why?

While he is being questioned, I am searching for my big suitcase, which seems to have gone missing. Airline staff are friendly and helpful, in English. They know what year it is. They are terribly sorry; perhaps my bag did not make it onto the plane. They will bring it on the next flight, on Tuesday night. But that suitcase contains the beautiful blue flowered dress I was going to wear when Natalie first saw me, so she would love me faster! It contains the nice business dress I brought to wear to court, to impress the judge with my suitability as a mom. They are very sorry, but can give me only a set of toiletries and the promise of $50.00 reimbursement for the cost of a new dress.

At about the same moment, Marc and I rejoin the group, which has been joined by an OIA driver and translator. Marc, sweating bullets, has been allowed to keep the box of toys.

An hour or so later, we arrive at our apartment. It is bad on the outside: typical Soviet style concrete block tower, surrounded by weeds. The elevator is tiny, creaking. We are disoriented. We can't all fit. Is this safe for any of us? Will we be murdered, or die in an elevator wreck? We disperse onto separate floors. Inside, our apartment is brand new, spotless, spacious. A full kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, a nice bath. We are comfortable. We get to bed around 1:00 a.m.

Seven hours later we are milling about in the dust in front of the building, waiting to be picked up and ferried to the orphanage. My clothes are about 36 hours old. Sylvia assures me that our adoption will not be blocked by my lack of appropriate clothing in court; she will lend me a spare dress that will do just fine.

Except for experienced Sylvia, we are all so nervous we can barely speak. The usually voluble Stewart is silent, compulsively videotaping everything around him. . . .

The orphanage is a concrete, three-story, U-shaped structure that wraps around an asphalt driveway and parking area. A rutted, partially paved road distances it slightly from a potholed street lined with run-down apartment complexes. The seven of us cluster outside on the long raised stoop in the sunshine, waiting for permission to enter. It is all we can do to suppress little yelps of anxiety. The second-floor windows of the wing to our right fill with two-, three-, and four-year-old children who peer down at us until their caregivers peel them away.

“Hey, I think that's your little girl,” says Stewart. He is looking through his videocamera up to the left.

Marc and I follow the angle of his camera and see her there, partially obscured in shadow behind a screen. The woman holding her smiles down at us. She knows us, from the video we have sent – a video Marc's dad filmed in his basement rec room, beret jauntily perched on his head. In it, we read to her, we sing Brahms's Lullaby. We identify ourselves as Mommy and Daddy, and say bye-bye, we'll see you soon! We sent the video along with another couple who had traveled a couple of weeks before, in a little gift bag that contained also the book we had read and a little stuffed dog that we featured in our video. The dog was wearing a tiny baby t-shirt, which I had had imprinted with a photo of the two of us smiling at her. . . . Peering up at her there for a moment as her caregiver points us out to her, we notice that she is holding the t-shirted dog. She looks flushed and pretty, peering down at us for that moment. Then she and her caregiver disappear, as quickly as they had emerged, into the gloom behind the curtains.

We are finally let in and ushered upstairs – the walls here, too, decorated with brightly painted murals, even the stair risers sprouting bright painted flowers – and into the playroom. We mill about nervously, exploring the room, rolling a huge ball back and forth. I worry that Nina won't like us somehow. That, somehow, we won't like her. I dive into a plastic log cabin. Stewart's videocamera is glued to his face.

A nurse walks in with Pasha, Sylvia's two-year-old. He runs up to her and they begin playing immediately. Minutes pass.

Another nurse walks in with Lucy, Angie and Stewart's baby, and pours her into Angie's arms. Stewart stops videotaping as they bend over her and begin to coo. Minutes pass.

A nurse walks in with Frank, Tony and Brigit's baby. They take him over to a corner of the room and hunker over him.

Marc and I look at the other couples with their kids, listen to the happy little sounds they are making. We look at each other. We stare at the doorway. A nurse walks in briskly with Natalie. She is all dolled up in a dark-green velvet dress with white lace collar and cuffs. Lacy little socks pulled up to her knees, and black patent shoes. She is quiet and calm as the nurse strides toward me. When the nurse thrusts her into my arms and walks away, Natalie shatters the peace with shrieks. No one else's baby cries. Just ours. She wails at the top of her lungs. We know that this is a good thing: she is supposed to protest when she's separated from a trusted caregiver and thrust into a stranger's arms. This is good ; she's attached . It is traumatizing nonetheless.

Instinctively I hold her close and bounce her gently, walking slowly around the room, trailed by Marc, and whispering softly into her ear, in a slow singsong, “Nina Natalie, Nina Natalie, Nina Natalie, don't be afraid, it's OK, Nina Natalie don't be afraid, don't be afraid.”

We, of course, are terrified.