One Year Ago, SDA Appointment

Unbelievable anxiety surrounded our appointment at the National Adoption Center. We were taken up to the "psychologist's" office and were not allowed to take anyone with us. Our facilitator told us to write down as much information as we could about the children we were interested in such as first and last name, location of orphanage , diagnosis etc. We were then to ask for 20 minutes to think about it, so she could use the information to try and find out as much information as possible before we made any decision. They were polite but not very friendly. They showed us a boy and girl sibling group and a nine year old girl. These were not right for us, and they proceeded to show us a many special needs children, and some with various severe delays. We picked out #1 (7 year old with "low IQ"), and #2 (4 year old with many delays) both girls appeared normal in their pictures. Then Jon pulled out a file and said what about this one? I was surprised he chose it because it was an infant picture of a baby with an unrepaired cleft lip. She was 4 and reported to have speech and psychological delay as well as a still unrepaired palate. We added her as #3 on our list. We asked for 20 minutes to think about our decision and they gave said we could have an hour and a half. We went downstairs and gave Era the information. She immediately started making phone calls and talking a hundred miles an hour in Ukrainian. She actually was using 3 cell phones. We went to a nearby cafe and watched in amazement as she performed many tasks simultaneously. She was able to locate the orphanages and talk to doctors and/or directors about all of the girls. #1 was said to be delayed enough to not even attend school. #2 and #3 were at the same orphanage and the orphanage doctor said she would definitely choose #3 because she was very pretty and very smart. This information was invaluable to us and we chose #3, Deanna. We went back and told them our choice. Era kept saying De-ah-na over and over again to this lady. I was a little worried about this procedure as no one wrote anything down, but all of their procedures seem odd and disorganized. We then left with some sort of relief but still a huge uncertainty of what we would find when we actually arrived at the orphanage. Remember, this would be the only chance we would have to meet a child. We just prayed our answer would be obvious to us.