Ukraine: A Real Knockout (cont.)

“I don’t know.”

“Thanks.”

“How about Harvest Moon.”

She sang Harvest Moon. I joined in on the chorus.” When that ended we sang “Bicycle Built for Two” and “The Streets of New York.”

As we sang we held Luba’s arms and turned around in a circle. Luba smiled and followed along but again she didn’t seem to really get into it. Halfway through the third rendition of “The Streets of New York,” Luba’s eyes rolled back into her head. I had never actually seen that happen in real life, but here it was.

And then she fell backward.

I caught her and pressed my head to her chest to make sure she was alive. She snored lightly.

“She’s asleep!”

“She’s so comfortable with us she’s sleeping.”

Sherry was not sure. But I was. I felt myself grinning widely. We took turns holding her while she slept. As I held her I felt a sun rising in my chest. Nothing felt more comfortable in the world than holding this child. Sherry took a picture of me while I held Luba and it is true I do have a wide grin on my face. I can’t look at that picture anymore, without feeling a stab.

Three days into the adoption process we dropped by an internet café to send photos of Luba to our friends. We had e-mailed both doctors and both doctors had failed to reply. I knew that we had e-mailed them on the weekend, but surely they opened their email on Saturdays or Sundays. Evidently not.

We stopped into the very modern looking one we always went to, the one along the main shopping district. It was a very stainless steel and glass kind of place, with an adjacent coffee shop, and lots of new computers that would have gleamed if they weren’t so dusty.

I gave the college age woman behind the counter enough cash to rent a machine for an hour and we chose one far from the front door. Then I went over the coffee shop with Irina to get drinks. Irina stayed in the shop while I carried my tea and Sherry’s coffee to her at the terminal.

I joined Sherry, set her cup down carefully, and was sipping my tea when Sherry gasped, “Oh, no.” I turned to the computer, thinking it had crashed again. Ukrainian computers crashed even more often than American ones did.

On the screen was an email from the Orphan Doctor. The day before we had sent her the information about Luba, her height, her weight, her head size. I will never forget the chill that shot through me as I read.

“I have looked at the e-mail materials that you sent on 5/18. She is microcephalic, which has a poor prognosis for future normal development. This is an extremely risky referral. The photos are adorable and she has no facial features of fetal alcohol syndrome.”

The email from the second doctor we were consulting with was no more reassuring.

“The history of prematurity, with no info about the mother, is concerning. Her head circumference is that of a fifteen and one-half month-old at the fifth percentile, the weight is that of an eighteen and one-half month-old at the fifth percentile, and her height is that of a seventeen-month-old at the fifth percentile. Maternal drinking during pregnancy is a consideration to explain her small head, prematurity, and severe speech delay. If she just didn't get enough to eat, then she should be short or light, but with a normal head/ brain size. That first eight months of life could have damaged her ability to bond and lowered her IQ, Her photos show a child with a proportionately small head (vs. height and weight), a fairly OK ear, a philtrum that is gone in the frontal view, but not from the front, and eyes that do not look huge (If she has normal-sized eyes in a small head, they should look larger than normal). These are factors that raise the risk of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Attached is a picture of FAS, and what to look for. I hope this is helpful. Whatever you decide to do is right. But this decision is yours. If you decide to proceed, and she has problems, we can struggle to make her the best she can be.”

“Microcephalic,” I sighed.

I knew what a microcephalic was. Zippy the pinhead was microcephalic. Microcephalics are people whose heads don’t grow as fast as their bodies.

A quick google search revealed a bigger problem with microcephalics. Their skulls don’t grow as fast as their brains, that puts bone on a collision course with brain matter, and when they collide, around twp and half, the child experiences seizures and brain damage.

I took another sip of my tea, but it went down wrong, and I ended up spraying the computer monitor as I coughed.

I spent a long time in the bathroom at the Internet Café, sitting on the toilet, staring into the fogged mirror over the dirty, cracked sink. I looked into the eyes of the person looking back and tried to guess what was on his mind.

I thought about Luba in the frilly dress and the bossy nurse who shouted at Luba while she sat at the piano and phrases from the two emails kept coming back to me: “microcephalic,” “poor prognosis,” “extremely risky.”

“If she just didn't get enough to eat,” I could hear Doctor Ochs’ voice as I remembered this line, “ then she should be short or light, but with a normal head/ brain size.”

Suddenly everything took on a new meaning. The nurse had had to shout at Luba. It was the only way to get through to her. Luba played with one year olds because already two year olds were too advanced for her. And her passivity, God, that could indicate lots of things, none of them good.

And then I saw myself holding her while she slept. And the odd way she fell asleep, from a standing position, eyes rolling back into her head. “Seizure,” I whispered to myself, as if giving it a name would somehow sooth me: “Seizure.”

All that was solid in my mind melted away. The trip to the park, to the zoo, to the children’s museum. The bushy haired teenager, with the slutty clothes and the Elvis Presley sneer. The tiny feminine voice that would have called me Daddy even when she was in the middle of full-blown, raging, hormone-powered rebellion.

I sighed. It was all gone. The person in the mirror blinked and stared. So did I. Outside, in the internet café, I could hear Beatles songs playing: “Dear Prudence” and “Julia”. But in my head I heard the line about Ukrainian girls from “Back in the U.S.S.R.”

Then there was a knock on the door.

“Jack? Are you alright?”

“Yes.

“We’re going to have to tell Irina.”

“I know.”

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