So, we finally got up the courage to call the phone number the Kirovograd lawyer gave us for the little brother's adoptive family. I left a message during the daytime, so as to give the family the choice to call us back or not. Well, he did - Kolya's adoptive father that is. Greg adopted Kolya in 2002 from the Kirovograd baby house as a single man. He had little to no info about Kolya's siblings or family, other than the parents names. So I filled him in on all the family drama, and exchanged email addresses so we could trade photos of the kids. Kolya looks so like Marina that they could be twins. I sent some photos of the girls and the birth family to Greg and am waiting for his response to those. So it sounds like the girls will get to have continued contact with their little brother and Aunt Nadiya will be happy to have photos of her lost nephew. We did find out that Kolya also had strabismus and is now in corrective glasses- I guess it is genetic!
In medical news, the girls bloodwork came back and it was better than we hoped for. Marina doesn't have Hepatitis C! She was positive for Hep A antibodies, but that is only a mild short term infection, and it gave her the same antibody results that having the vaccine would have given her. She does have a little anemia, but thats to be expected. Katya was also good on all her bloodwork. Their teeth are another story. Let's just say that they have one or two good teeth in their mouths. both girls need tons of work - cavities filled, root canals, teeth pulled....they did very well though in the dentists office. The hygienists were great, showing the girls all the instruments first and letting them play with them before they were used in their mouths. Marina has an abcessed tooth, so she will need to be on antibiotics before she can have that pulled. Thankfully that one is a baby tooth and the adult tooth will eventually come in to replace it. Katya needs at least 5 visits to complete all the work she needs done, so we'll spread that out over the next year. I've heard good things about xylitol, so I will look in to buying that type of toothpaste and see if we can prevent further damage in the girls teeth. We did cut off their candy supplies though - they weren't happy about that.
So, upcoming appointments include Marina's audiology appointment next week, and then both girls go to the eye center at emory for an evaluation in october. Marina sees her ped dentist later this month, and hopefully we can get Katya's painful teeth taken care of in october or november.
Right now its just a matter of money - we are still recovering from the adoption trip itself, so it will take some time to get our finances back in order.
