Posted 7/01/2003
Podolsk is just south of the city of Moscow. It took only 45 minutes to drive there. We were told that it is a poor city, with a 70% unemployment rate, and one of the poorest baby homes that our agency has seen. Once when our director visited, she said they had to go out and buy food right away because there was not enough. When we visited we offered to buy formula and the doctor asked for diapers! Hopefully that means things are looking up.
The baby home is tucked away on February Street. It is set back in the yard (about 1 acre lot). There is a small playground in the front yard with toddler size climbing items made of metal. There are two outdoor rooms in the yard, where they can gather the children outside. We saw little faces looking out from the gate as a woman brought 3 more toddlers up the walk toward the house. Perhaps this is mostly used for gathering the smallest ones. We did also see a woman heading back toward the baby home from the open playground with 8 or 10 toddlers following along.
The building looks old but clean. Someone asked about peeling paint so I looked. There was a little peeling paint in the trim of the outside (not near play areas) and in the halls. The entry is basically a stairwell and a narrow hall connects to another stairwell. Someone has tried to brighten up the landing with simple flowers painted on the wall, fake plants and a deer statue. We met our baby in the massage therapist's exam room. Another couple was sitting on a couch at the top of the stairs. Another couple had a small room sort of between the babies' sleeping room and playroom. We were told there were 6 families there that day. When we travelled three weeks later to pick
up Adrian, we met 3 more couples at that baby home. Our son spent 3 months in the hospital because there wasn't room at the baby home. It's a very busy place.
The baby home has room for 65 babies. The ages are about 3 months to 3 years. The babies over 12 months are moved to the other side of the building. There were 16 babies in our son's group. There was a sleeping area and a playroom with two small rooms (kitchen and sitting room?) in between. We were not able to see the sleeping room because the babies were asleep. I wish I'd asked for just a peek. The playroom was bright with 12 foot ? windows with 3 foot lace curtains at the top. It had two large (6 x 12 foot) raised playpens with toys dangling from strings. There was also a floor area gated off. There
were a couple push toys, a walker, two or three steps leading to a wooden ramp (slide?) and several small toys on some shelves. There were also two cribs and a changing table.
We did meet one pretty but shy cat wandering around the baby home.
The caregiver told us that she works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. After 5 months, she gets 30 days off. There are always two
caregivers. The nurse told us she worked a 24 hour day and then had 3 days off. I asked if there was a caregiver there overnight as well and she answered, "It depends." We were told we would need 7 gifts for the caregivers and nurses who worked with our son. We brought an extra one for Zoya, the massage therapist.
Several days our driver drove the two doctors and the massage
therapist across town, closer to their homes or bus stop. They left for the day around 4:15. (We were allowed to visit from about 1 to 4.) It was very interesting to see the ladies dressed in their mink coats and mink hats. I really wish I had taken a picture of my son being held by Zoya in her mink coat on the day we took him for his medical exam.
Our first guide explained that with the economy collapsing, one day a person might have $100,000. in the bank and then it was nothing. This might explain the mink coats (purchased in better times?).
We were able to feed our little guy his bottle. It looked like an old glass bottle with the nipple pushed down over the neck. The hole in the nipple was large enough that the formula poured out when I tipped it. When our son was not quite 6 months we were told he was eating formula, kefir (yogurt), thin cottage cheese. When we came back, he was 6 1/2 months and the feeding schedule included vegetable puree, fruit puree, broth, in addition to the formula, kefir and cottage cheese.
Our son was very well cared for. He would smile at everyone and he was developmentally on target. I worried that he was not putting any weight on his legs and by the last day of our first visit he did. I looked it up and sure enough it's a 6 month skill. (My first child did this at one week. Must have inherited Dad's bike racer legs!) One day Adrian was very sleepy. We decided to try to rock him to sleep. An older woman came in and smiled and talked to us in Russian. She made the sleeping sign (head on hands) and reached out for our
boy. We handed him over and then she held him up next to her face and kept talking to us. We couldn't understand a word, but I'm sure she was telling me what a wonderful boy he was and that they would take good care of him until our return.
There was one caregiver that seemed to especially love Adrian. She would always hold him close to her face and lift him up to get him to smile when she brought him to us. When we came to take him away forever, Alla was holding him and turned away a bit and said, "Nyet, nyet, nyet." Very sweet. She did let us take him and she cried. She asked us to write his new name in a photo album she had of all the babies. (I'm not sure if it was hers or the baby homes.) We offered her some of our extra photos and she chose 3 more.
Overall, I think they were doing a great job with the resources they had.
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