Aubree update--she wants a family and little brothers and sisters!

Aubree with Serge, an adoption facilitator
Aubree would really like a family please. She asks about it all the time.

 

As many of you know we've blogged about Aubree before.

She was our focus for the month of September (link here).
A father adopting his daughter out of the same orphanage wrote about her here.
A young gal on a missions trip to her orphanage as well as a mom adopting from that same orphanage both wrote about her here.

Aubree is running out of time to find a family. A friend is in her orphanage right now adopting a different child(ren). Here's what she had to say:

"The good news is the orphanage [...] is very accommodating and pro-adoption, so we already met a BUNCH of kids

Aubree was one of the first ones I met. I'll be honest, I've read her profile, and I was worried. She's in the pictures we had of M in the new orphanage, and to think that she was the type of child described in the second "someone met her" description, was scary! I don't know what brought about the difference yesterday (maybe they're working with her, or she was just having a bad day before?), but she hung out with us for a while, and we didn't see any of those behaviors. I hope we get to spend more time with her next time as well, and I think we will.  AB [name of three year old withheld] loved her- she was very gentle and nurturing with AB and J [little kids] and very social! We talked for a while, with a nanny and Serge translating for us (although I actually understood quite a bit, because I asked questions that I could recognize the answers to!). She likes school very much, especially art, and writing and drawing. She likes animals (cats, dogs, etc). She LOVES jewelry, and hairbows (the more giant the better!). She very much wants brothers and sisters, and when i asked her if she wanted older ones or little ones, she said little (and I believe it, she was very interested in our five kiddos, and loved to snuggle them). She held AB and AB walked her through our photo book, describing everything- Aubree was so attentive, and her face looked so wistful.

So, physical description of Aubree: Obvious arthrogryposis, although, she seems to have some flexibility in her hands, because she was holding a banana (no peel) and eating sections of it by herself. her legs are pretty small, and very stiff. She struggles with speech, not with the thoughts, but with getting it out, and I believe she would benefit from speech therapy. She was very polite and affectionate as well, and although she does have some obvious cognitive delays, she seems eager to learn new things and to be a part of things.

When she was with us, I had our five playing blocks on one of the beds, and although she watched, and looked very interested in what they were playing, she never attempted to roll over there or monopolize attention. She talked with her friends, with our facilitator, and with me, for a while, especially when she realized that I might know a family for her- which totally broke my heart, because she was so eager to be adopted. At one point, I had turned away to say something to someone else, and she was trying to get my attention- her arms do appear to be affected by the arthrogryposis from what I saw, because her elbows didn't bend much, and her hands are turned at an unusual angle, and she grabbed at my shirt sleeve, trying to get my attention (she didn't know my name then). Her hands are strong, from rolling the wheelchair, and her grasp is poor because of the arthrogryposis, so she had to kind of sling her arm and try to close her fingers on my sleeve. I could see the awkwardness of it for her, but she definitely wasn't afraid to try! She's beautiful in person- these pictures don't do her justice at all. And I'm sorry my pictures are blurry, kids don't stay still long and I was using my camera with a slower capture speed because the room was a bit dim.

And something to consider- it is a very cheap area to stay in, and not far from Kyiv, so with Aubree's $3092 grant plus the private $3K grant, you'd be probably close to 1/3 of the way to funded just from that. 

Here's a few pictures of Aubree...again, sorry for the blurriness, but there were about 18 people in a six bed groupa "bedroom" and 5 of them were my kids under 7 that I was trying to supervise while I socialized lol"