One time my Mom was crying. David came up to her and said, “Grandma, don’t cry. I will buy you some ice cream.”

One evening, Kristina and I sat on a swing. She saw the moon and asked, “Mom, what is it?” “The moon,” I said. “Can I take it home?” Kristina asked. She thought she could reach the moon.

Kristina loved ripping flowers and giving them to me. She would rip flowers in our garden, in our neighbor’s garden, by the church, and I had to teach her where she could rip flowers and where she could not.

Oleg’s birthday was coming up. “What present should we buy for Daddy?” I asked. “Chips and Pepsi!” Kristina said excited. “No, our Dad loves coffee!” David said seriously.

One evening Oleg came home late from work. David was already sleeping. Then I realized – it was too quiet, which meant that Kristina was creating trouble. Quietly I walked to the kitchen and saw her with scissors in her hands. Her beautiful curly blond hair was already cut off and on the floor. I didn’t know how to react – to cry or to scream at her? With a wide-opened mouth I was speechless… I hugged her, put her to bed and took her to a hair dresser the next morning. Those beautiful curls are still in Kristina’s baby book.

Our firstborn, David       Our daughter, Kristina

…….

When Kristina was four years old, I became pregnant for the third time. After my ultrasound, I received a phone call from my doctor, while I was at work.

“I don’t like your ultrasound results, Olga,” the doctor announced. “It shows that your baby boy could have Down’s syndrome, Trisomy 18 or Spinal Bifida. Olga, your child may be born very ill, not able to walk, and not even look like a normal person. Come in to do more testing.”

After I hung up the phone, my hands were sweaty and shaky, and tears covered my eyes. Good thing no one saw my pale face. I couldn’t concentrate or tell anyone the terrible news. How could I? “I will have an ill child? It can’t happen to me.”

After few minutes, I calmed dawn, walked to my supervisor’s office and asked for permission to leave work and see the doctor. She let me. It isn’t safe to drive, when you are scared and can’t concentrate, but I drove to the doctor’s office.

“Olga, we can do an amniocentesis test to make sure the ultrasound results are correct,” the doctor said.

“How do you perform this test?” I asked.

“With a needle we will poke your stomach and will take a small amount of amniotic fluid to check for genetic abnormalities. We don’t have to do it today. You can talk to your husband and let us know of your decision.”

The doctor gave me a brochure with this information. I spoke with Oleg at home. He was calm, but I worried.

“Our child is healthy. Everything will be okay,” he said.

In the brochure I read that there is a 60% miscarriage chance after this test. I called the doctor.

“We will not do this test,” I said. “Even if you did the test and it was abnormal, we would still not abort the baby. We know abortion is a sin, and we love our baby so much. We will pray, and God will help us.”

Oleg didn’t show that he worried, but I did. I couldn’t calm down. Being pregnant, I still had to continue working, drive children to Mom’s house in early mornings, pick them up after work, clean, cook and take care of the children. At night I would wake up at 2 or 3 A.M. and pray to God, begging Him to heal our baby. Only Mom, one of my sister and few friends knew about this problem. I was embarrassed to tell this news to someone or ask for prayers. I kept it all to myself. “How can I go back to work and show him to my co-workers? How can I show a disabled child to my friends and family? What would this say about me?” I thought.

When the time came for our baby to be born, I was in tears and couldn’t imagine what he would look like. But God heard our prayers and saw that we were not ready to accept a disabled child into our family. With tears of joy, we welcomed our healthy baby Michael. For us it was a miracle from God! Michael’s name means “Who is like God”.

When we brought Michael home, at first David and Kristina were happy to see him, but then they started acting up, crying and being jealous. Oleg was at work, and I thought, “What is going on?” Then I understood that they needed more of my attention, and I had to learn how to be a mother of three children.

Being parents of three is vastly different than being parents of two. I wanted to stay home to breastfeed Michael. WIC, my employer, supported my choice to combine maternity leave, saved sick and vacation leave, and time off without pay to enable me to be off work for eleven months.

…….

When I returned to work, there were some changes at the WIC program due to budget constraints. This required all clerks to also be cross-trained as Nutrition Assistants. Thus, in addition to scheduling appointments, issuing WIC vouchers, and answering a multiple-lined phone, my new duties included diet and weight assessments, checking hemoglobin and teaching the nutrition classes.

This offered several challenges. I was scared of blood. To do a hemoglobin test, I had to poke a client’s finger and deal with the blood. I also had to speak in front of people, but had no confidence to do so. How do you get up in front of a group of people when you have an accent and have no confidence in your ability to speak? I expressed these and other concerns to my boss.

“Olga, you have a choice. You either do it, or you quit,” she said.

“I need a job. It is a good job with good income and benefits. I have no choice as to keep the job and learn my new duties,” upset, I answered.

It is amazing what you can accomplish, if you put your mind to improving your skills. Two years later, in addition to my previous duties, I began teaching pregnant women about breastfeeding and helping them after delivery.

…….

In 2007, ten years into our marriage, Oleg changed to another auto body shop. Our income and benefits dramatically increased. Our house was on a busy street and not safe for our children, so we decided to buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood. We also bought two new cars on credit. Our life was good. We thought the money would always flow and we would be fine forever.

Raising our children was fun, but it also required lots of work to assure that our children were getting the best that we could provide them. I even volunteered in our church to teach Russian language to a class, which David attended. I understood the importance of our children knowing two languages, so I taught them how to read, write and speak Russian.

We were involved parents, trying to provide every opportunity for our children, and especially those opportunities we had not had as children. David was growing up as a serious and neat boy. Happy Kristina always helped me in the kitchen and took a good care of her younger brother, Michael. She loved doing his hair and dressing him up. And Michael was growing as a happy and patient baby. It was like he understood that I had to care for his brother and sister as well. With straight hair and blue eyes, Michael looked a lot like me. When Michael was growing up, we noticed that he was a very brave kid. At the age of four, he started riding his bike without training wheels, and two weeks later he rode a real dirt bike! We loved our children and provided what we could for them. Life with three children was so busy, but worth every moment of it!