Delphin Baby House

The Baby House is remarkable. One of our fellow travelers took a video during the tour our first day, which is the only way to really do it justice. But I’ll do the best I can with words.

Delphin Baby House is the home for orphans ages 0-3 years, for Kostonai and the surrounding region. The entire staff is female, including the director (Dr. Irinia, a physician), the pediatrician, a nursing staff, a massage therapist, and a music teacher. Not only is the staff responsible for both the daily and medical care of the babies, but they shop for and prepare all the meals, do all the laundry, do all of the interior decorating following the frequent expansions, (including painting and wallpapering the rooms in cheerful colors), and even make hand-made pillows to give to adoptive parents as gifts.

Babies are grouped together by age, and each age group has a bedroom, a playroom, and a bathroom, suitable to their age. Ahlia’s room, for babies aged 6-12 months, is equipped for 12

children, but currently houses only 6, with 2 caretakers present at any given time, plus visits from the various nursing staff. They each sleep in their own small crib, but share space in one of 2 playpens in the play room. The most coveted “hang out” spot is the bouncy chair, which is suspended by a rotating hook, and allows the babies not only to bounce, but to become airborne and fly about the corner. Since there is only one bouncy chair, the babies must take turns, and while they do so they are either in a little walker chair (most of them being too little to reach the floor, so the chair remains stationary), or in a play pen. At any given time, at least one or two are being changed, fed, held, walked outside (in a snowsuit that rival’s Maggie Simpson’s and deprives the baby of all mobility) or massaged. While there are many toys available, they mostly remain on the shelves. We’re not sure why, perhaps because the caretakers attention is always absorbed by the baby they are currently tending, and they don’t want to risk the unwatched babies choking or destroying something. This is our best guess. At any rate, when we arrive each day to put Ahlia on the blanket, surrounded by a smorgasbord of toys, she cannot stop playing, handling, squeaking, biting, throwing them. When it is time for our visit to end, the babies go down for a nap, and each gets a freshly autoclaved binky.

We only had a brief look at the older children’s rooms, but they do more structured activities, and are often walking through the halls in groups, holding hands, most seem like they can’t be more than 18-24 months old. When they pass us, they will begin to say “Mamas y Papas, Mamas y Papas”, (sometimes prompted by the caregivers, sometimes spontanesouly on their own) and will get very excited. I inevitably get all teary eyed as I return their smiles and waves. I am tearing up now as I type about it. It is almost unbearable.

Before entering the living quarters, all new children spend their first 3 weeks at the baby house. They are kept in quarantine while awaiting test results for HIV, Hep B, salmonella, dysentery, typhus, and a few other ailments, and watched for signs of disease. In quarantine, the care is provided solely by nurses, no caregivers. There is room for 4 children at once, each space sealed. Dr. Irina told us that new children come every Monday, but for the last 2 Monday’s, no children have arrived. She is hoping that perhaps this is a sign of real change, as the country’s economic status continues to improve. Another sign of this change is the “hope room”, an initiative started by the current “first lady” of Kazakhstan. This program allows babies to come to the baby house from ages 0-3, without being placed up for adoption. Their biological mothers can visit anytime, and spend as much time as they like with the babies. Once the mothers are ready, the babies can go back home. The program is only open to young, single mothers with first time pregnancies, and about 50% of the children in the program actually return home eventually.

The Baby House also has a music room, a ballroom (where we had our initial meeting with the babies), a newly renovated kitchen where all meals are prepared (but no cafeteria – all the children are fed in their living areas), an infirmary with a collection of medical equipment that was wholly unfamiliar to me, a “salt room” where children at risk for respiratory infections spend time as a preventative measure, a sauna (really) and an indoor pool (yes, really). All the children visit the sauna and pool once weekly and we’re told that as a result, the toddlers can swim at a rudimentary level. Outside there is no real playground, but there are a series of brightly colored “cages” (for lack of a better word) where children can sleep during the summer when it is too hot inside, and a large play yard.

Every room of the baby house is decorated with fancy linoleum, wallpaper and curtains (handmade by the caretakers, of course), and is filled with toys (mostly gifts from adoptive parents), and the walls are covered with photos of children from their post-placement reports (the reports that adoptive parents must file annually until their child reaches age 18, to help assure the powers that be that international adoption is a positive thing for these kids). The décor is modest, but it is cheerful and extremely child friendly. The caretakers are kind, and the babies in Ahlia’s room light up when the caretakers speak their names. All in all, it is a remarkable thing to behold.