Tucci Adoption

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T20:39:00.000-05:00

Mitchell has been doing so great in his new family. His English is superb and he does not speak with an accent. He still gets some of his verb tenses wrong, and he sometimes struggles to find the right word, but all in all, excellent. His teacher has told us that he does well. He sometimes struggles to break sentences apart. So for example, if he says "I'm hungry," he understands that as a phrase, but cannot break it down into three individual words. This is something we wouldn't have noticed, but have been working hard on.

He is really a wonderful little boy. He is good natured, and wants to please. He gets very sad when he is disciplined, and shows appropriate affection. He does tend to bond easily (maybe too easily) with others. We recently went on vacation with friends to Disney World, and Mitchell wanted to ride all the rides with our friends (adults). It was wonderful to see him interact so easily with others (especially adults), but I still worry about attachment issues.

He and his sister get along like we would expect any siblings to. They tease, and tattle and fight. We are not quite sure what expected behavior is in this area, so we do the best we can. We play it day by day.

So, for his first American Christmas: it was hard for him to KNOW there were presents for him, yet he'd have to wait until Christmas day, but all in all it was a great day for everyone (as you can see from the picture - our family and Santa treated him well)! One thing that continues to surprise us though is his apparent lack of appreciation or even respect for all that he now has. For example, we took a ride this afternoon for brunch and on the way Mitchell asked if we could go to the toy store. Even though he had dozens of new, unopened toys at home, he said that he wanted/needed more toys. We tried to explain how lucky he is to have gotten all that he has - but he was more preoccupied with the toys he DIDN'T get. We are truly at a loss. Santa brought him EVERYTHING he asked for while we and the family added even more! Another scenario, which we tend to think is similar, is his penchant for discarding items after he's had them a short duration. One day he left his "favorite" jacket at his gymnastics class and said "Oh... let's go buy another one" and today, when his sister was picking toys to give to charity, he offered some toys that he got on our Disney vacation (in early Dec). These are toys he cried, begged and pleaded for while on vacation, yet just three short weeks later he no longer has any interest in those toys. We aren't sure if this is typical "boy" behavior, if this is something from his past or perhaps something else entirely...

Kindergarten

2009-08-29T09:11:00.004-04:00

It has been a long time since I've updated. I went back to work in early July, but John stayed home the rest of the summer. The two kids continue their constant fighting. I guess that is just like long-time siblings. Despite their fighting, Sydney is very protective of her brother. They had a great summer and spent most days at the pool. I asked Mitchell if he swam in Ukraine. His response was “in the dirty water, with the fish.” He has turned out to be quite a little athlete. Within three weeks he was swimming on his own and diving to the bottom of the pool picking up toys. He is now able to swim across the pool on his own.

The sleeping problem: Mitchell now goes to bed alone. He still prefers to have someone sleep with him, but it is not a huge issue. He had a daily nap at the orphanage, but refused one as soon as he got home. He sleeps 10-11 hours at night, so we will now have to implement a strict bed time now that school has started. This will be a challenge as Sydney does not need so much sleep.

The wetting the bed: This has gotten a lot better. He still has an accident every now and then, but not that often (we limit his drinks after dinner time). The biggest problem is if he has an accident, he doesn't tell anyone. He may get up and wear his wet pajamas until someone smells him. Not so pleasant. John decided to buy him some pull ups, only for when we sleep away from home. The kids decided they were really cool and wanted to wear them around the house, and then decided they wanted to pee in them. They were quickly taken away and hidden.

The first day of school was great. Kindergarteners only go to school one day the first week so the class size is very small. Sydney started school on Tuesday, but Mitchell not until Friday. John said he was so lost without her, and he was very ready to go. I walked him to his new classroom and he walked right in and never looked at me again. He found some toys and immediately got engaged. I had to beg him for some pictures. When I left the room, I looked back to wave goodbye, but he wasn't even looking. He had a great day.

His English: He continues to amaze everyone who speaks to him. He will not use his Russian words, even when prompted. If you ask him for a Russian word, he says “I dun-no.” He still has difficulty explaining a complex idea. For example, if he is in trouble and you ask him what happened, it is a game of charades: “I had it game, and Sydney this {throwing motion}, and I pick up, and Sydney push, and I do this {punching motion}.” He will be evaluated for ESL, but his teacher wonders if his English is too good. The teacher’s aide said they will test for comprehension and he will probably qualify. I was also surprised to hear that there are two other children in his class that will qualify for ESL (none Russian).

Two Months Home

2009-06-12T20:34:00.011-04:00

School is out, and Sydney and Mitchell have spent two days home with just Mom. I think Mom may go crazy before too long. There is still a constant need for attention and trying to make the other one mad (we are wondering if this is just the plea for negative attention), but there are also moments of play and genuinely helping each other. On Thursday, we spent three hours at the pool. You would think the two of them were in heaven. They can both manage in the pool with only a watchful eye. Mitchell does great with his floaty. He never stops trying to swim, and he gets annoyed if you take hold of him.

His English is truly amazing. He pretty much has all the words, it is just the sentence structure that he has to figure out. My favorite saying is "Mom, thunder computer look," which means he wants to go to weather.com and see the forecast for the day. Just a few short weeks ago, he was terrified of thunder, and we have had a lot of it. I usually take him to the door and we listen for the thunder. During our second thunderstorm (I gave him warning it was coming), he gathered all of the candles in the house in preparation. He is no longer afraid of thunder, but is still afraid of monsters. He doesn't like to be alone in the dark. Luckily, it is still light out at bedtime.

After just eight weeks home, it is amazing how well he has integrated into the family. While he is very stubborn, he wants to please. He is very sad when he gets in trouble and very pleased when he is praised. We are truly blessed.

American Boy

2009-05-29T13:44:00.007-04:00

Mitchell is obsessed with the American flag. Driving down the street, he gets very excited when he sees one and has to point it out: "American flag, American flag." Yesterday he sat at the table by himself and painted this wonderful picture. I asked him what it is, and he told me "American house." I asked him who the person was in the picture, and he told me "Mitchell in America." One of the questions he asked, which we have been waiting for (we knew from other bloggers that it was inevitable) was "when does Mitchell leave America?" It was with great joy that we told him never, Mitchell will be in America forever. Mitchell tried to quantify that the same way he counts his father's age: five ee five ee five ee five ee five ee five ee five ee three.

His English is doing so great. He pretty much can communicate anything he wants. He still talks to himself in Russian sometimes when he doesn't know the words, but even then, he is starting to use English when he knows the words. One of the things he was fascinated with when he arrived was airplanes (we live near an airport).He would point up and say "sem-eye-ote" (airplane). Recently one flew over and he looked up. I said sem-eye-ote, and he said "no, airplane."

He is now sleeping alone at night, even though he doesn't like it. Sometimes Sydney sleeps with him, but they stay up late, or fight, so I am also trying to get her to sleep in her own bed. The other night, Sydney came screaming downstairs saying that Mitchell was trying to choke her. She really tries to get him in trouble, and I could tell she was using her fake crying, so I spoke to Mitchell (he admitted doing it), and put her in her own bed. I really can't wait until his English is good enough to tell us the "other side of the story." We are amazed at how quickly they have become siblings in every sense of the word.

First Hair Cut

2009-05-13T23:20:00.005-04:00

Mitchell got his first hair cut today. At the orphanage, they would pretty much shave their heads and just leave bangs. It has been just about a month since his last hair cut, so it was due. His stylist cut his hair short to try to even the bangs out. I am not a huge fan of the short-spiky look, but I think he looks adorable. Now you can also see the red scar on his forehead. The poor guy has cuts and scrapes all over (our pediatrician recommended a cream to help it heal). I asked him if he liked his new hair cut, and he said no. Well, it will grow soon enough, and then he can decide how he wants to wear it. For now, I think this is a great summer cut.

Learning the Rules

2009-05-12T14:11:00.006-04:00

Mitchell continues to adjust well. He is still very shy around strangers, but is starting to open up a little. He has taken a real liking to his Uncle Mike (and Aunt Kris), who brought him his big dump truck the first time they met. We went to an amusement park over the weekend (the picture is from the merry-go-round) and he preferred to hold his Uncle's had (over Mommy or Daddy). He and Sydney are still having difficulty relating. She still wants to be the boss, and he is not interested in having that kind of relationship. I'm not sure if that will ever change or not, but I'm sure once his English improves they will settle into something a little more amicable.

His English is coming along amazingly well. We think he understands pretty much everything we say. He has many English words he uses regularly, but he pretty much still speaks primarily in Russian. He is a real talker, which we think will be to his benefit.

He still requires me to sleep with him, which is getting very old for me. I really just want ONE full night's sleep. I usually stay with him until he is asleep, and then move into Sydney's bed (she is sleeping in my bed) which is separated from his room via a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. If he makes the slightest noise, I wake up, sooth him back to sleep, and then leave again. Last night we almost had a break through where he wanted John to stay with him, but after about 20 minutes, John brought him to my bed. I ended up sleeping sandwiched between the two of them (very little sleep for me).

We are still working on boundaries. He is still very belligerent about time out and believes he can truly have everything his way. Our most common words seem to be "no touch." He wants to touch EVERYTHING, Even though he has been in time out repeatedly for touching the remote control and the DVD player, he just will not stop touching it. When we are in an arcade, he points the the "prizes" (you know, the one's worth about 1 cent) and says Mommy... Mommy... Mommy. When I say "no," he holds up three fingers. I guess he wants three of them. We play the "no," "three," "no," "three," "zero" game for a while and then he stomps off.

From a health perspective, he is eating well, I guess. He wants meat, and me, being a former vegetarian, struggle terribly with that. Yesterday I actually went out on a limb and bought half a spiral ham (I know, if you know me at all, this is a shocking statement). I didn't know that only part of the ham is cut, so I ended up pulling ham off the joint. I was completely grossed out, but I was able to package a few meals for the freezer and serve the family a ham dinner, well, at least John and Mitchell had a ham dinner. Sydney had pasta and I ate a few scraps. He hasn't really gained or lost weight since he has been home. I thought he would put on some weight now that he has an endless supply of food.

His TB test came back positive last week. We fully expected this to happen as his birth father died of TB when he was about 18 months old and he has tested positive multiple times in Ukraine. Yesterday we had an appointment with the Health Department. There is a blood test that we can have him take to determine if his positive result is because of the type of vaccination he had or because of exposure. We decided that we will have the test. If we move forward with the treatment, we will have to take him to the TB Clinic two times a week for six months (about half an hour from our house). That will be a real pain once he starts Kindergarten in September (and I go back to work). She did explain to me how TB is transmitted and confirmed that he is not a danger to our family or other children.

Doctor's Appointment

2009-05-06T04:45:00.006-04:00

Mitchell had his first doctor's appointment yesterday. He is such a trooper. He was tested for iron, lead, and TB. The lead test took two finger pricks because they needed so much blood; and he was vaccinated for chicken pox and one other thing (that I can't remember at the moment). We had told Mitchell two shots, and then the doctor later added the chicken pox and lead test. We told him "sorry, two more shots." He looked so scared. We asked him if it was okay, and he shook his head no. Poor little guy. He got candy (that usually fixes all), and we took him to Burger King (yuck), because that big playset catches his eye every time we drive by. We sucked it up (or really I sucked it up because John was craving beef - something I don't cook at home).

In general, the doctor said he looks very healthy and appears to have had good nutrition. She confirmed his teeth look good, which was a huge relief to me. He is very good about brushing his teeth, and seems to love American toothpaste. He was caught eating it one night, and woke up the next day with a terrible stomach ache and vomit (yes Lana, we figured out the reason behind the belly ache). He has his first dentist appointment scheduled in June (along with his sister). He is slightly underweight, but the doctor did not seem hugely concerned. He lacks some muscle tone and his shoulders slouch forward. This little guy would spend every waking minute outside if allowed, so I'm sure he'll make up for that in no time. Right now, his favorite toys are a shovel and a dump truck. His dad showed him a big pile of dirt we want moved (maybe he'll make a little progress on it). For now, he and I have been digging and turning dirt in the front yard for our flowers. Today (if it doesn't rain), we'll go flower shopping.

First Transitions

2009-05-03T08:56:00.005-04:00

We are still trying to get our routine settled. We are still in transition mode. Mitchell seems to be doing great, Sydney still has some adjusting to do.

Mitchell
Mitchell is really a wonderful little boy. He is adjusting well, and does not seem to be going through a great deal of mourning for his old home (although I know it may be there). I made him a french memo board with pictures of his orphanage friends. He often looks through the pictures at bed time, but does not make a big deal about it (either happy or sad).

He is very stubborn and pushes his Daddy's buttons as much as possible. John and I had decided to take it really easy on the discipline at first, but if you know John, that is not easy for him. Mitchell responds very well to time out; however, he often "takes back" the agreement after timeout is over. For example, if he is in time out for touching the stereo, to get out of time out, he has to say "no touch stereo." John will say "all done time out," and they will give each other five. Mitchell will walk away and say "da touch stereo" in a very mocking tone.

Bedtime is another story. From the day they got home (remember John picked him up from the orphange while I stayed in the US). He insists on having me in bed with him. He will scream at the top of his lungs "mama, mama, mama" until I go in the room. Then he settles right down. At first he was tossing and turning and waking up multiple times during the night. Each time requiring me to be there. After two weeks, he still wants me there, but he is sleeping much better. Last night he woke up only once.

On Thursday, his new bed finally arrived. He was thrilled. On Saturday, we installed a new ceiling fan in his room. He points to himself and says "Mitchell bed?" or "Mitchell fan?" In fact, whenever there is anything new, it is "Mitchell ____?" When the mail comes, he asks if there is anything for him.

Sydney
Sydney is a 6-year-old little girl who has always had 110% of her mommy. We spent years preparing her for this adoption. We never talked about "our new child," it was always "your new sister or brother." She knew Mitchell would have no belongings when he arrived, and she would have to help him learn everything he needed to know. She was prepared to share all of her toys and to be "the big sister." Well, what that turned into is that she wants to be the third parent. She follows him around saying "nyet Mitchell," "do this Mitchell," "Mommy, Mitchell just ____." The result is that Mitchell really doesn't want to play with her. When she touches him, he fights her off. When it is bedtime, he says "da Mommy, nyet Sydney." It is really breaking her heart. She cries at any altercation, she is not doing well at school (getting notes from her teacher), and generally, she has regressed about two years in age.

On Friday night, we had "girl's night out." I told her we could do whatever she wanted. First, we went to the salon and I let her get her hair cut to her shoulders (she had wanted this for about two years now). After that, she wanted to go to Friendly's with the whole family.

I know this is all part of the transition. I am giving her extra love and have asked John to take it a little easy on her. I know this is hard when she is screaming at the top of her lungs (normally automatic time out). Her teachers are also being very understanding. Hopefully, this will pass very quickly.

In general though, we are a happy family of four. John goes back to work on Monday, I will probably stay home for the summer. So, we are ready to move on to the next phase.

Settling In

2009-04-23T13:42:00.010-04:00

This one is for my mother. She has been wondering why there has been no updates. Sydney stayed home from school on Monday and Tuesday, and Mitchell's new grandparents are here enjoying him. We are having lots of fun, and haven't had time for email, or much of anything other than playing and eating. Here are the highlights.

Mitchell loves to be outside. By the end of the day, pretty much every toy we own is out of the garage in the driveway. He is doing great on his bike (still with training weels), and also enjoys the tricycle, skooter, little cars, balls, badmitton, mama's car (yikes), and anything else that moves.

He and his sister are becoming fast friends. Sydney has a need to compete for our attention, but we're sure that will improve with time. We have also found some of her toys hidden under her bed. She loves following him around and being the big sister. Most of the time that sounds like "nyet Mitchell, nyet; Mommy, Mitchell is {fill in the blank}." In the end, she wants to be with him all of the time, and wants to sleep with him, which is working out fine.

We had a visit from a family of Canadian geese. They walked through the neighbors yard and over our driveway, right in front of Sydney and Mitchell. Sydney was amazed. Mitchell looked at them, but hardley took notice. Then I remembered the geese that lived right on the street in front of the orphanage. Perhaps the geese made him feel at home.

Mitchell is truly enjoying his grandparents. They have been here since his arrival (although not staying in our house). He talks to them, and plays with them, and when they leave he talks about them. He and Grandpa mimick each other and tease each other at the dinner table. At the end of the day, he reserves his hugs for Mommy, Daddy and Sydney. We did not encourage this, but see this as a very positive bonding sign.

In general, he is doing better that we could have dreamed of. He is independent, but listens well, and often asks permissions to do something (such as getting food out of the refrigerator).

We are home!

2009-04-20T09:00:00.001-04:00

The Flight
Mitchell and I arrived home around 11:15pm Saturday night. What a journey. He handled the first leg of our journey (Kyiv to JFK, NY) like a champ. He even napped for about an hour. We then had a 6 hour layover in JFK waiting for our flight home. I was unsuccessful in getting him to relax or nap during the layover and we both suffered for it (as did our plane companions). First, our flight was delayed about an hour, then once we boarded, we then waited on the runway for nearly another hour. Unfortunately, Mitchell had had enough and begin to sob... which turned into crying... which progressed to outright wailing/screaming. The way he was screaming, the passengers MUST have thought I was torturing him. Once we were airborn I removed his lap belt and he laid down to sleep (quiet at last). 15 minutes before landing, I had to rebuckle him and he resumed where he'd left off - wailing! I felt horrible for him. Once we landed, and his seatbelt was removed, I let him sleep for 15mins before making him exit the plane.

The Arrival

He was still groggy when we reached Carrie and Sydney. Sydney was hugging him and kissing him, but he was so tired he barely reacted. It took him until we got to baggage claim to really start to engage.

After arriving home, and casually inspecting the house, Mitchell and Sydney played for about 30 minutes. Just after midnight, I was exhausted and asked everyone to go to bed. Mitchell put on his pajamas, brushed his teeth, but wanted NOTHING to do with actually going to bed. Carrie stayed with him, while he engaged in another 20 minutes of wailing, until sleep finally came.

The First Day

We had heard that the children love to bathe when they come home, and Mitchell was no different. Jumping and playing like it was a pool!

Mitchell had been asking for a bicycle since we first saw one at a toy store in Okhtyrka. So I'm somewhat embarrased to admit that I was surprised he didn't know HOW to ride a bicycle once he got on one. I expected he may need training wheels, but basic peddling was a struggle (he kept peddling forward AND backward). After a few hours outside, trying ALL of the "riding" toys in the garage, he finally got to riding without slamming the brakes on each revolution of the pedals.

For dinner, Sydney wanted to go to Friendly's. Carrie had tried serving oatmeal for breakfast and chicken soup with grilled cheese for lunch; neither meal was to Mitchell's liking, so Carrie was willing to try eating out. Mitchell asked for a hot dog with broccoli (by pointing to the pictures), and ate the hot dog and all the pickles that came to our table. After we got home, they played some more (both inside and outside, due to intermittent rain).

When it was bed time, I asked Sydney to "help" by encouraging Mitchell to go bed WITH her (not intending it to mean in a single bed). She took the opportunity to climb into his bed and he laid down without incident. Here they are sleeping (sideways) in Mitchell's new bed.

Round-up
We are managing through communications with gestures, sign-language and trial/error. Sydney will stay home from school today, but we expect her to return to her normal routine tomorrow (or Wednesday).

The Boys are Coming Home

2009-04-17T09:20:00.002-04:00

The day was not at all uneventful. Mitchell's father died of TB about three years ago, and since then, Mitchell has had a few TB tests that were marked as "invalid." I am not sure exactly what that means, but John explained it that the test came back positive, and then negative. I believe it means that he has an inactive virus? He also has some type of hernia in his stomach that may require surgery, but we can deal with all of these issues once he gets home. They have been cleared to come home, and have the US Visa in hand. Hurray.

I spoke with Delta yesterday, and the best flight out leaves Kiev at 10:50 am (Ukrainian time) and arrives home around 10 pm (EDT). John will look for earlier flights today, but this flight is my bet. John is SOOO excited. I can tell he feels like a huge weight has been lifted. He just kept saying "I am coming home, we are outta here, I am done." It is so funny that if I search on this flight on the Delta web site, it says it cost close to $18,000. Hey, can that be a mistake on their site? Would anyone actually pay $18,000 for a flight (yes, it is coach)?

Home this Weekend?

2009-04-16T12:10:00.003-04:00

I got an email from John. He spoke to the US Embassy, and they promised to do everything they can to try to process all of the paperwork on Friday. I've also received emails and blog comments from a few families who said that they did it in one day. Maxim, Mitchell and John will travel to Kiev tonight by train, which will get them in Kiev at 6 am. The embassy said they will be open at 8 am. If all goes well, they will be on a plane for home on Friday night or Saturday morning. If not, we're looking at Tuesday or Wednesday. It would be so awesome to have my guys home for the weekend!

We have a Passport

2009-04-16T09:08:00.003-04:00

John was able to get Mitchell's Ukrainian passport today. This is such wonderful news and we feel so fortunate that we were able to get it so quickly. Like I posted earlier, it is my understanding that some regions do not have the ability to produce a passport in one day, and some families have to wait for it to be mailed.

I got a heads up from the Strainick family that the US Embassy is closed on Monday for Orthodox Easter. I believe it takes two days to do everything that needs to be done at the US Embassy, so Maxim and John have to decide if they will go to Kiev and start the processing on Friday (which of course would be my preference) or wait until Tuesday. Either way, it looks like they will be coming home mid- next week. Hurray.

Birth Certificate - resolved (for now)

2009-04-15T10:38:00.001-04:00

Thank you everyone who left advice for us yesterday. I was not able to get in touch with John last night to give him my thoughts, so they have changed the birth certificate to say Mitchell Tucci. My advice would have been to make his "first name" Mitchell Vadim, but it was already done by the time we spoke. My hope is that there will not be further issues down the road because his birth certificate now does not match the court decree. We are still hoping to have the passport completed this week so they can all travel to Kiev over the weekend and get a fresh start with the embassy on Monday morning.

John and Mitchell seem to be doing great together. They called this morning before Sydney got on the bus. We had them on speaker phone so we all could hear, and Mitchell said as clear as anything "Hello Sydney." It was priceless. Even her friends sometimes struggle with her name, calling her Cindy, or Synee. She says Privyet (hi), ya tebe lyu blue (I love you), and Paka (bye) to him. She thinks she can speak "Ukrainian" and they will be able to communicate perfectly when he gets home. She is in for a little shock. :)

Birth Certificate Issues

2009-04-14T14:26:00.002-04:00

I spoke to John today around 2 pm (EDT). There was an issue with the birth certificate. We did not know that it is Ukrainian LAW that if a child has a middle name, it has to be (father's name)-ovich. For example, Mitchell's birth name was Vadim Alexanderovich (meaning the son of Alexander). On his birth certificate, we had his name made "Mitchell Vadim." Today John found out that is an "invalid" name and the office in Sumy will not approve his new birth certificate. So tomorrow morning, they will go back to Okhtirka to get the birth certificate changed to "Mitchell Tucci." Then back to Sumy to get the birth certificate approved, and hopefully there will still be time in the day to start the passport process. It really seems that nothing is strait forward. Hopefully when we get him back in the US, we can have his official name changed back to Mitchell Vadim.

Besides that, John and Mitchell spent about 4 hours in the park today. John said he has never ending energy. When he falls and gets hurt, he doesn't bat an eye; however, when he doesn't get something he wants, he breaks down. Poor little guy: he is trying to figure out what all the rules (and boundaries) are. They do have Maxim with them most of the time, so when a translation is necessary, it is available. John has asked Maxim to speak only English when possible. John feels that Mitchell can understand what he is saying.

Hopefully, we will have better news tomorrow.

Gotcha

2009-04-13T21:24:00.004-04:00

The attached picture was sent to me by one of the families that adopted from Grun last summer. The smallest boy is Mitchell Vadim. This is most likely the youngest picture that we will ever have of him.

I spoke to John earlier today. He had a very busy day, but in the end, he successfully took custody of Mitchell. It was around 11 p.m. Ukraine time when John called, and Mitchell was still trying to fall to sleep. I got to speak to him and he sweetly said Privyet (hi) Mama and Paka (goodbye) to me. I could tell he was exhausted. John will have more details tomorrow.

Tomorrow, they will go to Sumy to get the new birth certificate certified and hopefully start the paperwork for the passport. From what I hear, the Sumy office offers expedited passports, so hopefully we will have some GREAT news tomorrow. For those of you who are not blog junkies, the wait for the passport can be the most frustrating part of the post-adoption process. It goes something like this 1) get the birth certificate 2) apply for the passport 3) wait for the passport (can be over a week) 4) get medical check and visa at the US Embassy 5) fly home.

Sydney and I are having a great time at home. She is enjoying having me home, plus having her Grandparents here (they are staying until Mitchell arrives home). We are counting the days until her brother will get off the plane.

Oh yeah, happy anniversary John (7 wonderful years).

Update #3 (from US)

2009-04-11T08:46:00.002-04:00

I am finished packing and soon to leave to pickup our son from across the world! What an exciting time. I continue to be quite anxious (not at all excited) about the solo flight back to Ukraine. I am excited to try a video chat between the two kids some afternoon in Ukraine (morning here in the states). I think the kids would get a lot of benefit from seeing each other - in live action.

As for things here, Mitchell's bedroom is nearly complete. Carrie is going to look for some additional items for in the room, but the bedding and his clothes are set (in his dresser and in his closet. He also has toys waiting for him (on top of the ones I'm taking to Ukraine). It's very exciting.

Hopefully I will be back in the states in (under) 2 weeks. It all depends on the passport. I have the necessary paperwork for the US Embassy and I hope that I have enough items to keep Mitchell entertained for the flight home.

Everyone's well wishes have been appreciated and I will try to keep the post current and fun while I have sole custody of Mitchell in Ukraine.

Update #2 (from US)

2009-04-08T09:00:00.005-04:00

We've made some more progress on the "preparations" front.

We have his new car seats (one for each vehicle) - although we wonder how he will respond to actually wearing a seatbelt, nevermind having the booster seat too! The new mattress & box spring arrive tomorrow. The bed, as mentioned, will take some time, so we just have a bed frame waiting in his room.

We found some bedding at a local store, but Carrie is leaning more towards ordering something online. I am more of the opinion that we buy "something for now" and let him pick the style after he is more acclimated. As I learned too well when we were in Ukraine, she is often right in these matters (hey, but a guy has to try, right?!)

I've also been looking for a decent kite, without much success. I will have to trek to other side of the city to visit Toys-R-Us to check their selection.

Next up - clearing out the storage from the closet in his room (crib, changing table, infant car seats, high chair, girls clothes... everything we couldn't throw away - before now).

I cannot believe my visit is already half over; but I'm excited about heading back to get Mitchell (although I have ZERO excitement about the airline travel!).

Update #1 (from US)

2009-04-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

We purchased a new bed for Mitchell yesterday. A little more money than I wanted to spend (that always seems to be the case), but it's a really nice bed. We didn't settle on a dresser or night table (yet) so for now we'll plan to continue using what's in that room.

Also, over the weekend, we picked up a Leapster Leapfrog 2 Learning System along with one game, a 10-pack of matchbox cars and some coloring/activity books for the flight home.

Today we are planning to look at bedding (boy's sheets and comforter).

This time at home is turning out to be just as we had hoped - dedicated time with Sydney, preparing her for the family changes, and making sure when Mitchell arrives at his new home/bedroom it will be accommodating.

Back in America

2009-04-02T23:58:00.003-04:00

Based on the timing of the 10-day wait and the timing of Sydney's spring break from elementary school, we decided that coming home for a week made sense. We arrived home at 11pm local time Thursday.

Carrie and I felt that one of us being in the U.S. preparing the home for Mitchell Vadim's arrival and one of us in Ukraine really is the best application of our efforts. Carrie will remain in the U.S. to get a boys bed and ensure his room is transformed from the "room waiting for a child" into Mitchell Vadim's personal space :-). I will be going back to Ohktirka to work with Max to complete the paperwork and ultimately take Mitchell home. Transportation should be easier in Ukraine (only two people in the back seat) plus I will have our smaller luggage (one adult and one child for 10days is less than two adults for 6 weeks).

We had a great visit with Mitchell Vadim on Wednesday at the orphanage. We brought him another "machina" (car) and he liked it (although he'd probably have been happier if we took it apart)! As before, he wanted to play with the balloons and the hand pump. In our scrapbook that Carrie prepared (photos of our home, family, etc) there is a photo of Sydney and me flying a kite in the park. This series of photos intrigued Mitchell in each of our visits, so having Max there, we finally understood why. Mitchell is unfamiliar with "a kite". I can imagine how excited he will be to come home and fly a kite for the first time.

Max helped to explain that Papa would be back in 10 days to pick him up. Happily, our visit lasted longer than usual, as we all new this would be a longer separation than at any point since our arrival.

To get back to Kyiv, Max booked us on an overnight train. What an experience. All told we left our apartment in Okhtirka at 9pm and arrived at our home 33 hours later!
In a nutshell:
- drive to/wait for train (1 hour)
- train ride (8 hours)
- food at McDonald's, taxi to airport, wait for departure (4.5 hours)
- flight to NY (10 hours)
- layover in NY (5.5 hours)
- delay takeoff and flight from NY (3 hours)
- wait for baggage claim and drive home (1 hour)
- being back in America - PRICELESS (sounds like that, though :-D)

Having made the trip twice now (both 10 hour direct flights between NY & Kyiv) I am dreading the return with Mitchell. Carrie and I believe that having more legs to the flight will be easier for Mitchell than to sit on one plane for 10 hours. Delta was great in getting us affordable transportation on 24 hours notice, I hope the same holds when I am returning with Mitchell!

Mitchell Vadim Tucci

2009-03-31T11:16:00.006-04:00

It is with great pleasure that we (finally) introduce to you the newest member of our family.

Born: October 29, 2003
Court Date: March 31, 2009

more pics...

2009-03-31T11:15:00.001-04:00

We have our court date!!!

2009-03-27T11:20:00.008-04:00

We've been remiss as of late with Mitchell Vadim updates due to our focus on finalizing our court date. So let me start with court information and then I'll provide updates regarding Mitchell Vadim.

We negotiated agreements on all of the requested items and have our court date scheduled for 3pm on Tuesday March 31st. We are fully expecting this to be our only court date and for our 10-day waiting period to begin! Finally :-)

As we wrote, we took a mental health day for Monday and then we lost Tuesday initiating our paperwork for the courts. Wednesday we visited Mitchell Vadim and took him for a walk down the street. This time, knowing there is toy store to the left, we went to the right! It was a great visit. Maxim helped us introduce significantly more English and Mitchell Vadim gave his first real effort to repeat the words. We weren't so concerned with him understanding them yet, just getting him to acknowledge that there are new sounds he needs to learn was a significant accomplishment. After walking for a while, we stopped at the orphanage's playground where Mitchell road the slide, climbed the monkeybars and generally had a good time. At one point, Maxim translated Mitchell Vadim's words to us as something like "I love playing like this Papa."

Thursday we went to the orphanage alone intending to practice counting and colors. As incentive we brought M&Ms for the exercises. Initially we struggled to get Mitchell Vadim to leave the candy for counting (instead of stuffing it in his mouth), but we eventually made some progress. Unfortunately, one of his friends brought him a toy whistle (we don't know if he asked for it, or not) and we couldn't get him to stop blowing the whistle. With that distraction, we couldn't make progress on numbers (chees-la), so we decided to let him play with the whistle and left after a shorter visit than we would have liked.

Today, Friday, was by far the best visit we've had related to his English! We again brought the M&Ms plus we brought a package of balloons and a hand pump. Mitchell sat patiently while we practiced counting in English, numbers 1-5, across 4 colors of M&Ms. Each time he completed the counting, he got to eat the M&Ms. Great success - No grabbing and no frustration today!

Next Carrie showed him the balloons and the pump and he loved them! I was surprised that he selected the yellow balloons as his apparent favorite, solely playing with those balloons. He would tell us the colors in Ukrainian, we would tell him them in English and he would make a true effort to repeat the colors as we spoke them.

Later we gave him some of the crackers that he's liked in the past, but had to take them away when he repeatedly kicked the laptop case. Just before we left, he wanted to get the crackers back and used signs to ask for them (this is a big improvement, in the past he'd simply get frustrated that we didn't understand).

We can tell when he's done practicing English or Sign Language when he starts mocking my speech (saying baa baa baa) and mashing his hands together. Today we practiced for well over an hour, better than we expect from a 5-year old boy drawn to the outdoors and dreaming of riding in the car [masheena].

We are excited about this new found interest in English and it gives us hope that his focus and communication will advance quickly once he solely has English around him!

Okhtirka and Grun

2009-03-26T07:04:00.001-04:00

Ordinary or Extra-ordinary?

2009-03-25T10:42:00.003-04:00

This post has been edited at the request of our facilitator. It was originally about some unexpected court fees and the need for two separate court dates. My original post requested your experience and advice around this process. I have the original post if someone would like to better understand our situation. I can email the original post to you if you contact me at carrietucci at yahoo dot com.

Russian English

2009-03-25T05:06:00.003-04:00

This morning Maxim has some more paperwork to do, so we will be going to the orphanage later this afternoon. We have some time to spend this morning in the Internet café. I thought I would talk a little bit about English in Ukraine. While there are some people in Kiev who speak English, there are not here in Okhtirka. According to Maxim, it is a requirement for school age children to learn English, but not many of them are fluent. We often see the kids (pre-teen to young teen) in the Internet café listening to our conversations, or looking over our shoulders at the computer. John gets a little bothered, but I encouraged him to be friendly about it. There are many English words on signs, and I wonder how many people can actually read them. The attached file shows the “loosely” translated English that is on Mitchell’s new spring jacket. It says:

OVEMBER 25th - DECEMBER 3rd
Sutting up Ingene
As it has awayays been
And always will

0.46%: point four six per cent

I thought it was cute.

And here is the "Language Sandwich" that we spoke about before. In Russian, the word for language and tounge are the same. We have had a lot of laughs about this. Also notice the "Beef is juicy" and the "Pork is juicy" on the menu.

7 Things (M. Cyrus)

2009-03-24T10:25:00.004-04:00

With Max in Kiev on Monday and us in need of a personal day (yesterday marked a full month that we've been in Ukraine), Carrie and I decided to spend Monday "just the two of us". It was a very good day. We got a much needed mental health day from the adoption process and, as was posted yesterday, we received good news that our SDA paperwork (scheduled for a Wednesday completion) was done two days early.

Today (Tuesday) Max officially submitted our adoption application to the local court while we have been stuck waiting for the court to request our signatures on some of the documents. As such, we had to skip miss our visit with Mitchell Vadim today. We are hopeful he doesn't think we have abandoned him.

Since we have no additional updates, we wanted to post a "fun" list of ...

Things we miss from back home:

7. People smiling at us when we smile at them (c'mon a smile is free, after all)
6. Driving my own a$$ from point A to point B (just get up and go)
5. Unlimited access to the Internet (never realized how cutoff you can feel without it)
4. The chiropractor (and we still have weeks to go)
3. Warm / dry weather (we had three inches of fresh snowfall overnight)
2. Bottomless cups of coffee (or water or soda or anything)
1. Non-smoking restaurants (how about if people just stopped after 2 cigarettes instead of 22?)

Of course, we miss our beautiful daughter more than any of these things!!!

Clothes Shopping

2009-03-23T07:59:00.006-04:00

Yesterday we had the pleasure of taking Mitchell Vadim into Okhtirka for some shopping. First we took him to our favorite restaurant (the only one with an English menu). We were pleased to see that we will have NO problem feeding him. The boy will eat anything. His food arrived last, so he started out eating the parsley off my plate. Then he proceeded with the olives, tomatoes, and then ate a good portion of my chicken before his chocolate pancakes arrived (pancakes here are more like crepes in the US). He also drank two full glasses of warm milk. After that, he had to go to the bathroom many times which is a big problem for us in Okhtirka. We have not yet found a public bathroom that I will use (if you’ve been to Ukraine, you know exactly what I mean). The whole time we were eating, he kept saying what sounded to us like magazine, magazine. Maxim told us that is Russian means shopping; that he wants to go shopping, so that is what we did - shopped, and shopped, and shopped. We still did not buy him shoes, but after a few hours of shopping, he was clearly done listening, so we called it a day. We will have many more opportunities to take him shopping.

So how was it, really, to have him for the day? Well, let’s just say that when we first met him our impression was that he is a sweet, shy, calm, small little boy. We now know that his is a normal, rambunctious little boy. When you buy him something, everything is “daaa” (for that matter, when you tell him “nyet,” everything is “daaahhh,” almost in a mocking way). If you ask him to pick between two things, he says dva (two – meaning he wants both). We were going to buy him a play telephone (see yesterday’s post), but he decided he wanted a gun. His daddy said “nyet,” but Mitchell just kept saying gun (in Ukrainian) over and over. He ended up with the phone and a transformer. John has started calling him Mitchell (instead of Mitchell Vadim) and he made it clear that Mitchell is not his name. He seems not to have much interest in learning English words. After much coaxing from Maxim, we got him to say yes, no, and more milk. Maxim told him (at our request) that when he goes home with us, he will only have English and he needs to try the words. His response was that he IS trying. It isn’t much progress, but at least we are communicating.

A few people have asked about the size of his clothes. His Aunt Wendy wants to knit him a sweater. The sizes here are all different (both from the sizes we see in the US and apparently from consistency between the clothes manufacturers). He tried on the clothes in this picture, so we know they fit. The pants appeared a little snug. We asked if he needed a bigger size, but the shopping clerk insisted these were the right size for him (Mitchell also had on long underwear).

Here are the dimensions:
Shirt: size 104
18 inches from collar to end of sleeve
13 inches from shoulder/top of sleeve to end of sleeve
11 inches from arm pit to end of sleeve
15 inches from collar down to shirt bottom
13 inches across the bottom of waist

Pants: size 19
9 inches across waist (elastic waist)
22 inches from waist to pant leg bottom
14 inches inseam

Great news on the paperwork front today: Maxim is currently in Kiev to process our application for adoption. We were expecting it to be complete on Wednesday, but we heard today that he has it. Tomorrow he will be able to request our court date, and that could not happen too soon!

A Day of Tears

2009-03-21T08:46:00.003-04:00

Today was a very nice day in Okhtirka. We got to the orphanage and the teachers suggested that we take Mitchell outside. So he got bundled all up, and down the road we went. We let him pick the direction, and he knew exactly where he was taking us. We see the town, Grun (pronounced Groon) as a dirt road with some farms and shacks on it. Little did we know what we were in for. He took us down the road and directly into a little general store. We asked him what he wanted inside, and he told us a telephone (luckily we had Maxim with us today). We asked who he wanted to call, and he told us Anton (or some similar name). So we told him that we have a phone, but we don't have Anton's phone number. He insisted on going inside, and we insisted that we were not. This is where the sad tears started. We convinced him it was time to leave, so he ran away. It was really a big scene with us trying to explain to him if he didn't listen, we couldn't stay outside. He put his head down and pouted as we turned back. Then, we saw a child coming out of a driveway with a bunch of quite large toys. Imagine, there was a toy store in the back of a farm building. We were amazed (and not thrilled). We tried to tell him that he would be getting on a plane and would not be able to take the toys. More tears. On the way back to the orphanage, we saw quite a few people who all knew his name. They all tried to console him. When we got back to the orphanage, we saw the Director. He explained to us that it is important to him to show all his friends that he has a mama and papa who will buy him whatever he wants. This isn't turning out the way he imagined it. By the way, we did take him a banana and juice and candy to give all of his friends today. We are so torn between taking him gifts every day, and not setting that expectation. We get advice on both sides.

So, we agreed that tomorrow, we will take him for a ride into Okhtirka and take him to lunch. That didn't seem to cheer him up, but we are hoping it is a wonderful day. We will buy him what clothes we will need to get him back to the US, and of course, we will find him a toy phone (I hope that is what he has in mind). There is still ice here, so we will need to buy him warm clothes, but it will be early summertime weather when we get home. We saw some warm spring jackets today, but I can just imagine the caretakers at the orphanage not wanting to let him go in such a light jacket. They REALLY like to bundle them up.

We heard today that we will get our application for adoption back from the SDA on Wednesday. We can submit it to the courts on Thursday, and it is anyone's guess on when our court date will be (hopefully soon).

Cars and Velcro

2009-03-20T06:50:00.002-04:00

We had a very interesting visit today. Maxim is in Kiev today submitting our application for adoption with the SDA, so we were on our own as far as translation. No one at the orphanage speaks English. When we arrived, we just happened to run into the Director at the front door. He told us (through our charades game that we play) that Vadim is sick today, but we were allowed to go to his room. He and another boy were in their beds, but when we arrived, he got out of bed and we had the playroom to ourselves.

We played, and Mitchell Vadim ate his daily banana. We had a little disagreement with his juice. We did not want him to make a mess of the room, but he wanted to carry the empty juice box around and spray the remaining drops all round. We believe he knows the word "trash," but ignored our pleas to leave the juice box in the trash pile.

Finally, he decided that he wanted to take his toy truck apart. He easily communicated to papa that he wanted a screwdriver, and somehow knew there was one in the bag. I encourage John to take the truck apart with him. Little did we know that he would insist on taking every little piece of plastic, or wire, or anything that moved off the truck body. John was freaking out a little (those of you who know John know exactly what I am talking about). He kept pointing to the pile of doors and plastic bumpers on the floor saying "trash, it's all trash." Mitchell Vadim kept pointing to the pile on the floor saying the same thing over and over, but of course, we had no idea what he was trying to get across to us. John would keep saying ya nye penny-maiya (Russian) ya nye roh-sah-mee-ah (Ukrainian) for "I don't understand." Then Mitchell would look at me and say, mama, then repeat the same words. I would repeat them back, Mitchell would say "da," and I would say "da" with a smile. John was getting so frustrated with both of us.

After the car incident, Mitchell brought a little friend in the room to help put the truck back together. It ended up just some wheels with a red body still on it, but hey, it worked. The little boy was trying to set a little stuffed animal on top of the car, but it kept falling off. John got out his velcro (again, if you know John, you know about his velcro addiction), and velcroed the toy to the top of the car. Well, that was it. Mitchell shared his papa's fascination with velcro, and decided it was his. But of course, papa was not going to stand for that. Here was the show down. My two boys, fighting over the velcro. Needless to say, Mitchell ended up in tears. One of his caretakers came in to console him and to take him to the nurse to get his temperature taken. It was not the best ending to the day, but we got hugs and kisses along with his salty tears.

Play Day

2009-03-19T08:42:00.004-04:00

Max showed up in "the hole" today and provided some hope that the delays we were informed of yesterday, may be able to be abbreviated (in that we thought we lost a whole week and he thinks it may be just a few days). This lightened our mode first thing this morning.

It was another snowy day today. Some of the largest flakes I've ever seen. We arrived at the orphanage, went upstairs and Mitchell's caregiver swapped him out of his indoor clothes into some outdoor clothes, with a jacket and a hat. We figured, "OK, we are going outside to play, fine by me." Unfortunately, Mitchell had other plans... Out the front door, down the walkway and to the driveway - we followed. Then he opens the taxicab door and jumps INTO the cab. I try (unsuccessfully) to explain that we are NOT leaving the orphanage today. Luckily, with Max back, we were finally able to get that point across. Mitchell was so sad.

He did start a snowball fight (although I solely RECEIVED snowballs, I didn't throw any) while Mom took some pictures. This went on for about 15 minutes until he slipped in a puddle and sank his gloves in the water. Inside we went.

He was so sad that we truly weren't leaving he started to cry. His friends tried to console him, then Carrie and I tried - all unsuccessfully. His caregiver emptied the room of the other children so we could have some "family time".

Carrie advised that she and I play and Mitchell can join when he's ready; so we did and he eventually came onto the floor to play with us. We gave him his banana (we've brought one each day) and he again wanted to dig through the computer bag to see what ELSE we brought him (how quickly they learn). Today's treat wasn't a too, but some breadsticks. He ate one and then took off. He and I had another "No"/"Yes" discussion (it was too fun and too cute to call it an argument - and we are so happy he feels comfortable enough with us to "test" the limits). Obviously it will be some time before anything related to discipline comes into play, but as strict as I am (and as well behaved as Sydney is) - its a learning experience for me to allow some leeway where traditionally, I would have been more emphatic.

For a little while he and I ran around in the dining room/area. At one point I lifted him to the ceiling. Afterwards, Max explained that he was telling me "I'm scared", while I had him elevated. I tried to relay that I wouldn't do that anymore - but I was unsuccessful.

Oh yeah, twice while we were playing in the snow, he ran to Carrie yelling "MaMa, MaMa" when I would get too close to tickling or catching him. We appreciated the significance of that action. When we were leaving, he was making one last plea to go in the car with us and after I told him no a few times, he turned and ran to "MaMa" for consoling and a second opinion.

Thankfully Carrie had purchased new (WARM) boots yesterday, just in time for today's snow and sleet. We were both happy that her feet were (finally) warm :-)

All in all a very fun day.

More Medical Exams (and a delay)

2009-03-18T08:00:00.003-04:00

Just a quick post to say that we spent the morning with Mitchell Vadim working to get a single (or a few) more medical tests finalized. He was really comfortable with us today... asking for us to buy him juice from a stand in the doctor's area to "arguing" with me while we waited in the hallway: I would tell him to stay where Carrie and I were standing and he would try to walk away... I would tell him "No" and he would reply "Yes" (well, in Ukrainian - but you get the idea).

We brought him a new toy truck which he seemed to like. He really enjoyed the pretzels he found while digging through the computer bag. We also got to see more of his personality today. He was unwilling to just sit in the car, on the ride back to the orphanage. He wanted to kneel on the seat (facing backwards) looking out the rear window or stand between the two front bucket seats. He would hold on tight when I would tell him to sit while helping him to do so. He talked to us more than he had at any other time. We've been using sign language with him, and once he got his juice, I signed "SIT" before saying it and he obeyed. We tried to teach him "eat" and "drink" too... we'll find out at our next visit if those signs were understood and remembered.

We are flying solo today and tomorrow, while Max is back in Kiev to complete some documents and we are still in "the hole". Denis has gone back home for some rest and visits with his family.

Unfortunately, we just got word from Max that a stamp is missing from one of the forms he took back to Kiev. Max will have to return to "the hole", get the stamp, travel back to Kiev and then get the necessary adoption papers. Between travel back and forth AND the processing days for SDA - this seems it will cause a full week of delay. So instead of submitting something this week (Friday?) it will be at least sometime next week (Thursday?). This is absolutely devastating news to us - as we were holding out hope of being home during Sydney's school break (occuring early in April).

Medical Exams

2009-03-17T07:18:00.001-04:00

We have selected a name for “our boy.” We had three names we were debating, and given his personality and size (pint-size), our choice is Mitchell Vadim (vah-deem). Today was our first day with him since our initial meeting, and we continued to call him Vadim. We think tomorrow we will start to integrate Mitchell.

We had a really nice day today. When we arrived at the orphanage, Mitchell’s groupa was outside. He saw us get out of the car, and when we waved, about half his group waved back. When we approached his group, about five of the kids approached for hugs and affection. This is very hard for us because they we want to hug all of them, but we also realize that we need to put Mitchell first. John took his hands, and he looked up at John and gave a very sweet smile. The teacher (seeing all of the children swarming around John and me) told the group to move on and encouraged (Mitchell) Vadim to take his Papa’s hand. Mitchell put his hand up for John to take, and they followed the group.

We went into the office with Mitchell and gave him a toy car that we bought for him. He loved it and played for quite a while. We gave him a banana, then a coloring book, and Maxim came in and helped us translate colors. He is still very quiet, but is very capable. After a while, we sensed he was getting bored, so I asked if we could take him outside. I was helping him with his jacket as he was speaking to the women in the room. He grabbed his car and while he was running out of the room, Maxim enthusiastically told us to follow him. He ran down the hall and up the stairs, with John and me running behind wondering what was happening. When we got upstairs, he was showing his “machina” to all of his friends. We all ended up in the play room again (like our last visit), but there was much more interaction between him and us. He definitely understands that we are his new mama and papa.

We have been thinking of him as a delicate little guy, but watching him play today, we know he is all boy. He runs, grabs (we’ll work on this later), and can even break dance. We were amazed.

Shortly, a caretaker came in the room and said (more like charades) that it was time for him to eat, so we said goodbye (he gave us both a kiss on the cheek) and we went downstairs.

We didn’t know where to go at this point, so we went outside to enjoy the sunshine. We saw some turkeys in the street guarding their territory and hung out for a while. Maxim, Denis, John and I were all invited to lunch and then coffee with the director and learned a little more about Mitchell. The most interesting thing is that he was labeled as “developmentally delayed” so he could stay in this particular orphanage, near his mother. So that is right, we have a healthy little boy, who seems perfect to us.

After coffee, Maxim and the Director focused on the paperwork and later told us that the paperwork at the orphanage was not up to date, and there was missing documentation. This means our paperwork and formal request for the adoption will be delayed. We say we understand, and have had to “redo” our paperwork multiple times. So back to Okhhhtihhrka we go. Maxim met with the Inspector in the afternoon and thankfully managed to get all the paperwork we needed complete (whew).

Tomorrow we will drive to the orphanage, pick up Mitchell and a nurse, drive them back to Okhhhtihhrka for the necessary medical tests, and then take them back to the orphanage. Maxim will go on to Kiev to file our adoption request, and Denis will take a little break from us. He will be going back home for a few weeks (until after our court date and waiting period). We will definitely miss him, and his services. While Maxim is in Kiev, we will be using a taxi service to get to and from the orphanage and the Internet café. We will be looking forward to Maxim’s return on Friday for some much needed support (reading menus, communicating with Mitchell, hearing someone other than John talk ).

New Apartment

2009-03-15T23:05:00.002-04:00

The town we are in is very small; we jokingly call it “the hole” both because Carrie and I cannot say the name correctly and because it is a mud pit, due to the abundance of natural areas overlaid with melting snow.

Today we moved from the motel, with the Internet café next door, to a new apartment. It was the second place we looked at - this was the first time we declined an apartment that Max has offered to us. Before I describe the second apartment, let me tell you about the apartment we declined.

We follow the landlord to the first apartment, get out of the car and trek across 20-30 feet of mud pit to enter the ground floor of the cat urinal… err… I mean apartment building (bet you can guess the scent of the stairwell/hallway). After walking up 4 or 5 flights of stairs we enter the apartment. I am the last in, so I am partially in the doorway, when Carrie gives me a look of “oh man” – kind of a cross between surprise and shock. The owner motions for me to enter too, so I step past Carrie and into the kitchen, err, umm, bathroom. Yes, the kitchen AND the bathroom were one room!

You enter, and on your immediate right is a normal toilet while on your immediate left, is a dorm-room sized refrigerator. Next to the refrigerator is a lavish whirlpool bathtub with jets and a lounge area with room enough for two (or three). Across from the bathtub is a 2-burner stove and the kitchen sink. Yes, you could take a leisurely bath while frying up some eggs for breakfast (or boiling water for vereneke). In the next room were two ratty old loveseat couches and a TV. We joked about the kitchen, before we realized there was NO bed. The owner explained that either one or both of the loveseats open to a bed.

Max and Denis could tell that we weren’t intrigued, so Max informs that there is another apartment available, here in the hole. We offer to check it out.

After lunch, we head over to the second apartment. It’s actually a house, not an apartment complex. There is no couch and some of the construction appears to be brand new. Most of the furnishings and appliances appear to be hand-me-downs from two generations past. We agreed try it out, with the understanding if we couldn’t handle it, we’d look elsewhere. This place has no couch, but does have a separate bathroom and kitchen… although the kitchen doesn’t have a sink nor a refrigerator. We were told they are to be installed the next day (Monday).

The beds (they are two twin beds, pushed together) in this place are extremely old and soft, imagine sleeping in a padded coffin – as soon as you sit or lie on them, you aren’t going anywhere easily. The bedroom has a tiny old table supporting a brand new TV. The bathroom, as is the theme in the place, has some new items (like the shower and tankless water heater) and some old (like the sink - where we wash dishes - and the radiator, and toilet).

We are getting more used to this place as we stay here. If they eventually install a refrigerator and sink in the kitchen, fix the poor caulking around the shower, and we can find a way to be comfortable in the bed, this may be bearable for the 3-4 weeks we are to remain here.
We are 30 minutes from the orphanage, so while Max and Denis aren’t here, we’ll be Taxi patrons. The apartment owner has offered to schlep us back and forth to the internet café and even to wash our clothes (since this apartment has no laundry machine and “the hole” has no apparent Laundromat facilities). We aren’t entirely comfortable with either offer, but we have limited, or no, other choice.

We hold out hope that, like child birth, this will be a distant (and forgotten) pain in just a few short months.

The Orphanage

2009-03-15T09:11:00.001-04:00

We are settled into our hotel. I want to take this time to tell you what it is really like here, without sugar coating it, then we can move on. We have not seen our boy since our initial meeting on Friday, and will not see him again until tomorrow.

The Town
Okhtirka - the "kh" sound comes from deep in your throat like you have phlegm. It sounds like ahk-hhhh-teer-ka. John and I have stopped saying it because when we do, Denis and Maxim can't contain their laughter.

We are staying in a hotel room that is clean and has very friendly receptionists. One of them has a daughter who speaks English who stopped by to talk to us and tell us we can wash clothes for 10 grivna (about $1.25). That is a huge relief. We are not sure if we will stay here, but we are content with the room. The only disadvantage is we can't cook. There is a small refrigerator and an electric tea pot.

We are very lucky to have a small store next door where we can buy bananas, juice, water, cookies and candy. Next to that is an Internet cafe.

Here's where the story starts to deteriorate. The Internet cafe is usually full of boys age 10 and up. At our first visit (Friday night), the younger boys were very friendly and accomodating. Then the older boys arrived. We are quite a spectacle - us English-speaking people. They peer over our shoulders to see what we are doing, which makes us very uncomfortable. On our first day, they got quite loud and the woman who runs the place made some of them leave. We are sure they were talking about us. When Maxim arrived, he agreed that we were drawing attention. When we left, some of the boys went outside to watch where going. That made us a little scared. We were actually going to try to find a place to eat (it was dark out). We found a nice place that was not too expensive, hurray, but no English menu. On the way back, Maxim pointed to a small bar that was near our room. He advised us not to go there. John asked if it was a strip club. Maxim said no "it is where aggressive men go to hit each other." I asked if it is a gay bar. He said no, they go to fight. Soooo, we have a fight club next to our room. Needless to say, when Maxim and Denis leave, we are still a little unsure of how we will do on our own.

Restaurants
Yesterday we had a big snow storm. It was wet and slushy and about four (or more) inches deep. We drove around looking for a place to eat... and around, and around. We stopped in a place that said restaurant, and when we walked in (and I am NOT exaggerating) it smelled like an out house. Maxim looked in and said they had a party booked there, but I really didn't want to eat there anyway. We finally found a pretty nice restaurant with an "English" menu. They had a "language" sandwich. Maxim said they meant a tounge sandwich. There were more instances like that thorughout the menu (pork that is moist, red is the caviar, potato of the boiled, butter is the olive (we think this is olive oil)). We sat for quite a while hysterically reading the menu.

The Orphanage
City Grun' (pronounced groon)
No pictures yet, and I'm not quite sure how to describe it, except incredibly sad. We drove for about half an hour down a small road that was littered with big potholes. Denis had to swerve around them for most of the trip. There is nothing but fields on the road. Because the snow is melting, the orphanage literally looked like a mud pit. I almost dreaded getting out of the car (in my high-heeled shoes, sigh). There are some small houses around the orphanage, but no place for us to stay near by. No hotels or apartments, no restaurants. We didn't see stores of any kind.

When we arrived, some of the bigger boys gathered around the car to watch. Maxim got a small toy out of the trunk and gave it to one of them, we heard him say "speciba" (thank you). When we entered the orhpanage, I saw the director wipe his muddy feet on a small towel at the entrance. Then after walking through the door, there was a child's shirt on the floor where he wiped his feet again. I followed. When we walked in, there was an incredibly foul smell. We later decided they were having cabbage and possibly fish for lunch (whew). In the entrance way, there were multiple children (about age 10) standing in the hallway watching us. I can't explain the feeling that went through my mind when looking into the eyes of these children. What did I see: hope, curiosity, desperation? We walked into an office (with a large oval table) and sat down with the inspector, orphanage director, nurse (who had on a paper chef's hat), Maxim and us. We talked briefly about our boy. He is healthy, and has only "slight development delays." Both of his parents have passed and he has no siblings. He has only been in the oprhanage since 2007. They asked if we wanted to move forward (basically ensuring we were serious about adopting him), before they would bring him in the room. They also asked if we would be willing to keep the director informed of his progress, showing us a scrapbook of children previously adopted from the orphange. We explained that we were interested in adopting him and that we would honor their request for regular updates, so they went to get him.

Our Boy
His primary caregiver walked him in the room. I was taken by his size. He is five years old and about the size of a four-year-old. He is very shy and was looking at the floor. They sat him down at the table, and no one said a word. He looked down. They encouraged him to say privyet (hi) and he did without hesitation. John introduced us, and he looked at us. We gave him a small coloring book and a box of crayons, which he loved, and spent the rest of the time with his head down coloring (he is excellent - stayed completely in the lines, very neat). We proceeded to ask them questions like what does he like to eat, what does he like to play, does he know his colors (which his caregiver quizzed him on with the crayons - so sweet), can he write his name (he cannot). Maxim later told us they asked him if he liked us (he said "da") and if he wanted to go live with us (he said "da"). Eventually, the caregiver said it was time for him to get ready for lunch, and they left the room.

The director then offered to take us on a tour of the orphage. While it seems like a dark and dingy place, the children are very well taken care of. He told us (through Maxim) that there are almost as much staff as there are children. They have school with many disciplines. Maxim told us that children in Ukraine do not start school until they are 6-7 and they are not expected to know the alphabet when they enter school. That could be why he cannot spell his name. On our tour, we came across his room with his three roommates and him in it. They came out to meet us and all wanted hugs. Like I said, our boy is very shy, and he stood and watched while the other kids smothered us in hugs. There was an adorable little girl who hugged John and asked him to please take her (Maxim translated later). John later asked the Inspector if we could adopt her too. She immediately knew the girl, and said it was only the SDA who can make the referral. We took the kids in a classroom, and the Director agreed to let me take some pictures, which the kids totally enjoyed. They obviously had seen a digital camera before, because immediately after I took the picture, they all ran to the camera to see. Imagine four little hands all trying to push all the buttons. Sorry, the Director asked us not to post the pictures of the children.

So, we had very little time to play with our boy. Most of the time was spent with all of the chilren in that room, and because he is so shy, we had very little interaction. The director did continue to show us a few of the rooms (exercise, classroom, other bedrooms) and the children followed us, running and playing (it was good to see him running,jumping and playing - he was simply perfect!) We are very much looking forward to spending some one on one time with him this week. We have almost decided on a name. Once we do, we will start using his name instead of "our boy."

First visit plans

2009-03-14T04:18:00.005-04:00

We are scheduled to visit today at 11am.

This town received a good snowfall overnight, so we are not sure what that will do to our plans (where we are from in the U.S., the entire area would be closed due to this much snow, but in Ukraine, perhaps it makes no difference at all :-).

We stopped at a local market and picked up some bananas this morning. According to Carrie the children love fresh fruit. We are also planning to bring a "Thank You" gift to the orphanage director, too.

We are so excited - but at the same time struggling to decide on a name change. His Ukrainian name doesn't translate to an equivalant in English.

Thanks to EVERYONE for the prayers, kind words and support!

---- UPDATE (4:30 pm) ----

Due to the snow (which is still falling) we could not get to visit the orphanage today and the snow seems to have knocked out the phones at the orphanage so we could not contact anyone there to let them know.

There are no visits on Sundays, so we will not be going back to visit until Monday. We are saddened by this development but understand that it is beyond our control.

(Not in) Sumy

2009-03-13T13:04:00.002-04:00

We are in a small town in the middle of nowhere that we can neither pronounce nor spell. Although we were told we were going to Sumy, we are actually well outside of the city. We have no easy Internet access (we are at a cafe now, but we may be moving to a location further than this as things progress).

On to more important things, we hope we met our future son today. He is adorable, likes to color and paint and melted our hearts (as did all of the children from his "groupa"). We are going back tomorrow to visit and we will be moving forward with his adoption.

We need to leave, but we will do our best to post as often as we can. Thanks to everyone for their praires and good wishes. HURRAYY!!!!

Off to Sumy

2009-03-12T03:19:00.005-04:00

Maxim called this morning to inform us that our boy is available for adoption. He is in an orphanage in Sumy (pronounced soo-me), which is located in the northeast part of Ukraine. We think it will be a 4-5 hour drive. Maxim and Denis will pick us up around 4. We still need to go to the SDA to pick up our referral at 5, and then we can hit the road. We do not have an appointment with the inspector yet, so let's hope for Friday.

I would like to also thank everyone for your comments, encouragement and prayers. We do not respond to every one, but every one is appreciated. It has been a very rough two weeks for us, and all of your comments help us feel somewhat connected to home.

Second SDA Appointment

2009-03-11T14:30:00.006-04:00

Finally, today, we had our second appointment with the SDA. The woman sitting with us, that works for the SDA, must have paged through between 6 and 8 folders of kids and each folder must hold 8-12 children.

Prior to our SDA appointment Carrie and I discussed with Maxim some of the conditions that would be too hard to absorb into our existing family (for example, FAS or epilepsy). Once inside, Maxim shared that brief list with the woman from the SDA, limiting some of the children's files to a quick review and then a turn of the page - with no word to us as to why they were being passed. We feel that helped us to have such a large number of children from which to choose. Oddly, both boys and girls sometimes had the most vague health issues, things like: blood, brain or nervous system "disease" - without any more details provided.

After spending about 40 minutes paging through the girls, we selected 2 as possible daughters. With our remaining 20 minutes, we moved onto the boys and chose 3 possible sons. We struggled to choose between the children. Ultimately we selected a five year old boy and asked for a referral.

Strangely, we were told he may not actually be available. Of the three boys, two were very similarly diagnosed (calm demeanor with mild delays) and only 3 months apart in age. Since the boy we selected may not be available, they offered to provide a referral for the other boy, if needed. Since we had struggled to select just one of the children, we were content to allow availability to play its part in our destination, and our family's future. Ultimately, our referral will be for a five-year-old boy, but we don't yet know which one.

Regardless of their selection, we will be leaving Kiev tomorrow afternoon and hoping to have our appointment with the local inspector on Friday - in whichever city we end-up. We will try our best to have internet available to us for regular updates!

American Comforts

2009-03-10T02:43:00.004-04:00

It was so nice to finally meet the Turners yesterday (and hey, look, our pictures are on their blog). We had been in communications for a long time waiting for this trip, and we ended up travelling to Kiev just a day apart from each other. It was such a relief to sit and relax, and talk about what we have been through so far. We are both hopeful that we will have better luck on our 2nd appointments tomorrow. The Turners know when their appointment is, but we have still only heard that it is 99% sure that we actually have an appointment on Wednesday. Maxim is suppose to call the SDA today to confirm.

John and I had been craving some familiar food, so we ended up at TGI Fridays. It was a familiar atmosphere, with a familiar menu. We all ordered good-ole American comfort food. Jim Bob had a steak and the rest of us had chicken sandwiches. Jim Bob asked for A-1 steak sauce, and our waitress seemed momentarily confused, but they did have Worcestershire sauce for him. They also brought ketchup for the table without being asked. The fries were great, lightly seasoned. Bacon in Ukraine, yuck. It was very thick and lightly fried. It was like a slab of lard on the sandwich. We all left it on the plate. The chicken breast was very thin. As Americans, we are used to really big chicken breasts. All in all, a nice relaxing meal. We left the restaurant just before dusk, and we were all able to walk back to our apartments.

Earlier, we had taken the subway (Metro Rail) to Independence Square to meet them. John and I have both lived and worked in Manhattan, so neither of us are a stranger to subways. However, we had some serious challenges. If there are multiple train lines, we have no idea how to tell if you are on the correct line. After finding our train (luckily our boarding location had only the one line), we had no idea how to tell which way to head (east or west). We ended up going the wrong direction. It took us two stops to figure that out and turn around. People say New Yorkers are rude, but here, the culture seems to have no rules of courtesy. There was an empty seat below me (I did not plan to sit down as our stop was next). There was a grown man who literally pushed me aside, with his head down looking at the floor, to get this seat. In NY, I believe someone would have at least said excuse me after pushing me out of the way, maybe not. This is just another cultural difference that we have become accustomed to.

Goodbye Grandpa

2009-03-08T05:45:00.009-04:00

I received word yesterday that my father's father passed away. We certainly wish we could attend his funeral.

My grandfather fought for America in WWII and helped to liberate cities in France and many other areas in Europe. He spoke fluent Italian due to his heritage and learned French and German during the war. He always spoke with such respect for the Germans (explaining how they'd never miss you twice with a long-range shot, so if you heard one land nearby you had to MOVE). He also talked of the thick-skin of the Europeans citizens - how they survived during such tough times. He told a story of his mother coming to him in a dream, while his platoon was in battle in Europe. How she told him her time was up, but he would have more... He learned a few days later that his mother had passed. The similarity of his death, while I am in Europe, isn't lost on me, knowing full well that his (and many other soldiers') sacrificies allow us to be here, today.

My grandfather had been blind for as long as I knew him (a combination of injuries from the war, a dropped retina and cataracs), but that never stopped him from doing so many things; although he did miss the freedom of driving. He often told (and re-told) the story about driving with my oldest brother, about getting pulled over by a policeman and how my brother was telling my grandfather "don't you take anything from that cop, Grandpa"- while the cop was in the window. I watched him breakdown and rebuild the cement steps that allowed access to the back door. I helped (insignificantly) as he rebuilt the horizontal doors that secured the external basement stairs. He even cleaned up the dog's "waste" from the backyard, so we kids could play.

His house in Queens was the only one I've ever seen that took up two lots, so his fenced-in yard had room for his dog (Dutchess) to run around and room for a simple above-ground pool in the summer time. He used to cook when we visited. His home-made ravioli with my Grandmother's sauce (which we all called gravy) was always a treat. We used-to play stoop ball out front. Everyone in the neighborhood, they all knew my grandpa. Whenever someone came to his house that he didn't know (the furnace repair man, for example) he was always careful NOT to let them know that he was blind, even during face-to-face negotiations they never knew. Amazing!

Even though my parents divorced when I was just three (and they, in their early twenties), whenever we visited my grandfather, he would always ask how my mother was doing and if she needed anything. I hope I have become at least half the great man he was.

I can recall at my father's house one time, while my grandfather was cutting up vegetables for a soup, I asked him to translate something I had heard in Italian. His eyes got SO big and he blushed. Needless to say, it was harsh, something not often spoken in a kitchen and definately not said to family. He laughed and laughed as he tried to translate the literal of what I had said. We all laughed when he finally did.

My grandparents moved to Florida for a short time, but couldn't stay there. They talked that so many grandparents went there to escape their families... Being apart from family wasn't something they enjoyed, so they came back. My father and his wife did everything imaginable to accommodate my grandparents for years, until finally (about 2 years ago) my father got them access to one of the best facilities in their area. Since my grandfather was blind, he was in a different area then my grandmother. After taking care of each other for nearly 50 years, my grandparents were separated. My father visited them almost daily, ensuring they were taken care of and comfortable and while he would visit, they could be near each other again.

My grandmother passed about 9 months ago. I hope now they are together again.

Thanks for everything Grandpa. We will miss you!

More Kiev Observations

2009-03-08T05:18:00.010-04:00

We were wandering around Independence square when Shrek approached us. To be polite, we took our picture with him. Shrek then pulled out a 50 grivna bill and said "this is my job" in perfect English. John's response was "no way." Some negotiating pursued, and then Shrek and Maxim had a conversation in Russian. Maxim told us "he'll take 40 grivna" (and slightly rolled his eyes). John showed him 20 grivna, and Shrek finally agreed. In actuality, 20 grivna is about $2.25. It was fine, but just a little surprising how it all played out.

We often see open sinks when entering cafeteria style restaurants. Maxim seemed surprised when I took the picture. We told him in America, there are only sinks in the restrooms. Maxim thought that perhaps there are worse germs in Ukraine.

On a routine trip to the supermarket, we saw this line of people on the curb between the supermarket and a farmers market. The people were selling food. Some had jugs of milk, flowers, or produce. One woman I noticed appeared to have about 8 carrots. I asked Maxim if these were very poor people selling food from their garden to get enough money to eat. His response was "yes." We hear time and again how there are a small amount of very rich people, but most people struggle just to have food on the table (no middle class). Since we are in Kiev, we do see people in their fur coats, fancy boots and carrying bunches of flowers. You don't have to look far to see the other part of the equation.

Tourists in Kiev

2009-03-07T03:24:00.024-05:00

We finally have our computer up and running, even though some of our most loved tools are absent, we will do our best with what we have. Here are some of the pictures we have taken along the way.

St. Sophia's Cathedral is one that I was looking forward to seeing. While it is breathtaking on the inside, no pictures are allowed inside the churches. Built in the 11th century. Some of the original masonry is exposed on the inside. It looks like a bunch of rocks and broken bricks were thrown in a big pile and mortor poured into it. The altar is all made of mosaics. We thought they were painted, but later found out that each tile is made from a uniquely colored stone. It is truly amazing and beautiful and shines in bright gold.

There are two pictures here. The beautiful tower is the entryway to the courtyard, and the white building with the green top is the church.

St. Michaels Monastery was also built in the 11th and 12th centuries. Because of questions of its historic value, it was demolished in the 1930s and administration buildings were built in its place. Reconstruction of the cathedral was approved after the fall of the Soviet Union. Excavations of the site were done and valuable artifacts were recovered. The church was rebuilt in 1998. The original frescoes (paintings inside) of the church, which had been seized by the Nazis during WWII, then claimed by the Americans; were then returned to Moscow, and ultimately returned to St. Michael's.

Being a fan of science fiction, fantasy and video games, John wanted to show this picture too. He simply describes it as a "really cool character." Maxim defined him as the "Defender of Ukraine." He stands on top of a structure in Independence Square. Note: Our American coordinator (Lana) told us that this is Archangel Michael who is the patron saint of the city of Kiev (thanks Lana).

This final picture was also taken in Independence Square (which appears to be the main city center) back on our first day here. We asked what was going on, and Maxim told us it was a "communist meeting." We have found that there are many demonstrations in Independence Square. Perhaps daily. Yesterday we were emailed by the US Embassy that there would be demonstrations by the "Patriot of Ukraine" group which is a neo-Nazi group that may have ties to Ukrainian extremist and ultra-nationalist groups. We were advised to stay clear of the demonstrations.

Second appointment scheduled (and our computer is back)

2009-03-05T15:25:00.007-05:00

We got word back from the SDA about our second referral. Unfortunately it will not occur until next week, Wednesday March 11th. Gives us more time to... well... wait. Dennis is trying to convince us to find an "excursion" for a day. We have no idea how to go about that, so we're note sure how likely that is to happen.

We have our laptop back up and running. We had to go through some "fun" activities including installing Windows in Russian (although mainly it "talks" to us in English, now). Our facilitator, Max, and his college friend (and our driver), Dennis, really came through for us. That along with the luck that our apartment is just two blocks from a computer hardware store, has us back online with our own laptop!

We have been keeping ourselves busy over the past few days (when we weren't running computer related errands).

Just to provide a few fun things...

One day Carrie and I walked over to the local shopping mall. Strangely, each floor had 2 escalators going up and none going down. The only way down was to walk one of the two stairwells.

That same day we were caught in a mini-blizzard. I say "mini" not because it wasn't snowing hard (it absolutely was) but because the snow fell for all of about 20 minutes. We were in route from the shopping mall to the food market and we were lucky enough to grab a few pictures of the snow.
On the far left of this photo is a lamp post, it's only across a two-lane street. We could bearly see the building that was behind Carrie even though it is just across a four-lane street. I hadn't seen snow falling this thick in many, many years!

Today we were able to get voice chat via Google Mail to work between us and home. We are excited about the opportunity of talking to our daughter without fear of our minutes running out :-D

Lastly, we found a nearby pizza place called Papa John (http://www.papajohn.com.ua/). If you follow the URL, in the center/top there's a link to convert the page into English. For those that are curious, here's how to "read" the name in Russian/Ukrainian.

PAPA: That first letter that looks loosely like the symbol for Pi or maybe like a lower case "n" but at the size of a capital letter - thats the "Pea" sound - so simply P+A+P+A = PAPA.
JOHN: There's no "Jay" sounding letter in Russian/Ukrainian, so this is a little more work to translate. That kind-of square "A" with two tales, that's the "Dee" sound immediately followed by the "X" with a third line, that's a "Sch" (like the middle of "treasure") sound and the letter "H" (in our Roman alphabet) is pronounced "EN" in the Cyrillic alphabet - so D+SCH+O+N becomes JOHN.

Luckily some foods are like this, so if/when you can sound out the words the names are similar to their English counterparts, but most things are NOT this way. So just learning to read the words is far, far away from being able to communicate! Luckily we learn more and more each day.

Down But Not Out

2009-03-02T13:07:00.001-05:00

Sunday morning, our computer crashed. We reformatted and are currently reinstalling the operating system. Hopefully we will be back up and running tomorrow.

In addition, we lost the charger to our cell phone, so have also been without phone. Now that we have the charger back, we will be calling home tonight.

We submitted our request for our second SDA appointment today. On Thursday, we expect to hear when it will be.

That's all for now.

Back in Kiev

2009-02-28T09:56:00.008-05:00

This is Maxim (our facilitator), John, and Denis (our driver). They have been a lot of fun for us. Maxim doesn't talk much. John asks him LOTS of questions. I hope after a month of us, he is still okay. Denis is trying to improve his English (even though his English is ochen HORoshow (very good)). He tells us about all of the sights we are seeing and does his best to teach us Russian. It doesn't come easily for us.

We arrived back in Kiev at 1am today. It snowed for a good portion of the trip. The roads have a lot of pot holes. Our driver said that it is even more stressful at night time. He still drives pretty fast. After getting to the apartment, we called home, and passed out. Very long a tough 2 days. Today, Saturday, we moved from our original apartment to a place that appears to be much closer to the center of Kiev. We now have limited internet so I hope we can be more descriptive on our near-term upcoming posts. We are planning to go "exploring" around our new apartment to see what is nearby

Next steps: We are going to visit the SDA on Monday to request a second referral. We have heard about the 10-day wait for a second appoinment, but we're not sure if that is 10 days from the last appointment or 10-days from our request. We are hoping it is soon. We miss our daughter dearly and its hard to simply have to wait.

Leaving Kharkiv

2009-02-27T05:46:00.000-05:00

We met the little boy yesterday and have made the decision not to proceed with his referral. He had a very long list of conditions that we are not prepared to take on. This was probably the most difficult decision that either of us have ever made. Even after the decision was made, we second guessed ourselves for hours. This boy's sweet face will haunt us for the rest of our lives.

Maxim picked us up at 10:30 am this morning and went to the inspector to formalize our decision. I imagine/hope that this child's paperwork at the SDA will be updated so future families will have more information before coming to visit. We will make the 7-hour trip back to Kiev and request a second SDA appointment.

We send our love to everyone.

Waiting...

2009-02-25T10:04:00.002-05:00

We are still in Kyiv. We are expecting to leave for Kharkiv tomorrow morning (its 5pm Wednesday right now). We were lucky enough to have Maxim drop us off at the internet cafe for 2 hours of internet. Compared to yesterday when we spent 10 hours at home, simply watching TV that I had downloaded from Hulu.com (before we left the U.S.).

He is planning to drive us (5 hours) tomorrow starting @ 8am. Will post as soon as we can tomorrow.

SDA Appointment

2009-02-24T04:54:00.004-05:00

Let me start by saying that we got a referral for a 2-year old boy. He was born pre-term, but we do not know how far. He has some respiratory problems, but we don't know much about that either. Our facilitator, Maxim, was translating the conditions for us, and it came up as "wheezing," so literally, that's all we know.

The meeting started by a lovely young woman calling us to meet in a room, with her. This room has been described by so many more people on their blogs. I could have described the room before I went into it. She asked about us. We pulled out our trusty scrapbook and walked through each page. We told her we were looking for a little girl, but would consider a boy. Before leaving she offered an apology of sorts. Basically (as it was translated for us) she stated that there are no healthy children available for adoption, even though that's what we asked for and we were invited to come. She then left the room and came back with just one folder (the folder of the little boy we will be visiting). We then asked about seeing some girls. She started saying a lot in Russian (which Maxim never translated), but started showing us a folder of files of little girls. All of them very sick... epilepsy, FAS, blind, most of them could not walk even though they were at an age where they should. We then asked to see sibling groups. We could tell that she did not want to proceed, but she did. Only three were presented to us, and each group had a child that was very sick. In the end, everyone told us this boy was our best option. So that is where we are headed. The city is called "Karkov" (sp?) which is east of Kiev.

We are sitting in a coffee house now and our driver is ready to go, so we will post more later.

We are in Kiev

2009-02-23T06:06:00.002-05:00

Our plane trip was long, but without major incident. Our flight to NY was delayed an hour because the flight was over the weight limit. We were sure it was our fault with our luggage (plus bowling ball). However, I guess they overbooked the flight.

We are in an apartment that is pretty far from the city center. We also have no Internet, so posting will be challenging at first.

Just wanted everyone to know we are here, and safe. We will be sending our phone number home shortly.

Leaving

2009-02-21T07:20:00.000-05:00

Today is our last day at home. We will leave first thing tomorrow morning. I have received such wonderful wishes from family and friends. I would like to thank everyone who has reached out to us. It means so much to know that we have such a wonderful group of people to support us, and to watch out for Sydney while we are away. Today is a day to pack and spend with family. There are just very minor things to do today, but there is a long list. I know today will fly by us.

Transitioning

2009-02-18T11:54:00.007-05:00

There are only four days left before we leave. Sydney is in heaven with her Grandparents here and is loving her new routines. This is a picture of her and her Grandpa walking to the bus stop this morning in the rain. Who do you think is enjoying it more?

Packing

2009-02-16T14:14:00.002-05:00

The Grandparents arrived Saturday afternoon. This unofficially marks the very beginning of the trip. They will stay with us for one week before we leave. During that time, they will learn our daughter's routine from bus schedule, homework and communicating with school. They are one of the most important parts of our trip because without them, our only desire could be to get home to our daughter.

I have packed my clothes in my suitcase, but I keep having ideas of things I have forgotton. Clothes line, shopping bags for grocery store, wash cloth. Our facilitator has requested a bowling ball from us. Yes it is true. Quite a few of you have already heard this story, but right now, it is one of my favorites. We have decided we will do whatever it takes so we can check it on the flight (one gift down).

We have the rest of the week to finish packing and to anticipate the day we have to leave our daughter.

Progress with our schedule

2009-02-11T20:30:00.004-05:00

Our fingerprint appointment yesterday went off without any incidents. Having the first appointment of the morning and having gone through the process once before REALLY made a world of difference. I think we were in, registered, documented, finger-printed and departed in about 15 minutes. Luckily we have an Immigration Services office right in the next town, so even our drive wasn't that long.

All of our documents that were out for state apostille arrived this afternoon (mailed Friday after work and returned Wednesday - WOW). That's as quick as if we had used FedEx but about $40+ cheaper! I just completed scanning them (I scan nearly everything) and I'll have duplicates produced (for my records and to have with us when we travel) from the scans.

We are having some complications with finalizing the contract of our in-country facilitator which introduces some associated (and unexpected) risks and concerns. We really need to have this resolved before close of business Friday!

Fingerprints tomorrow... err... umm... today

2009-02-10T00:01:00.003-05:00

We are scheduled for our I-171h fingerprint renewal appointment in just a few hours. All of our documentation has been sent to the secretary of state for apostille. We have everything nearly complete and ready to go. We are waiting on some last minute details about our travel needs, and of course, we haven't packed yet.

Carrie has done a great job preparing things for our trip. This weekend she added balloons to the crayons, coloring books and small toys she has acquired for children's gifts. Me, I get to focus on calling government people to ask "what happens now that I messed this up?" or "how do I shortcut this ridiculously long process to get something done in 48 hours?" - she gets to think about things that a child growing up in an orphanage, who doesn't speak any English, would enjoy on first glance. Not sure which of us has it harder!

I was advised, from a green-card carrying co-worker, that I should purchase a quad-band phone here in the U.S. then replace the sim card when we arrive oversees. Not sure EXACTLY what that means, but I trust that since he's been all over the world and I've never crossed out of any American time zones, that he's probably more experienced than me on this topic. My guess is this will give me a phone with ENGLISH letters (and menus?) but I'll buy minutes from Ukraine so they'll be "local" - which should make the cost cheaper. Again, I'm not 100% sure, but that's what I'm going with for an expectation.

If everything goes as I expect (which I could also call "hope") everything except our I-171h should be in our hands by week's end (Monday at the latest) and our updated & revised I-171h may arrive JUST before we step on the plane... maybe.

Progress Continues

2009-01-31T23:30:00.000-05:00

We received our state background checks in exactly 1 week's time (good thing I sent a certified check!). We also received our one out-of-state apostille this week, so that's out of the way.

We officially requested our one-time free I-171h renewal this week (even though our fingerprint renewal isn't scheduled until Feb 10) with the hope that the federal government will hold our renewal and process it ASAP upon completed processing of our fingerprint renewals (which they explained can take 48-72 hours). If they reject our renewal request due to the fingerprint expiration (what a concept - argh), we will just have to resubmit our renewal request on Feb 10th.

Our money belts and passport holders arrived. I'm still quite uncomfortable with carrying around such cash, but at least these should provide us some additional security (between wearing it under our clothing and the metal wire lining). As everyone seems to be saying of late - it is what it is. Perhaps once we know how much, I'll get more comfortable. Perhaps.

Progress on some fronts

2009-01-28T23:45:00.003-05:00

Lots of items moved in the last 48hours.

We've received our fingerprint renewal appointment, it's 2 weeks before we leave the country.
We received our amended home study, allowing for a slightly older sibling group (if needed).
We were able to successfully reschedule the needed notary, which, if we are able to keep the appointment; would close out the last of our possible documents.

"Possible" What could that mean, you ask?

Well, we are still at the mercy of good 'ol Uncle Sam for our renewed I-171h; which we will be requesting said renewal (via snail mail) tomorrow! If everything goes as we need it to (and why wouldn't that be the case?) the renewed form will be in our hands a whole 48hours prior to our departure. That's not cutting it close at all!

We cleared up some more of the financial items we are putting in place (temp credit cards, temp ATM cards, etc). This process has been one serious exercise in anger management. Between cards being mailed to incorrect addresses, accounts having their credit lines changed and having to re-explain the REASON we are asking for the accounts and ATM cards, in general. It's just been really, really, taxing.

Lastly, even though our electrical converters have arrived (thanks for the clarity/description) our money belts have NOT yet arrived... I'll give it until week's end before I start following-up with the website I ordered them from. It'll be a relief when I'm able to check this item off my to-do list.

Age Change

2009-01-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

In preparation for our travels, and as part of updating of our documents, we've requested a modification to our HomeStudy allowing for a slightly older child. We are doing this solely on the off-chance that a sibling group is available where the older child would have exceeded our previous age "maximum".
Good news is that update request has been completed by our agency and it's in route to the US CIS (along with some copies coming here, for us). Also, our electrical converters arrived in the mail today. I will continue to be nervous that I got the wrong ones until we are actually using them in Ukraine.
Bad news is still no reschedule on the document that was missed on Monday. I'm hopeful I can get that completed THIS week, but it isn't even scheduled as of yet. I'm also hopeful to receive the state background checks later this week.
Lastly, I emailed the local US CIS office asking if there's anything I can do to expedite our fingerprinting appointment. I'm confident I'll get a response tomorrow, I'm much less confident that the response will be of any value.

The best laid plans...

2009-01-23T23:15:00.000-05:00

I truly believed I was going to receive a majority of our still-outstanding documents today... I had meetings scheduled @ 8:15am, 9am, 10am and 1:30pm with different entities and/or individuals in order to acquire necessary documents, get documents notarized or move documents closer to either one of those destinations. Unfortunately, my 8:15 fell through (and to make matters worse, we were unsuccessful in being able to reschedule at ANY point in the near term). Luckily it would be my sole short-coming of the day. Everyone else was able to provide what we needed per my plans (although one took much, much, MUCH longer than we had expected).

I was able to acquire 4 of the 6 documents I had plans for; and (thanks to a certified check ;-) I set in motion, yet again, the state background checks. Next it would be great to receive word on a fingerprint appointment from the US CIS!

To continue on with the days' positives: Late Thursday I placed the order for money belts (note: the newer passports have an RF transmitter, so for a few dollars extra I was able to order an RF blocker for the one that is new enough to have the RF chip - better to be safe than sorry) and a separate order for electrical converters (boy do I hope I ordered the correct pieces). I received emails from both today that my respective orders have been shipped.

Probably won't make much progress on documents or travel preparations this weekend, due to family obligations both Saturday and Sunday.

Needs to be certified. This, the 3rd time!

2009-01-22T22:15:00.004-05:00

Short post tonight... just a little frustration on my part.

Currently, I am working on our third acquisition of our dossier documents. Technically, I've been informed by our coordinator that the documents do not NEED to be updated, but I am taking no chances.

Well, since this is my third time gathering this documentation, I'm confident that I know the process for acquiring each and every document - I mean c'mon - I've done this twice before! Strangely enough, our state government has rejected my request for an updated background check because I paid them with a personal check... Yeah. I've only done that in 2007 and again in 2008, why it won't work in 2009 is beyond me. So tomorrow I'm off to get a certified check (for a whopping $28) in order to have the state government reproduce a document I've twice acquired before with a regular ol' check!

On a positive note, we are signing our WILL and our POAs tomorrow along with acquiring six documents for our dossier (three provided by third parties and three which we simply need to print, sign and have notarized).

By end of day tomorrow, that will leave us with just our fingerprints/I-171h update, our updated international homestudy (which should be completed early next week) and, of course, the previously mentioned state background (certified) check!

One month to go

2009-01-21T23:45:00.002-05:00

So, it is just one month until we fly to Ukraine. We've been busy working to get things in order and to prepare for that which we CAN prepare; for example, we've opened 2 new credit cards for our travels. They have very small lines and the bank has been notified to solely expect charges on the cards while we are out of the country. We've done the same thing for a new checking account and its associated debit card. All of our monthly bills are pre-paid via online bill pay. I've even started cleaning the DVRs in anticipation of mid-season shows starting up while we are gone (I'm a TV junkie).
As if finalizing the travel plans and coordinating the financial needs aren't stressful enough, we are faced with none adoption-related stress.

Carrie and I are both going through professional "disruption", as each of the financial institutions that employ us are undergoing mergers/acquisitions (aren't they all, really?).
Additionally, we are working to finalize our LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT along with some POAs and as it turns out the lawyer we've been working through is about to go out on maternity leave; GREAT news for her, but bad timing (possibly) for us.
With interest rates as low as they are, we had started the process of refinancing the mortgage on our home. Since many, many people are doing that same thing, the normal 30day window has been expanded to 60days... which means our refi process should be ready about 10 days after we leave the states!

I shouldn't solely complain though, on Monday we did hear from our coordinator that we do NOT have to re-acquire all of our dossier documents. Positively or negatively, I had already begun doing just that, so I'm not stopping now... just in case. I intend to limit (as much as I can) the workload if we end up having to request updates while we are oversees.

To close, if there is ONE thing that I am repeatedly surprised about throughout this (nearly 2 year) process it is how often the steps and processes make absolutely NO sense. This one hit me like a ton-of-bricks today and I feel it is appropriate to use as a beginning to my "THIS MAKES NO SENSE" ramblings (or TMNS for short).

Back in October 2007 we received our federal approval for our international adoption (form I-171h). The federal government, in its infinite wisdom, allows this document an 18-month shelf life; yet the fingerprints (that they needed for our background checks) expire in just 15 months. The fingerprints expire a full three months sooner than the I-171h! Did I mention that you are not allowed to request an update to your I-171h until three months prior to its expiration? YUP - the same three months that mark the expiration of your fingerprints mark the allowance date for requesting your updated I-171h . This simply guarantees that if you require an updated I-171h that you must first (or at the same time, if you aren't traveling just 20 days after your allowed renewal date - as we are) request an appointment for updated fingerprints!

I guess I never realized that even though your fingerprints stay with you your whole life, they actually expire 15 months after you use them as part of an international adoption! *T*M*N*S*

Adoption Scrapbook

2009-01-10T17:27:00.018-05:00

Here are the pictures from our adoption scrapbook. I didn't include the pictures of the house for security reasons, plus they are a little boring. We haven't decorated any rooms for future children because of the uncertainty of who we will get (how many, gender, age, etc.)

Preparations

2009-01-07T18:38:00.003-05:00

Nothing really new to post about. I was inspired by Conethia's post about starting her scrapbook. I thought I would post a few of my scrapbook pages while while we wait for our trip. I looked up Ukrainian translations for a lot of the words, but I wasn't really sure if the font translated correctly.

We have our plane tickets (2/22). I will be shopping this weekend for gifts. I really don't have anything specific in mind. I'm thinking chocolates, perfume and cologne, scarves and hats, maybe jewelry. I'll also be looking for cute little gift bags. If anyone has any ideas of things you took that were well recieved, I'd love to hear. I know some gifts we can buy in Ukraine. We still have to buy luggage, money belts, converters / adaptors. We will be meeting with our banker tomorrow to talk about the new bills and precautions we will be taking while travelling. I have a co-worker who will be going through an international adoption about the same time as us, so we are working through all of our work procedures together. It is nice to have a second set of eyes. There is a lot of stuff to do, both before and after.

What is the SDA Appointment?

2009-01-02T20:58:00.002-05:00

A few people have asked me if our SDA appointment means that we are going to Ukraine. The answer is yes. The SDA is the State Department of Adoptions and Children's Rights in Ukraine. The SDA will control many aspects of our adoption. Our appointment with them will be on Tuesday, Feb 24 (our flight will leave on Sunday morning). We will meet with a person that most people call a psychiatrist who will ask us what type of child/ren we would like to adopt and try to find a match with the available children. This appointment is probably the most anticipated and stressful appointment of the entire adoption process. We will be offered the dossiers of multiple children and asked to select a child we would like to visit. It is completely possible that we go to this appointment to be told there are no children that meet our criteria. Hopefully all will go smoothly and there will be a match. If not, we will have to request a second appointment. If that appointment falls through, we will come home. We will not be allowed to have a third appointment.

SDA Appointment 2/24/09

2008-12-24T10:30:00.004-05:00

Our SDA appointment will be on February 24, 2009. This is just over one year after our dossier was originally submitted to the SDA (Feb 2008) and five months after it was officially registered (September 2008). We have watched people start the process, travel to Ukraine and come home with their children while we sat and waited. We are so happy that it is finally our time. I am actually a little relieved that we will not be travelling in the coldest part of winter. I am a wimp that way. Now we can finally start the preparation phase of our journey.

I would like to thank everyone who has left comments. It is so nice to know that there are people (complete strangers) out there who are watching and offering advice and prayers. I am thankful for your support and suggestions.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone. It is going to be a happy one at our house!

Still No Travel Date

2008-12-23T11:55:00.005-05:00

We still do not have an update from our facilitator regarding our appointment that happened on December 15. After a couple of emails pleading for an update, I was told that our facilitator would have the final "decision" on December 22 (yesterday). Still no news.

Some people have asked why we don't stop all of this craziness. What about America? What about switching agencies? These are all questions I ask myself every day. First, there are the easy answers... I'm not so sure we would have an easier time in America... we are SOOO close, and any change would only disrupt the process. And then there is the hard answer... When we started this journey, it was simply because we wanted another child. After reading years of blogs and stories, I feel that I cannot turn my back on Ukraine. Here are the statistics that I see over and over again on other people's blogs (taken from Ukraine Orphan Outreach):

In a country where the average standard of living has decreased by 80% over the last 18 years, poverty and sickness are brought on by the inability to provide adequate nutrition and healthcare. Least able to fend for themselves are the children who have been abandoned and orphaned.

Why
* 90% are orphaned due to alcoholism, abandonment or imprisonment of the parents
* 10% are orphans because of death of parents

How Many
* There are over 450 orphanages in Ukraine.
* There are over 100,000 children in Ukraine orphanages and an estimated 100,000 more children on the streets because the orphanages are full.

Their Fate
* 10% of orphans commit suicide after leaving the orphanage before their 18th birthday
* 60% of the girls end up in prostitution
* 70% of the boys end up in crime
* only 27% are able to find work

We have read that the Ukrainian government is making it harder and harder for adoptions to succeed. Younger children are being put in foster care versus being made available for international adoption, new rules and regulations are making the process much harder for foreigners to navigate. It has been said that if the Orange Party takes control, international adoptions may end all together.

So for now, we wait. Hopefully we will have our travel date any day now. We are trying to focus on the holiday season and knowing how truly blessed we are to have our own beautiful daughter. Our hearts are with the orphans of Ukraine.

A Kind-Of Update

2008-12-10T07:37:00.003-05:00

Quite a few people have been asking about our status, and I really have very little to report, but I thought I should post an update. I "think" we have an appointment date on December 15 to submit our updated Letter of Application. Hopefully that will be the last of our documentation. We also "think" we will receive our travel date at this appointment.

We did hear some good news this week regarding some new rules on the adoption paperwork. Some of the documentation will now need to be submitted in duplicate. Since our dossier is "registered," the rules will not apply to us. It doesn't sound like a big deal, however, it takes over a month to get documentation to Ukraine and in the hands of the SDA. This is a huge relief.

Our spirits are good about the pending trip. I have noticed that most people travelling now are getting referrals of mostly sibling groups, with a few single referrals, and a vast majority age 6 or more. It is heartbreaking to see families come home without children, but we also know this is a possibility.

Hopefully I will have some good news soon.

New Letter of Application

2008-11-07T07:52:00.002-05:00

I received a little more information about how this situation happened. This snag started when our Commitment to Register document was the incorrect version. When our dossier was under review, someone at the SDA wrote "rejected" on the Letter of Application. In the words of our US Coordinator, Lana, "someone at the SDA has no regard for other people's time or resources." We sent a new CTR document in October, in November we have been told that we need a new Letter of Application, and in December, we will have our next SDA appointment for another review.

Thank you to all who have left words of encouragement. We WILL move on. Our new Letter of Application was notarized yesterday and FedExed to our state capital for apostille.

More Paperwork

2008-11-06T12:43:00.003-05:00

I had the first communication today since our meeting that occurred (in Ukraine) on Monday (11/3). The first email said that no news was good news; however after our document was submitted, our 20-day waiting period will start again. The second email was not such good news. There is yet another document that needs to be resubmitted. We now need to submit a new Letter of Application. Let's see, the last time we had to submit a document (a one-page document), it took two weeks for it to reach Ukraine, and another two weeks for an appointment to submit it. If we are dealing with another month (December) and then another 20 days wait, we will not get word of our SDA appointment date until mid-January, which probably means the best we can hope for is a February/March travel date. And I thought we would have a travel date this week!

I cannot tell you how frustrated, defeated, and just plain sad this makes me. There have been many times over the past year and a half when we were going through this process, that I almost said "just forget it." I REALLY almost said "just forget it" when our dossier was submitted in February 2008 and we heard that we probably would not be registered until October 2008, and along the way, all of our documentation would expire. Well, we got everything redone, resubmitted, yet here we are again. Our new documentation will start to expire in January (our fingerprints). Is it time to just throw in the towel?

Patience

2008-10-24T13:08:00.001-04:00

We heard word today that our document has been received in Ukraine. Maxim has an appointment to take the document to the SDA on November 3. Lana mentioned that she does not know if we start the 20-day waiting period all over again, or if we may actually get our SDA appointment date that day. The funny thing is that the email is labeled "Good News." Ha! Be patient.... Be patient.... Be patient...

Documents On Their Way

2008-10-14T07:44:00.001-04:00

We heard from Lana. She received our updated documentation on Monday. On Tuesday (today), the documentation will be apostilled (the Ukranian version) and FedExed to our Ukrainian facilitator (Maxim). Hopefully our next waiting period (for our travel date) will be quick.

Immunizations/Will

2008-10-13T15:10:00.001-04:00

Happy Columbus Day! My husband and I have the day off from work today, so we scheduled some adoption stuff.

Immunizations
Six shots later and $1,000 poorer, we are all immunized. We were told that we may experience mild flu-like symtems for a few days. We are hoping that our health insurance will reimburse us, but we are not sure.

Will/Power of Attorney
We decided that we needed to update our will to ensure our daughter will be taken care of the way we want if anything should happen to us. We had a will, but it was way out-dated. At least now if our plane crashes, my last thought will be that our daughter will be okay.

We also will have a power of attorney drawn so that any emergency that happens while we are away can be taken care of. Our current home study has approved us for a child or sibling group five years old or under. I have a feeling that we will need to expand our options once we get there. We need to have someone at home who can act on our behalf in situations like that.

Paperwork Redo

2008-10-09T07:50:00.002-04:00

My hope was that we would know our SDA appointment date by 10/14 (wishful thinking) which is three business days from today. We are going into this process knowing that things rarely work out as expected. Yesterday we got a call from our US facilitator, Lana. It seems that one of our forms was wrong. When you adopt from Ukraine, you "promise" that you will send annual updates of the child for a certain number of years, and then every three years until the child turns 18 (or so we thought). It turns out that the rules have changed, and now, you have to send annual updates period. I'm not sure when this rule changed, but we had it wrong.

So, back to square 99. Today, John and I will get the updated paperwork notarized. Tomorrow one (or both) of us will take the day off from work and drive two and a half hours to our state capital to get this document apostilled (certified by the Secretary of State), send it to Lana for translation and re-apostille, and then back to Ukraine. Our paperwork is at a stand still until this happens.

There is always a positive side, right... So here it is... at least we know that our documents are being reviewed and are being considered for an appointment. That is very exciting.

Registration Approved

2008-09-18T14:46:00.004-04:00

Today we received the official confirmation that our dossier has been approved by the SDA. We will receive an appointment date (to meet with the SDA in Ukraine) within the next 20 days. There is no way to predict when that will be, but Lana (our US adoption rep) suggests we plan on traveling within two weeks of receiving a travel date. I assume that is the worst-case scenario (or best-case depending on how you look at it), but what we should prepare for. That would give us a travel date of October 30. Wow, that is not very far away. We have a lot of work to do! Luckily, because I have been reading blogs for the last six months, I feel relatively prepared for what we have in front of us.

Registration Submitted

2008-09-16T19:00:00.006-04:00

Today is the day that our dossier was suppose to be delivered to the SDA (State Department on Adoption and Children's Rights) in Ukraine. We have not heard anything, but at this point, all we can do is continue to wait. We are not sure the SDA is actually going to approve our application, but that's a long story. It is time for a little history of our journey.

It was the spring of 2007 when we decided to adopt. After three years of infertility treatment, most of it done very painfully, by me, we agreed that my husband would do most of the legwork for getting all of the arrangements worked out. We did not realize how much legwork there really is to do.

We did not have a specific preference regarding where we wished to adopt. We hope for an older child (2-3 years old, which at the time we thought was 'old'). My husband started calling adoption agencies. The most important thing at this point was to find someone that was responsive and friendly. The adoption agency he found (CCI - Celebrate Children International) was just what we were looking for. They support Guatamala and Ukraine. At first, we did not know which country to go to. It was late 2007 when I started hearing of the issues with the Guatemalean adoptions, and that in 2008 they would become a Hague nation, and adoptions may stop all together for a while. That was the primary reason for our decision to go to Ukraine.

Our timeline is something like this:
Jun 07 - submit application for home study
Jul 07 - submit application to CCI
Aug 07 - home study complete
Feb 08 - dossier submitted to SDA (Ukraine)

I have read on other blogs about the frustration of not hearing back after the submission of the dossier. We are in the same boat. Here's what happened:

The night prior to the day the SDA opens for submission, we get a call from our adoption rep, Lana (who has been a real sweetheart). She tells me that we need to get money to our facilitator, Maxim, in Ukraine that night. It is very important. So my husband struggles with Western Union all night, until he finally gives up. BAM. Here is the start of our problem.

We miss the initial registration date. We are beside ourselves with frustration and disappointment. After all the work, we miss the date. There is a second date that US citizens can apply the following week. At this point, we make the list (only 1,453 dossiers will be accepted in 2008), but we are about #1,450 on the list. It is bitter sweet. We do not really know whether to jump for joy, or cry.

I hear that our travel date will most likely be October or after. In addition, we learn that all of our documentation will expire and have to be redone. This is really too much for me to deal with. At this point I am ready to stop the adoption. After a few abrupt discussions, and a late night phone call with Lana, we decide to move forward, with the agreement that my involvement will be minimal (gee, I sound like a baby, don't I). At this point, I stop all my readings. I stop listening to the Ukrainian language on tapes. I stop doing research. I do; however, continue to read as many blogs as I can find of other couple adopting. They have been the best education that I could have. This is one of the reasons that I have decided to blog our journey.

Around July, my husband suddenly wants to meet for lunch and get our finger prints and background check done. The next week, he asks me a few times about getting all of our paperwork notarized. It is at this point, I know something is up. He confirms with me that we have our registration date on September 16 (actually he tells me the 14th or something, which is why I had the date wrong in my last post). At this point, I realize how much he has been shielding me from all of this process. I am so grateful. My husband loves to talk, and he tells anyone who will listen about our adoption. So I appreciate even more that he has been handling all of this communication without "burdening" me with it. I know this must have been very hard for him.

So, did I mention that my husband likes to talk? So we are with his family, and I hear some whispering and then a "yeah, she doesn't know." Then he looks at me and says "you don't want to know about all of the adoption stuff." Later at dinner with some friends, he says to them "I'll tell you about it when she's not here." Okay, so everyone knows what is going on but me. So I later ask him to just tell me. "Are you sure you want to know; yes, really sure? I don't want you to worry; yes, just tell me." So, our I-171H (some approval to adopt from the INS) will expire in December. We are not allowed to apply for an extension prior to 90 days before to the expiration date, which turns out to be September 15. Ironic, the day prior to our registration date. Our Ukrainian faciltator, Maxim, predicts that our application will be denied. Our hands are tied. All we can do at this point is wait for our answer. I will be biting my nails until the day that phone rings. At this moment, I wish I was a more religious person so at least I could pray.

Ready, Set, Go

2008-08-19T12:00:00.002-04:00

The purpose of this blog is to document and share our adoption story. Over the past year, I have read many Ukrainian adoption blogs. I have learned so much, and am thankful that I had the opportunity to share the joys, frustrations, and sometimes tears of the families that have already made the trip.

It seems like we have been working on this forever. It was February 2008 when we first sent our Dossier to Ukraine. We had hoped that we would travel in the spring or summer of 2008. However, due to the number of applicants, we were told that all we could do is wait. Now, in August of 2008, we have just heard that our registration date will be September 15. This is such exciting news. From what I understand, within 20 days of the registration date, we should have a travel date. I look forward to documenting our journey.