Lots of Videos

Today, I took more videos than photos. I love photos, but I think videos give you a better idea of Ilya and Lena.

I made my first attempt to get you all photos of some of the kids you've been asking about. We saw a lot of kids today, but no one new who I recognized. You will not be impressed with my photo skills. Because we're not allowed to take photos of other kids, I was taking photos of Lena with the other kids in the background. Since I didn't get yelled at for taking these, I'll be a bit more direct next time and hope to get you some better photos. This is Celia, an unknown little boy and Olivia.





And this is Dana, with one of the nurses (and that's Ilya-- he was totally in on my sneaky photography).



We were sitting on the couch, minding our own business, then we hear this little boy voice say "Ilyusha! Ilyusha!" in a silly teasing way. And these three come up the hall. James?, Polina and David. They were going back and forth shouting at each other like little boys do. It was quite funny to watch, especially because we have no idea what they were saying.


Lena made up this little game with Aaron today. It was very cute to watch.


You can see what a determined little builder Ilya is...


We have been telling them "cracker" every time they get a cracker and "juice" every time they get some juice. Lena is such a little sponge.


This video is for our doggies at home. This is how Ilya treats his dogs...


Here's Aaron teaching Ilya how to say cracker...


Lena will just go over to Aaron out of the blue and ask to sit on his lap. How sweet is that? Also notice the huge smile on her face! Ilya has our ipod, if you are wondering. They like to look at the photos, so we brought that for them to play with instead of the camera.


Ilya is about a size 9 in American shoes and Lena is about a size 6. I think they could both be down about a half size from that, depending on what kind of socks they have on. Lena's feet with tights on measured 5 inches and Ilya's measured about 6. Lena's shoes were just over five inches and Ilya's shoes were 6.5 inches... we don't think his shoes are too big, so I am not sure how that works. The sweatshirt Lena had on today was a 12m. The sleeves were short, but it fit her nicely, maybe even a bit big in the body... she was wearing it over a dress and another shirt, too.

Visit #4

They brought Lena to us first this morning. She could not care less that we were there. She just wanted to stack the blocks. Very determined. She seemed upset with us or something... I imagine because she had not seen us all weekend.



We can't blame her... mamas and papas should not just disappear for days at a time...

We had no idea where Ilya was. We could hear music down the hall. Then, Celia, Dana, Olivia, David, Carolyn, Kristopher, and Ilya all walked up the hall! There were some other kids too, too many to name. I think I identified all of the bigger kids... it was the littler ones that I could not see. Celia just marched in and waved to us... she is adorable. Dana and Olivia ran over to us and I gave Dana a hug before we had to say "paka" (bye). We also saw little Andrew from RR today. He seems to get upset easily. He and the little girl he was with were screaming! Then, they stopped, she tripped and started crying and he started crying again, even though he was fine.

We got Ilya from them, then they came down 5 minutes later and told us it was time for his lunch. This was 10am. They brought him back like 15 minutes later and then they came and took both Ilya and Lena. We were pretty sure that they were saying they'd bring them right back. And they did a few minutes later. This time, they both were very excited to see us. Much much better than before.

We got out the pen and paper today to write down what we thought was Lena's shoe size. It was a 26И. I don't think she wears a 9.5 in children's sizes, which is what the equivalent would be. I asked a friend before we left who told me that most kids around 3 years old wear about a 7. And I think Lena is a lot smaller than average! 


Anyways Lena stole the pen. Apparently she is a young artist! 


When Ilya came out, he just started building... he built this by himself... we helped him stack a few blocks, but he told us where he wanted them to go!


This is easily the best photo I've gotten of Ilya yet. Both Ilya and Lena really love it when their papa picks them up and tosses them around or plays airplane with them.


This is proof that Miss Lena loves it too... Lena's hands are much smaller than they look.


I also love this other one of Aaron and Lena. I told you how if Aaron pretends to be chasing her trying to get her, she runs right to me to hide. Well, if I play it with her, she runs right to Aaron!


Aaron also picked up both of them at once and ran around with them! They loved that!


Lena LOVES being upside down. It reminds me of a certain cousin of hers. She stayed like this for several minutes. She was also doing little sit ups like this.


You will think Lena is screaming for the first few seconds of this video. She's not. Those are squeals of delight. If you don't believe me, wait 'til you see what she does when he puts her down...


Ilya gets really wound up, like a typical boy... he just runs around and jumps and laughs. When he acts like that, Lena follows suit. I took this one to show you how silly they get, but I love the end of it. What they're saying sounds like "dadda" but it's not... anyone know what they're saying?

Tappn Nottep and the Big Statue

This morning, we went to go see Harry Potter. The lady behind the window was very accommodating and helped us get the seats we wanted, even though we don't speak Russian. Our facilitator told us that sometimes American movies are played in English with subtitles, but this was not the case. We had no idea until the movie started.



It was a good two and a half hours of entertainment. We've both read all of the other books and see the movies, so we could follow the plot, even though we could not understand most of dialogue. The tickets were only about $4 each, so they were very cheap. And the theater was beautiful. We also got a soda and popcorn for another $4. Everything is super cheap, compared  to going to the movies in the US.

After the movies, we went down to a pizza restaurant a couple of blocks down. We wanted to go there the other day, but it was a sit down restaurant and we were lacking our dictionary. This time, we had it, so we walked in, I told her "two" in Russian and she said to me in English "smoking or non-smoking". Ha, I did not have her fooled. Turns out, this restaurant's menu has the English and Russian words written right next to each other. I got a cheese pizza and Aaron got "duck in cherry sauce." We also got drinks and a milk shake. The total was around $13. $7 of that was Aaron's meal! My pizza was $3.  Ridiculous. We really enjoyed the food and with the prices and the fact that they have English on their menu, we will go back. We are somewhat limited in what we can make in our apartment because we only have a stove and a few pots and a microwave. Plus the fact that we never know what we're buying at the store! Pierogies, pasta, sandwiches... those might be our options.

There is also a little stand down at the corner where we have been getting food. They have french fries for about 60 cents and huge hot sandwiches for about 70 cents... Aaron said that their sandwiches are better than McDonalds (and obviously cheaper too).

I am glad that tomorrow is Monday and we get to see Ilya and Lena again. I love our visits with them and it is hard to fill our days with walking around town and grocery shopping!

Sasha was giving us directions to a "super market" the other day, and she referenced the Lenin statue. We had seen this giant statue, impossible to miss, so I guessed that must be the statue she meant! Well, today we paid closer attention and noticed the real Lenin statue. Anyone want to guess who this is a statue of? I will be shocked if someone gets it.

Questions and Answers

Are you planing on keeping Lena and Ilya as their middle names or not?
Yes, we will keep Lena and Ilya as their middle names and we will call them Lena and Ilya, unless they chose otherwise. Lena's full name is Olena, but they all call her Lena (so we are dropping the O for her legal name). They actually call Ilya Ilyusha, but it took me awhile to realize that and we were already calling him Ilya. 


so do they speak any english?
Not yet, but by the time you meet them, they probably will be! We have been using our tiny knowledge of Russian with them and speaking English around them. They should pick up English more once they are no longer hearing Russian most of the time. Ilya is very smart and speaks a lot of Russian... I think he will pick up English very quickly. Lena is a little copycat, so I think she will quickly pick up our words and Ilya's. 

Are you able to get any photos of the other RR kids?
Legally, we are not allowed to. That being said, if I have the camera and one of them is walking through the room that we're in, I will take pictures of Ilya and Lena and if I happen to have the camera zoomed in on the wrong face... WHOOPS! ;-) And we've gotten lots of requests to be on the lookout for different kids, trust me, we are. I stare. And then I get home and go on RR and we said... I think it was James, what do you think? We know how much you all want info on these kids and how it will help them find families. I've talked to our facilitator about it, but she told me that this is a Ukrainian law, the orphanage follows and blatantly breaking it could jeopardize our adoption. 

Do you get to see them every day while you're there?
We don't get to see them on the weekends. Just Monday-Friday, 9-12. Or pretty much whenever they want to give them to us and take them from us. Yesterday, they picked them up around 11:30. We need to stay on the good side of the orphanage, be super nice to them and pretty much do as they tell us. Because, when we go to court, the deputy director will stand up and say how great we are, how clear it is that we love them and how this is best for Ilya and Lena.

At what point do they get to leave the orphanage?
We will not get to take them from the orphanage until a few days after our 10 day wait is up, until we are ready to leave Donestk and go back to Kiev, I think. This is because once the wait is up, we do lots of running around for birth certificates, passports and other papers. We may literally drive around all day and not stop for food, so it is better to leave them in the orphanage so we can get this done quicker. So, we will have court on December 6th, wait is up on December 16th, and we'll probably get them the week of Christmas. I'd love to be home for Chrismas, but it is not looking super likely right now. We'll see.

I'm happy to answer any other questions... weekends are a good time to ask, because there are no cute kids I'm blogging about.

Day 3

Today's visit was very good and also a bit heartbreaking. We played with the same toys as yesterday. I also brought our ipod today so that Lena could look at pictures while I took a video. She likes to name all of the people in the photo, "Ilya, Mama, Papa, Lena". It's also fun if I point to them in the photo and she names them while she points to the real person.



They both love to it when they build a tower and Aaron picks them up to put the top blocks on... I should mention that these are very soft foam blocks, so it didn't hurt if they hit anyone when they fall over!



We brought snacks today and wow, they devoured them. Ilya drank two juices boxes... and they shared two small packs of crackers. They ate them eagerly and licked up very last crumb (including the ones on the floor, before we could stop them!) They let us cuddle with them while they ate. We were trying to teach them "please" but I know they have no idea what we're saying and we are trying to get them both to trust us, so I did not push it too much. I don't want them to be the person waving a cracker in their face, but not letting them have it.


Ilya absolutely warmed up to us today. He took our camera and was going through all the photos. He found a picture of the castle of foam blocks that he and Aaron made and he ran over to Aaron saying "Papa! Papa! Papa!" That maybe the first time he has called for his "papa". A nanny came in at one point and I think she asked who we were. Well, both of them said almost at the same time "Mama i Papa". They both seemed very proud to have their own mama and papa. And, in the middle of our visit, Ilya had to go to the bathroom (so we think he is fully potty trained, as he actually asked both of us and looked at us like we were crazy since we had no idea what he was saying). Well, a nurse took him to the bathroom and we knew he was back when we heard his little feet running as fast as he could down the hall! He is letting both of us pick him up and hug him. We played the running away from mama game, where they act like they don't want me to get them, but then they laugh when I pick them up and hug them, kiss them and tickle them. Aaron tried to play that with Lena, and she laughed, but she ran right over to me to be picked up!



Aaron played "airplane" with both of them today too. He'd set Lena down and she pull on his legs to be picked right back up again. She really is something. She smiles constantly. I mean, constantly. She smiles when we play with her, she smiles when we feed her, she smiles if we're just sitting there next to her. Ilya takes a toy out of her hand, and she just kind of shrugs it off and keeps smiling. I kept commenting to Aaron on the constant smile. I was actually wondering if she is this way for her nannies too; if she is just a very happy little girl. Well, they came down to get her for lunch, we did not understand what they told her, but you should have seen the pout on her face. I am not sure that I've ever seen a child that genuinely sad before. She didn't cry or screamed... she just looked miserable.



Lena has a very strong desire to be held. If you hold her like a baby, she gets a huge smile on her face. This orphanage is a very good one, but I still don't think that they get the chance to be held constantly like a baby with a mother does.


We had a bunch of RR kid sightings today. We saw David, James, Polina, Carolyn and Dana. They were all very curious, but Dana especially broke my heart. She looked at me and said "Mama?" She ran over, but before I could give her a hug the nanny pulled her away. She and Carolyn walked by again later and they both tried to run over to us. It's hard to see all the RR photos and know that a child is waiting. But when that child comes up to you and asks you "Mama?"... that is just heart wrenching. I am very glad that Dana has a wonderful family coming for her. She is the only one of those who does. All the rest of them are 4 or 5, I think, and still waiting. These children need a mama and papa. Adoption is hard, long and expensive, but it's beyond worth it. And special needs? Who cares. The second Lena came over to me and smiled, I realized that there was nothing wrong with her. Trust me, she's perfect. Ilya too. This might sound really cheesy, but I am not sure that you can understand it until you've met these children. Until Lena smiles for the whole two hours during your visit or Ilya runs down the hall 'cause he can't wait to play with you more.





I am posting all of our photos and videos on our flickr account, in case you want to see more.

Day 2...

I meant to post this before the last post... the last post was actually from yesterday. We had a long day of walking around Kiev on Tuesday, a train ride Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and then we arrived and met Lena and Ilya. We just got the internet set up today, but I am almost totally caught up on blog posts. I have been trying to type everything up, even silly things. I am not sure if you really want the detailed account of our flights or the train ride, but I'll post what you demand! 


Thank you all for the super nice comments, emails, facebook posts, etc. Here is my post from today... I'll post the detailed account, then end it with some extra stuff...

Today, we got up and Sasha told us to be ready to go to the orphanage at 8:30. Ilya and Lena needed to go to the hospital to get their tests updated. While they were just done last month, it is a regional policy to have them done whenever a family wants to adopt the children. Sasha said that we could wait at the orphanage while they went to the hospital and then play with the kids for a bit when they got back.

Well, we got to the orphanage, and Sasha said that we could go to the hospital. She would stay back and we could accompany them. We walked down the stairs and there was Lena. Sasha asked her if I could hold her and she let me. She let me carry her outside. I put her down for a few minutes and she was pulling me all around. I think they told her that she was going to go in the car and she wanted to go back inside. This was both Ilya and Lena's first trip in a car. 

They brought Ilya out and he let Aaron pick him up. He was still being very shy, but he has no problems with us holding him. We went to get in the car and Lena started crying and screaming. One of the nurses came over and picked her up and got her in the car. I hopped in and Aaron handed me Ilya. He sat right down on my lap. Lena stopped crying not too far away from the orphanage. The nurse was talking to her a lot in Russian. I think she was telling her how Ilya liked the car and how it wasn't scary.

After driving and a few random stops, we got to the hospital. The nurse pretty much bossed us around the hospital, showing us where to go. She hand me carrying both of their coats and holding Lena's hand or carrying her. Not so easy. I am not sure that Lena had ever been up that many steps before and she still walks very slowly, so at one point, to keep up with the nurse I just wrapped my arm around her and pulled her up. I should add that they don't seem to carry their children like we do at home. The kids don't seem to know to wrap their legs around you. Most people seem to just put their arm around the kid and lift, unlike the hip carry we typically do in the US. We will have to teach them that, because it makes the child much harder to carry without balancing them on your hip. 

The hospital was uneventful. Aaron got to hold Lena for the first time. We also dug out this little train we brought, which lights up and makes noises. Wow, Ilya loved it. He had a big smile on his face. 

After the hospital, we walked up and down the block, waiting for the driver. Ilya enjoying seeing all of the trucks and cranes and cars. He was scared of the pigeons we saw... he hid behind Aaron. Hilarious. 

We drove back to the orphanage and got to play with them for twenty minutes. Out came the little train and the camera. Lena loved them both. Ilya wanted to play with the gigantic foam blocks. He was stacking them and then knocking them over. We started playing with him too, stacking and knocking them over. Lena joined in too. Wow, Ilya forgot that he was shy. He was running around laughing. He let us help him stack them. Aaron would pick him up to put the very top ones on. Lena seemed to enjoy the whole thing too. I think that she will be a tomboy and join Ilya in playing with trains and building and destroying. 

When Lena wasn't playing with the blocks, she was trying to grab the camera from me. She literally grabs it everytime I try to take a picture. The second it is out of my pocket, it is in her hand. Proof...

When the nanny came to get them, Ilya remembered that he was supposed to be shy and ducked his head down and ran over to her. Lena gave me a big hug. I am ready to take them both home! 

Here is something for a laugh today, we went to the store to get stuff to make something like Thanksgiving. I grabbed a bottle next to the olive oils. It was a bit cheaper than the olive oils, but I thought it was some kind of vegetable oil. Well, I went to make chicken and I poured the "oil" into the skillet and the second it hit the pan... vinegar. How do you make chicken with no oil, no butter, no salt or pepper? You poach it in milk with some garlic and hope it tastes okay...

This was my best attempt at Thanksgiving, chicken and mashed potatoes...

The Post You've All Been Waiting for...

So, since I haven't been able to get internet access for awhile, I could tell you about our adventures wandering around Kiev, or our 15 hour train ride or our lovely new facilitator and all of our running around in Donetsk. OR, I could tell you about how we meet Ilya and Lena... those are Reed and Scarlett's real, Ukrainian names, which I feel comfortable sharing, now that we just wait on some paperwork and a court date. I think I know which one of those options you all will pick. 

When we first got to the orphanage, we sat down with the deputy director of the orphanage, introduced ourselves and told her why we want to adopt (which I should mentioned is the edited for Ukrainians version). Then, she read through their entire file. The surprise was... that thing I was worried about in Lena's file from our SDA appointment... not in this file. There was something new in her file which I will have to research, as I have never heard of. According to their files, both of them are very healthy. We got more of Ilya's history... we just got a bit of Lena's and hope to see if they can tell us anymore. 

One of the most interesting parts of Ilya's history was that he has a great-grandmother who visits him and has been desperately praying for a family for him. She is very old and has no means to take care of him, but she loves him. To quote the deputy director, God answered her prayers. I really hope that we have a chance to meet her.

After they finished all of the histories, the deputy director went out and asked someone to bring them in. A few minutes later, the door opens and in comes Lena. She was obviously startled by all of these people (us, the deputy director, our facilitator, and a local social worker), sitting around, watching her. When I said her name, she walked right over to me and stood at my legs, waiting for me to pick her up. 

Then, Ilya came in. He was so scared. His head was tucked down, he ran over to the social worker for a minute and then he came to Aaron when Aaron went over to him. He let Aaron hold him, but he was obviously terrified of these two people here to see him. He also seemed tired (it was their naptime). 

We brought out the camera to ask Sasha, our facilitator to take a photo of all of us. She took a couple and told me to look at them. Well, apparently, Miss Lena is a little ham. She got so excited to see her photo on the little screen. She would point to her photo, point to her self, point to Ilya's photo, point to Ilya, point to one of us in the photo, point to one of us. By the end of our short visit, we had her calling herself and Ilya by name. I didn't feel comfortable asking her to call us anything in front of the deputy director and social worker. Ilya smiled when he saw himself on camera and when Lena pointed at him and said "Ilya". But that was the most we got out of him.

At the end of our short visit, the deputy director asked Ilya if he liked his "mama" and "papa" and he said yes! He was obviously very scared and tired, but I am glad he said that he liked us. 

It is a good thing that Ilya is a bit scared. He obviously likes the deputy director a lot and it is good to see that kind of attachment. Personality wise, I totally expected the opposite, even our facilitator who has met them both was expecting the opposite responses from them. She said before we went, "Ilya is very friendly. He will come up to you and say "Where have you been the last three years? Mama and papa, I have been waiting for you." 

I will also tell you, Ilya seems gigantic to me. Lena is small, but she is around what I was expecting. I am not sure that the 3T clothes I brought for Ilya will fit him! 

I am excited to spend time with them tomorrow, without all of the other people around. Sasha told us to bring toys, but especially bring snacks. That is the way to win their hearts. 

Some Photos of Kiev

I thought you all might like to see some photos. They're just over our apartment and the State Department of Adoption building where we got our referral.

Our apartment in Kiev is tiny for an apartment, but it is reasonably sized for $60/day.


This is the bedroom.



Here is the living room. Please ignore the stuff everywhere. This was just after we arrived.


The kitchen. Tiny sink. Tiny stove. Normal size microwave.


This is the State Department of Adoption building. This is not the door we went in. No, we walked through the construction zone and went in some little tiny side door.


This is the church just next door to the SDA building. It is under construction. That area of Kiev has lots of these beautiful orthodox churches. I have not seen any closer to where our apartment is.

Here you can see a photo of us with the Lococo and Cornish families who we had dinner with last night.  That was fun... both families are nice and this is the Cornish family's second adoption from Ukraine, and they have also spent a lot of time here advocating for children with Down Syndrome and other special needs.

Scarlett and the Immigration Cards

It sounds like they have different medical terminology than we do in the US and even if the diagnosis which they told me for Scarlett this morning is accurate, it is not as bad as we first thought. We'll also have a better idea when we see her and consult with her doctor. As well as possibly getting an appointment with a private doctor here in Ukraine if we feel it would be best.

Just an update for those of you a few steps behind us, it sounds like you do not need to worry about the immigration cards. I've heard from a few other families, including those who have completed their adoption and they do not have the cards. I asked our facilitator today and she said she thinks that they've done away with them, as families have not needed them for awhile. 

SDA Appointment

We had our SDA appointment. It was nothing like I expected... much more relaxed than I expected. The first thing that the girl asked me was how old I was, when I told her, she laughed and said that she was the same age and couldn't imagine having children. But, she was just curious!

Everything with Reed is as expected. He has no siblings and was born to a single mother.

Scarlett's referral was a bit bumpier. She has two siblings. But, the lady doing our referral pulled it up on the computer and one was adopted by an American family and the second is in Ukrainian foster care. So, neither are available for adoption (this is a good thing for us!). We also found our that her special need is more severe than we thought. We are still trying to process what that means and doing research to understand it. If you happen to know what that special need is, please don't post about it in the comments. You can email me if you want to talk to us about it or have something to share.

Please pray for Scarlett and us as we process this.

We will be traveling to their region tomorrow night and hope to meet them Wednesday or Thursday.

More news on the vote

We received news that the adoption vote is on the list to be read the week of December 14th. We will probably have court around the 6th of December, and then our 10 day wait will begin. Once that 10 day wait is over, we will be safe and able to take our kids home, no matter what the vote is. If you do the math, depending on when our court date is, the vote will fall right around the end of our 10 day wait. There is also a chance that the 10 day wait could be waived (and we'd be home earlier!).

We want a favorable vote for the orphans in Ukraine. We want Ukraine to continue adoptions, especially special needs and older children adoptions, while they work on a bilateral agreement or ideally, to become a Hague country. We want the families after us to be able to bring their kids home, and of course, we want to bring Reed and Scarlett home.

I am going to see what else I can find out about the immigration card for those of you just a few days or weeks behind us. Other families have completed their adoptions without it, in the past few weeks, but I will ask our facilitator today.

The Immigration Card

I had my first worried moment of our trip. I was trying to stay awake while Aaron was napping, so I decided to flip through the Ukraine Handbook from RR. I saw the page about the "Immigration Card" that we needed to fill out at the airport today. And it says how you must hold on to it and give it to them when you leave. Um, we never saw this card. But in the RR handbook and my google search, it sounded important!

I posted about it on the RR yahoo group about it and fortunately, Meredith Cornish got back to me. In September she had to fill one out, but this trip, they told her that she did not. And told her husband, who traveled separately, the same thing.

If you don't know who Meredith is, you should! She used to be the director of the Ukraine program for RR, but she just recently stepped down from her position with RR, as their in the process of adopting their 7th and 8th children from Ukraine right now.  They have a very interesting story about their daughter Aleksa who they're in the process of adopting. Go read her blog.

I think we might meet up with them tomorrow. It will be nice to see other Americans! It has been a little bit hard since we got to Frankfurt... we never know what language someone speaks. I've already had a few odd language encounters-- in German and Russian. And another guy who asked me where I was from, and when I said Kansas, he said "Missouri?", "Kansas", "Missouri?" And, we were done.

We're here!

We're alive. We're sitting in our apartment which has internet access, slow internet access via ethernet, but YAY! We're pretty tired but no sleep until at least 7pm, to help with the jet lag. Maybe I'll write more later...

One Week...

We actually leave in 5 days, but in one week exactly, we'll be sitting at our SDA appointment, assuming they're on time! WHOA.

A Little Ukraine Update

I got this email from Andrea Roberts, Hero of the Year, yesterday. Yes, I am going to keep calling her that since it is a perfect, well deserved title for her...

Hi all, I am sure many of you are waiting to hear *something* from me about this mess in Ukraine. You have probably been hearing the rumors and comments from blogs, as well as the statement on the US State Dept website. The 2nd hearing of this vote could happen any time between this week and next Spring, we just don't know. 

What I want to assure you is that RR is doing everything possible, and leveraging every influential relationship we can to at least convince the Ukrainians to make an exception for the adoption of children with special needs. The opportunities RR has had, especially through the Angels in Adoption award, have opened doors for our ministry that we never had before. God clearly knew we would need these "friendships", because they are truly working hard for us now. 

IF they do indeed put a moratorium in place, we are advocating HARD with Congressional Leaders, the US State Dept, the US Embassy in Kiev, and our facilitation teams on the ground in Ukraine...to make sure the voice of these children is heard, and that the parliament there understands the life-altering gravity of their decision to impose a closure, even for a short period of time. Even under the guise of improving the process or moving towards Hague compliance, this would be nothing short of a human rights violation, to prevent the adoption of those children with special needs. 

I have just submitted a list of (70) families currently in various stages of the adoption process in Ukraine, to the US State Dept, members of Congress, and the Embassy in Kiev. We are very hopeful that this list will be proof to the parliament of how many children (and of course many more) whose lives would be severely impacted, if not LOST, if their adoptions are delayed. 

For those of you who are close with paperwork, PLEASE get those dossiers in right away!!! 

At this time, there is still NO information on when this 2nd hearing is on the docket, and no solid information on the language of the bill or how loudly our "ruckus" on this end is being heard in the Ukrainian government. You can trust that we will keep you updated as soon as we have something of credible value to report. Please continue chugging away on your dossiers and plans to adopt, and do not delay! These children are depending on you. I'm doing my part for them....get through your papers as quickly as humanly possible for their sakes! 

Ukraine News

Have you heard the news about adoption in Ukraine? If not, here is the offical release from the US State Department...


Ukraine Adoption Notice

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Office of Children’s Issues

November 3, 2010


The Ukrainian legislature is in the process of voting on a bill that would suspend all intercountry adoptions from countries without bilateral agreements with Ukraine, including adoptions from the United States. The bill passed a first reading and vote, but must still pass a second reading and be signed into law by the president. The second reading could take place in the next few weeks. If the bill passes the second reading, it may be signed into law as early as the end of 2010. The draft bill appears to include suspension of all adoptions in progress.

The Department is will post updates as information becomes available.


Scary stuff. But, everyone has told us to proceed as usual. And I would like to share some sage advice with you...

First Post!

Welcome to our private blog!

This will be a bit easier for me, because I can blog openly about where we're going and our experiences while we're in Ukraine. Ukraine, yes, that's where we're adopting from, in case you hadn't figured that out yet.

Ukraine is in Eastern Europe. It is an independent country, not a part of Russia. It does border Russia and culturally they are similar. Ukraine is also just Ukraine, not "The" Ukraine. "The" still seems to be lingering from when Ukraine was a part of the USSR.

We'll be arriving in Ukraine on November 21 and we will have our appointment with the State Department of Adoption in Kiev on November 22. This is when we learn what they know about the children we hope to adopt and hopefully get their referrals. 

Once we have those referrals in hand, we travel to our children's region. Our children's orphanage is in far Eastern Ukraine... their region borders Russia. 

We chose Ukraine because it is a relatively easy and fast program. There are countries which take years to adopt from... I've heard of couples waiting and waiting years for a referral and travel date, and then the country's adoption program shuts down. Our appointment date in Ukraine is less than 7 months from the date that we committed-- very short. 

So, there's a bit about where we're headed... questions?