Ukrainian Junk Food

Natasha's homeroom class has a daily break from 2-4 pm. Our daily visits have been scheduled around that breaktime. Today we spent the time in her classroom with most of her other classmates. They had gone to the store for some snacks and we sat around snacking, watching the equivalent of the Disney Channel and looking through the childrens photo albums and artwork. We learned some new words and taught some new words. Natasha knows more English than she lets on:)

Natasha's homeroom class has about 10 students. We have gradually gotten to know each of them by name and know a little of their individual personalities. Today we learned that most of the kids have been together for years, perhaps since pre-school. Really these 10 kids are like a big group of siblings, like family. They have the same homeroom, they share living quarters and they all go to Sicily during school breaks.

The scene in the homeroom today was a fun bit of chaos. The girls were watching something like the Cheetah Girls on TV, except in Italian. The boys were less interested. All of them pulled out their personal photo albums and pridefully showed us a mixture of photos from school, starting in kindergarten, to photos from Italy with thier Italian families, to artwork projects. We swapped words and joked at some of the photographs.

They shared all of their snacks with us, and really would not take "no thanks" for an answer. They had bubble gum with some type of trading cards, coffe flavored hard candy, some wierd cracker that was too sweet for a cracker but not sweet enough for a cookie. Not good. :(

My personal favorites were bags of flavored chips, kinda like potato chips. Take your pick, ham flavored, salmon flavored or caviar flavored. That's what I call Ukrianian junk food!

Everyone Knows McDonalds

Today was a rather unpleasant day, since Natasha had to get some blood drawn for some routine tests. We arrived at the orphanage early in the morning much to her suprise. When she learned she had to have her blood drawn she was not a happy camper. Can you blame her? We got a first-hand experience with her pouty mood. She really would not make eye contact or hold our hand. She just wanted to be left alone. We did manage to get a few smiles out of her with a tickle-fest, and we each got a hug when it was over and she said she was okay. Here is Natasha before the trip to the doctors office, still smiling

After that unpleasant experience, we had to do a lot of running around. (again) We took a trip to the region's capital,Vinneystka (sp?) to get the samples to the lab. "S" also had to make a few stops regarding our 2nd trip, making sure only one of us has to come back go bring Natasha home. While we were there we took a few pictures of the downtown area. It was much more of a cosmopolitan city compared to where we are staying. We did some shopping at an indoor mall, and it was exactly the same as any mall we would be accustomed to. The rest of the city is a interesting blend of Old World and New World. There was a WWII memorial in a downtown plaza that was particularly capitvating. It had an enternal flame and the names of all the fallen veterans engraved on plaques encircling the memorial.

After all that we had lunch at a McDonalds before returning back to the Sanitorium. I guess McDonalds is McDonalds wherever you go. Sitting there looking around, we could of been in California or anywhere else. The only difference was the language on the menu board.

That's it for today. We didn't get a chance to go to the Internot today because of all the running around we did. Hopefully when we see Natasha tomorrow she will have forgotten all about this mornings unpleasantness.

On Monday we will know when our Court date is!

Last night our paper work for our intent to adopt Natasha went back to the SDA in Kiev. Our facilitator tells us that on Monday we will know what our Court date will be. It's getting close now! This morning we had a few hours of free time, so we had the chance to walk around town and get a feel for the area. Up to this point we had really been too busy walk the neighborhood. And when you are riding in the van, it is so cold the windows fog up and you can't see much of anything. But today we walked through town and took a few pictures. Here's a photo of a tyical house in town. This afternoon we wanted to buy Natasha some earrings before our visit. "S" took us to what appeared to be a hardware store. I thought we must have made a mistake, but on the 2nd floor was a jewelery case, among other things you would not expect in a hardware store. We found a pretty pair of posts that were a delicate flower pattern. Then we were off to the orphanage. We had the chance to take a quick shot of one of the buildings that the children had painted a colorful mural.

Natasha and her homeroom class are getting used to our daily visits from 2-4 pm. They tried to get us to go have lunch with them today, but we explained we had just eaten before we arrived. Still, they brought us back some apples that we ate with yet another game of Uno. As with any other day, Mark lets his little girl bend the rules to the point of cheating (he's such a pushover!).

Natasha's teacher and caregiver are very nice women. Today the teacher showed us a book that was a collection of photos of Natasha and drawings she had done over the years. Natasha blushed and was embarrassed, but we made a fuss over it anyways. I think the drawings spanned the 5 years she had been there. The first drawings were like that of a kindergartener, and you could see the progression in her drawing skill over time. It was interesting to see the theme of most of the drawings. There was always one girl by herself outside in her yard with flowers and the house in the background.Sometimes there were animals too. A dog, cat or maybe a horse. I think one drawing had a bear! But no mom, dad, brother or sister. Just one girl and no one else in each and every drawing. Pretty telling, I would say.

A little later she asked if we would walk to the store with her and her friend from class. We bought some soda, cookies and candies and took them back to the class for a snack. Then it was time to go, but the teacher made a point of walking out with us so she could tell us a few things through "S". She said she enjoyed our photo album and that we were an easy couple to communicate with. Her brother, like Mark, enjoys fishing. Her father lives in Seattle. She asked us if we attend church and we told her we go to the Catholic church in Half Moon Bay on occassion. She seemed happy to hear that and wanted us to know that Natasha was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Tommorrow we will go to Vinnyetska for more adoption business. Hopefully we will have a chance to do a little sightseeing. It is a pretty big city, I think about an hour east, back towards Kiev.

That's it for today!

A true Soviet experience

Our facilitator, "S", said the other day that we are getting the true Soviet experience that few of the families he works with ever recieve. That is because we are adopting from a very rural area in which their way of life is as it has been for generations. Not many people adopt from here, so we Americans are a bit of a novelty in town.

We are staying in a town that is probably smaller than our little hometown of El Granada. I bet there are less than 1000 townspeople. The claim to fame here is the Nemiroff Vodka factory. Nemiroff is a premium Ukrainian vodka that we have been enjoying nightly(in moderation!) There is not much to do around here in the evenings! The weather is very, very cold. -5.7 C 0n some days. There is no sun all day long, and there is a heavy fog that hangs in the air all day.

We are staying in the town's Sanitorium, which is one of their other claims to fame. It is where people go to rest after an injury or illness. It has beautiful grounds,like a resort. Here you can see Mark posing with a statue of Lennon (not John) one of the many statues on the well manicured grounds.

The rest of the town is a pretty ramshackle neighborhood of old stone or brick farmhouses, each with a bunch of chickens fenced in the yard. Chicken and geese cross the road all the time. Lot of stray dogs too, all looking at you longingly for a handout. We have also seen a horsedrawn cart of some sort of going along the side of the road. Regardless of impoverished conditions, women are warm in their stylish fur coats on the street. I am sure that many of them are fake fur, but not all. It seems odd for us Americans to see a woman in a fur coat and high heeled boots hopping over potholes on a dirt road with stray dogs and cats to do her grocery shopping.

Every morning we have breakfast at the Sanitorium. Breakfast is usually a small plate of prunes, beets (or carrots) or today it was a salad that tasted like a seaweed salad you would find at a sushi restaurant. Next you get mashed potatoes with some kind of meat. Boiled chicken, stew meat, a few thin slices of cold sausage or the ground meat mixture that they stuff their cabbage leaves with. I know this does not sound appetizing, and it is certainly not what we usualy have for breakfast in the US. But it is really pretty darn good.

After breakfast we do some running around with paperwork, maybe buy some toys for Natasha and her class or stock up on supplies for us. We'll stop for lunch at a local restarant. Lunch is typicall Borsht, cabbage salad and Pelmini (sp?) which is ground meat wrapped in a pasta-like dough. Delicious.

We spend for 2-4 each afternoon at the orphanage. We are getting to know the kids in Natasha's home room class. We do pretty well communicating with each other. Today 3 boys from the class joined us in our Uno game. Natasha is different with the boys than with the girls. When the girls joined in our game there was lots of goofing around and giggling. Today when the boys joined in we saw a new side to her. She was definitely getting frustrated by one boy in particular, and the tone in her voice changed. I found that she is not quite as quiet and shy as I thought. I think she gave the poor boy a piece of her mind! Glad to hear she can stand up for herself when need be! However, she has one boy wrapped around her finger and that is Dad! She can get him to let he see her cards, and can convince him to play the cards the works to her benefit. No wonder she wins so many hands.

One boy today, Sergi, wanted to show us all kinds of things in the classroom. We saw their individual photo albums, drawing projects from Christmas and their English Language learning books. Today we also got the rare opportunity to eat with the kids in their canitna for lunch. We weren't planning on it, we were simply looking for Natash for our visit. But they insisted, and it would have been rude to refuse. All the kids fell over each other to serve us. We sat with Natasha and her older friend Nastia. Nastia is 15 and we have become very, very fond of her. She is in the picture with us up above. In fact, if she were available, we may have been coming home with 2 girls. But she is not available. Nevertheless, we have her address and phone number and plan on staying in touch. Perhaps there is some way we can help this really bright, cheerful girl.

She said "Da" today

Today was a big day for all of us. Today was the day Natasha would decide if she wanted to be adopted or not. We have had some very good visits with her, each one getting better all the time. We were feeling confident that it would work out, but nevertheless, it was a nerve-wracking meeting! We all sat in the directors office, and much was said. Of course in a language we did not understand! I searched Natasha's face for some inkling of what she was thinking. She was nervous, I could tell, but I saw her nod her head and softly say "da". Shortly after that we were instructed to leave the office and go into the hallway. I was still looking for some indication that all was good. Once we were in the hallway, the inspector smiled at me a gave me the universal thumbs up sign and held out her arms. I hugged her big-time!

The rest of the day was a lot of paperwork. Natasha had to handwrite letter of agreement/acknowledgement. She has such neat handwriting. It was odd to see her have to state her intent in written form. Next we had to leave to find a notary to sign our acknowledgement as well. We hugged good-bye and did our best to assure her everything would be fine. More running around with papers and documents and notaries and meetings. Mostly we just sat in the car while our facilitator takes care of everthing.

We went back to the Internot for a short visit where we played Uno with Natasha and several of her friends. We had a lot of fun joking around, making fun of the fact that now our dog and daughter-to-be have the same name, and finding new ways to cheat at Uno. All of the kids there are great. We know several by name. Sasha wandered around the halls today with a jar of Nutella, Nastia gave us some pictures of her summer in Italy, Natasha and her 3 roomates giggled liked typical pre-teens.

The next big hurdle is our court date and making sure we continue to bond with Natasha daily.
We can see that she is still a bit unsure of all of this. When we are just one-on-one with her she can get a bit uncomfortable when all the focus is on her. When her friends are around and we are all interacting, she is much more relaxed and comfortable. That is when we see the "real" her. In time she will relax with us, I'm sure. For now we try to create ways for us to learn about each other. We want her to feel more comfortable and confident of her decision as each day passes.

Meet Natasha!

Sorry for the delay in posting to our blog. We are now 5 hours west of Kiev in a very rural part of the country. Internet access is very limited, so we wont be posting daily. We are in such a different frame of mind since out last post, that it seems like a whole other time. We drove 5 hours to reach Natasha's Internot. We were very nervous at our first meeting, and so was she. When she walked into the room, our hearts just melted. She looked so sweet and shy. I just wanted to hug her and protect her. That first day we just made some jewelry with the jewelery making kit we brough her and then we watched a little of Finding Nemo. We got a hug and the end of the afternoon and that was about it. We are able to see her from 2-4 pm each afternoon. The second day we met with the director. That did not go well. She does not seem supportive. :(

However, our visit with Natasha went very well. We purchased a few videos in Ukrainian and watched them and then ended our vistit with a rousing game of Uno that was full of laughter and goofing around. It felt good. It felt like family. Big hugs and kisses as we left.

On day 3 there was a big change in her demeanor. She was a bit sullen and shy again. All of us met again with the director, along with the inspector who is very supportive of the adoption. Natasha started crying and it seemed she was very confused and hurting. We hated to see her in such emotional pain. We were getting concerned that she would not agree to come. She said she could not make up her mind and asked for the weekend to think it over. Of course! This is too much for a child to process. They have no idea what their like would be like in America. Life in the Internot is all they know.

Today, Saturday, we were able to spend all day with her and the smiling girl was back again. We had so much fun playing board games, barbies, Uno and whatever else we could get our hands on. We managed to get special permission to take her out of the Internot for lunch. When the director finds out on Monday we are sure she will have a fit. We were on Cloud Nine by the end of the day.

As other who have gone before us have said, there are SO MANY wonderful deserving children at this and every Internot. We are certainly celebrities and the children crowd around us, full of questions. They try to speak Italian or French to us before they realize we are American. There are a few in particular who are special to us. In particular one smart, confident girl who just turned 15. She told us today that Natasha does want to go with us, but is getting pressure not to go. We hope Natasha will be strong and say "YES" , "DA" to life in America with us.

This sweet 15 year old said she would come to America in a minute. She speaks English pretty well and is fluent in Italian. We are going to find out if she is available. She has what it takes to have a bright future.

By Monday we will know for sure if we will be a family. Pray for us!

One helluva roller coaster ride

So much has happened in the last couple of days that I am not sure where to begin. So let me give a brief background. Our original plan was to adopt the child we hosted in 2007. We'll call her "A". Those plans feel apart when she went to Italy this past summer and spent 2 months with an Italian Family. At the end of the summer this family said they wanted to adopt her. "A" decided she wanted to be adopted by them. We decided to stop pursuing "A" because of the bond she had formed with them and the desire she had to be with them. It was a very difficult decision for us.



When that happened we started trying to identify another available girl in the same age range. We found out about a beautiful little girl, "M". We had the chance to talk to several families who had met her over hosting trips. Everyone had wonderful things to say about her. We became quite excited about this new opportunity. We shifted our focus from "A" to "M" and were very exicted to meet her and make her a part of our family.





However, to our horror, just before we were going to bed the night before our flight out, we got a phone call that "M" , had just agreed to be adopted by an Italian family. That blow really hit us hard, Mark in particular. He (we) had really had our hopes pinned on this chid and we were filled with excitement to meet her. We were so upset that we actually thought about not to going at all. We swore that we would never go on this trip without having a particular child in mind to go adopt. Now, just a few hours before our flight, our plans were dashed. In the end we decided we had come this far that we could not turn back. We still hope we could be lead to the child that was meant to be part of our family. This was a huge leap of faith.





The trip to Ukraine was not as bad as I thought it would be. We left 6:30 am on Friday and arrived about 9:30 am on Saturday. With the 10 hour time change it was roughly a 14 hour trip.

We hardly slept the night before our flight because of the last minute hoopla, and neither of us slept much on the plane. That madeus DEAD TIRED when we arrived. Fortunately customs was a breeze. We were met by our facilitator "S" and were taken to exchange money, do a little grocery shopping and then to our apartment to freshen up. The apartment in Kiev is the same one that our friends stayed at when they where here to adopt their son just a couple months ago.It is cozy and comfortable.



Sunday was a down day so "S" took us sightseeing. We saw a couple of gorgeous Cathedrals from the12th century. The frescos and mosaics on the walls were breathtaking. One Cathedral is now a museum, but the other was conducting services when we arrived. It was a humbling experience to be present at this very traditional orthodox (i think!) service.



We have found our facilitator to be very helpful and knowledgeable. He really takes care of everything and we feel that we are in good hands.



Monday was the big day, our SDA appointment. We were very nervous going into it blind, without going in and asking for a specific known child. However, we went in with high hopes that a child's photo and profile would reach out and grab us and we would be led to the child that we knew was always meant to be with our family. We saw about 5 single girls between the ages if 9-11, but we didn't get that "feeling" that we had with "A" or "M". We agonized for over an hour and then finally made a decision because we had to. We left the appointment feeling very discouraged and depressed. Again we had the feeling to just go home. We are trying to fight off those feelings. Hopefully when we go to the orphanage and actually meet the girl, everything will be different.

Sorry this had not been a very upbeat post, but we are not feeling so upbeat at the moment.

Our bags are packed, we're ready to go . . .

7:oo pm - There was so much to do to get ready for this trip, but I think we are finally there. Just a few more items to pack and were done. Jim is picking us up at 4 am (ouch!) for the ride to the airport. Our flight leaves at 6:40 am and arrives in New York at 3:10 pm. After a 2 hour layover we head for Kiev, Ukraine. We arrive in Kiev at 10:10 am on the 17th, Ukraine time. We're in the air 14 hours. I am NOT looking forward to the flight. I get ansy after a 4 hour flight, so I dread all that time in cramped coach seats. I have plenty of books to read and hopefully there will be several good movies to kill the time.

When we arrive in Kiev we will be met my our facilitator who will be helping us with everything while we are in Ukraine. He'll take us to our apartment to check in. Current weathe is 32. Cold, but not too bad. There is a 10 hour time difference, so we will have all of the 17th and 18th to recover from jetlag before our SDA appointment on the 19th.

SDA stand for State Department of Adoptions. To give you some background, we prepared our Dossier back in March 2008. The Dossier is the package with our homestudy, homeland security clearance, medical reports and probably a dozen other notarized documents that took us months to prepare. But by the time our Dossier was done and sent to Ukraine, the SDA was no longer accepting any more Dossiers for 2008. So we had to wait and wait. Then sometime in October they started accepting a limited number of Dossiers. However, by that time ours had expired! So we had to race around and re-do all the documents. Fortuately, we updated everything in time and got it to Ukraine in time to recieve an invitation to travel from the SDA and an appointment with them for January 19th 2009.

At the appointment we will ask for a referal for a child that we know of from her previous trips to the U.S. If all goes well , they give us the referral which starts the ball rolling to go see her and start adoption proceeds if the visit goes well. I probably don't have the process exactly right, but that is our basic understanding. Oftentimes, famlies do not already know of a child and instead the SDA gives them files of children to review. Then the family has about an hour to decide on which child (or children) they wish to visit.

Wish us luck at the appointment!

We leave on the 16th!

It has been over a year now since we met a group of kids from Ukraine who came to the U.S. as part of a hosting program in November 2007. Here is a picture of some of them playing with our dogs at San Gregorio Beach. The program brings orphans from Ukraine to the U.S. for an American cultural experience. They stay with host families in the Bay Area. Many times the American families adopt these children after they return back to the Ukraine. We have been diligently working on the process to adopt a school-age girl that we met through the hosting program. It has been a long and difficult process, but we are finally ready to leave on Friday January 16th. We have started this blog to allow friends and family to follow us along the way. Perhaps we should have started this blog over a year ago. There has certainly been enough drama and other activity to fill volumes! We'll do our best in the coming posts to explain the process that got us to this point and where we are going from here. We had originally hoped to adopt the girl we met through the hosting program. However, nothing is ever certain and that is definitely the case is our particular situation. We are going to the Ukraine with an open heart and an open mind and hopefully will be led to the child who is meant to be part of our family