Waiting for Passport

The pace has slowed for us here. We are in an apartment in Kiev waiting for Natasha's passport to be done so we can go home to the US. Our facilitator takes us for some kind of outing each day to entertain Natasha and keep me from getting cabin fever. We are a using this time to get to know more about each other. For example I have learned these things about Natahsa.

• She is NOT a morning person! She's night owl. That will be a big adjustment for our family!
• She loves chocolate (but really, who doesn't)
• When asked what she likes to do she responded : "eat, talk, eat ". She is certainly eating!
• She loves TV and cartoons
• She enjoys photography
• She is shy practicing any English words
• She likes a good tickle-fest. I feel a pillow fight coming on

I really have to prod her to come to bed, to get up in the moring, to turn off the TV and to take a shower. She is not shy about saying "no!" with a smile and wondering how far she can push it. With a little more prodding she good-naturedly gives in. Shes does not seem to want to leave the apartment which is a bit puzzling to me. She did not want to talk a walk outside, or make a snowman, or even go to the mall. My facilitator tells me she said she is uncomfortable out in public with me because I am a foreigner and can't communicate with people. Then the burden of communication for us falls on her. It is as if the roles of parent and child are reversed. So for now I am not pusing things too much. I let her sleep in, watch TV and only go out when our facilitator has something planned for us. He has taken us to some arcades in the big malls. We have also seen Pink Panther dubbed in Ukrainian. Still funny, but I missed a lot of the jokes.
Last night I let her call her friends, she had a lively conversation for about 1/2 hour. I am sure, like any pre-teen girl, that she could have talked for hours. I was afraid that she would be sad when she got off the phone, but she was not.


Today we went to the circus. It was the first time Natasha had been to the circus. It was a really great performance. Much, much better than any circus I have seen in the US. The had women lion and tiger trainers that you can see here. The circus is a big deal here and I can see why. I took a ton of pictures. One girl in one of the high wire acts fell, and it was not a planned part of the act. She landed on the saftey net, but on the very far corner. We think she hurt her neck, but she went back up and repeated the manuver perfectly

Communication with us is a challenge. I have a good on-line translation program to use, but Natasha does not see to interested in working on it. So we do a few things, and then let it go for the day. For the most part we get along fine with hand signals, charades and intonation. Mosgt of the time she gets my meaning and I get hers. Tomorrow is Monday and we will go back to the arcade that Natasha enjoys and then have lunch out. I will be anxious to hear how the passport is coming along. I am ready to come home

Jackpot at the Arcade

Natasha and I are busy doing fun stuff tonight, but I wanted to post these pictures. She slept in this morning and then we went to a mall in Kiev that had an arcade for the afternoon. We bowled and played some video games. On one particular game she hit the jackpot of 364 tickets. That entitled her to claim some great prizes. She couldn't decide what she wanted, so she picked a piggybank and will be back for more loot later. Love to all

Girls Nite Out!

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, but I have not had internet access until today. I arrived in Kiev, Ukraine on the morning of the 15th, and met my facilitor, his wife and our driver. I was thinking we would rest up spend the night in Kiev and then head out to Nemirov in the morning. Not so. To get a head start on things we would me making the 5 hour drive immediately. Thankfully the now-familiar trusty red van had a big backseat. I was able to stretch out sleep for a good portion of the drive out to the region. We arrived in time to check into the Sanatorium we stayed in before. The next day, after our breakfast of beets, mashed potatoes and sausage and then some morning down-time we headed to the orphanage to visit with Natasha at our regular 2-4 pm time.

We went to her home room and waited a short while for the kids to come back from lunch in the cantina. As they came trailing in, I anxiously waited for Natasha, wondering how she would be after this 10 day break. When she came in she smiled and gave me a hug. In our embrace I said "I missed you" and she nodded in agreement. After a few short mintues she headed up to her room on the 3rd floor to change out of her school outfit. I brought to the visit a photo album we had put together of photos we took of the class during our first visit. While I waited for her I showed the photo album to the other kids in the class. It was a huge hit. They crowded around were jostling for position so they could get a good view of the book. There was a new boy, Vitali, in the class, and another girl who was not there during our first visit because she was in the hospital. I think her name is Natasha too. After Natasha came back and had a chance to see the album, we watche some Inspector Gadget cartoon. We were quiet, but I think she leaned into me, just a little bit. I was happy with our visit.

The next day we had a lot of running around to do for the new birth certificate and passport. We had to head to a town called Tulchin, which is the capital of the district were she was born. In Tulchin we did some kind of birth certificate business at the Civil Registry office. Then back to the court in Nemirov. We probably did more than that, who knows. I just rode in the van, read, and took pictures when we stopped. We briefly stopped at the Internot, just to let Natasha know tomorrow would be her last day there. Yikes! and Horray! I am sure we both felt equally nervous and excited. Natasha still is unsure how to act around me. During this brief stop, I saw here accross the yard. She was with friends. When she saw and heard me, she froze. Was she supposed to go over to me? Was she supposed to stay with her friends? Her friend Ina pushed her in my direction. Both girsl rolled their eyes. I am sure I will see much eye-rolling in the years to come.

The next morning I was so excited, realizing that from this point forward Natasha leaves the Internot for good and begins living with us, like a family . . . the way it should be for all kids.
I packed one set of new clothes for her. She leaves there with nothing. Not even a pair of socks.
When we got there, the mood was almost festive. All the girls and her teacher gathered around her and eyed her new clothes with approval. They all helped her change. It almost reminded me of a bride getting ready for her wedding with her bridesmaids. Hugs, kisses and tears among her and her friends. After she changed we took one last group photo, that is at the beginning of this post. As we headed out to the van, the water works really begain. Good-byes are hard, so we tried not to prolong things. I gave gifts to the class, teacher and director. Finally we were off.

Natasha was sullen and tearful. She would not look in my direction or have any physical contact. Momentarily I panicked, thinking she was changing her mind. But I have seen this mood of hers twice before, so I felt confident it would pass. She outlined a heart in the condensation on the van window. Inside she wrote UA 5 Love. I think she meant the 5 girls who were her classmates, roomates, family. She will miss them very much. We got there phone numbers. They have our phone number and address. I hope they will always stay in touch. I wish I could take them all home.

Slowly, during the full day of driving and stopping for passport and birth certificate business, she begain to relax. I gave her a diary and she wrote a bit in it, she read from a book I gave her and then played games on the laptop and phone. She took pictures when we stoppped. She really cenjoyed that. Finally we shared listening to some music on Mark's I-Pod. We laughed togetheras we took self-portraits on the phone camera.Towards the end of the visit she briefly wrapped her arms around my waist and leaned on me to rest. That was the best yet!

We arrived back in Kiev, got some groceries and settled into the apartment we will share for a week while we wait for her passport to be processed so we can come home. As soon as our faciltator finished helping us get settled and closed the door behind him, Natasha got this big grin on her face and literally ran over to me with a big, big hug! She seemed to be saying, "Yeah, we are a family now, I'm so excited!" The rest of the night went great. We had some silly fun, watched some TV and had a video call from Mark on Skype. We settled into bed for a good nights sleep

This morning I fixed us breakfast. I am going to see if I can break Natasha of the one-shower-a-week habit. Later today we will get out and about and see Kiev. She has only been here once before, and that was only to the Zoo. I hope this week we can both see the sights of the City together.

Retail Therapy (A License to Shop)

This lousy economy has hit everyone. We have made some pretty significant financial sacrifices in order to make this adoption happen. In addition to that we have cut all discretionary spending to the bare bone. However, since I have to bring new clothes for Natasha to wear out of the Internot, I have an excuse to shop!!! I had a lot of fun shopping for cute clothes for a pre-teen girl. "Hanna Montana" shoes and "High School Musical" PJs. Welcome to motherhood!
Retail Therapy for me, Woohoo . . .

I leave early tomorrow morning for Ukraine to bring Natasha home. Stay tuned.

Back home and dead tired!

We are home for the 10 day waiting period after our court date. Natasha officially became our daughter on February 5th, but there is a 10 day waiting period which must pass. Then we go back to the Ukraine and arrange to get her new birth certificate and passport. Once those documents are obtained, we go to the US Embassy in Kiev to for her medical exam and an exit interview. Then we leave for the US! Once she arrives in the US she becomes a US citizen. She retains her Ukraine citizenship until she is 18, at which time she can choose to keep it or not.

Flying home was an exhausting experience! The flight from Kiev to New York was over 10 hours. We had a 4 hour layover in New York and then a 5 hour flight to San Francisco. Today we are very tired and just trying to unpack and rest.

I will leave again on Feb 15th and will return with Natasha probably on Feb. 26th. Only one parent has to go on the 2nd return trip. We are trying to decide if Mark will return with me or not. I don't think I had mentioned this before, but the town we are adopting from is only about 500 Kilometers from Mark's grandparents hometown of Dulovo. When we realized this, we hoped that we would have time to visit Dulovo, but it turned out we didn't. However, our facilitator said that we would have time to make the drive to Dulovo during on 2nd trip. Originally we dicided that I would make the retun trip alone, but now that a trip to Dulovo is possible, I am hoping Mark will come with me on the return trip. We may never have this opportunity again. Mark's father, Chaz, has also expressed an interest in coming along and going to Dulovo. I hope one or both of them will join me. It would be a shame if I am the only one who goes to their family's hometown!

Our day in court

Today was our court date. Let me start out by saying that Natasha is now officially our daughter!!! However, the day was not without a bit of drama. When we drove to the orphanage to pick up Natasha, she was withdrawn and quiet. She would not meet our gaze. For the 20 minute drive to the court, she stared out the window. I reached out my hand, asking for her to take it, but she refused. I was a little more persistent and took her hand in mine. She pulled away. Now I was getting concerned that perhaps she had changed her mind. When we picked up Natasha, her social worker from the orphanage came with us and we picked up the inspector on the way. These 2 people, along with our facilitator, were doing there best to talk to Natasha and ease her mind. She clung to them, but would hardly accept any comfort for us. While waiting in the courtroom hallway she stayed close to the orphanage staff and started to cry. She wanted no comfort from us. This was really confusing for us. Did she change her mind???? Our facilitator prepared us well for the questions we would be asked in court. The questions we were asked lasted less than 15 minutes. When Natasha was called on to speak, she looked really uncomfortable and akward. She stammered our a few words. The court smiled at her reassuringly. Finally we all left. Everything was fine, she said she wanted to be adopted by us. But again, walking to the car, the whole drive back and walking to her classroom she kept to herself. Once in the classroom she talked to the teacher for awhile and then went to her room to change clothes. We were at a loss as to what to think. We played with the other kids in class while we waited for her to return.

Once she returned and was more relaxed, she started to smile again. We exchanged a few hugs and she nodded that she was okay. We walked to the store and picked up some goodies for the class. During the walk back, she grabbed my (Laurel) hand on her own, spontaneously. Hooray! This is what I had been waiting 2 weeks for !! When we got back from the store she was even more affectionate, more so that she had ever been. We explained that we would be coming back in 10 days and then we bring her to America. Big smile. We said goodbye to all the wonderful kinds in the class. Leaving was hard.

We had a great celebratory dinner with our facilitator and driver. Finally we have our daughter. Wohoo! Vokda all around !(well, except for our driver ) We talked at some length during dinner about her behavior today. Natasha is a very thoughtful girl, and is stuggling to process this very big change in her life. She has some mixed emotions, as would be expected. She is looking to people she trusts for guidance. Some of these people are encouraging her to go, others are not. How confusing this must be for her. She was deep in thought as we drove to court.

We stopped at the Nemiroff factory for some gifts to take home. Bright and early tomorrow morning we drive 5 hours back to Kiev and then take a Saturday morning flight back to the States.

A big day for everyone!

Vlad the bear

This weekend's visit with Natasha was again a lot of fun. This time, instead of one-on-one time with her, we spent our time in the classroom with the entire homeroom class. On Saturday we took her to the store and we bought candy and snacks for the class. While in the store, she was eyeing a big stuffed teddy bear, so we bought him too. We got the biggest smile out of her yet when she was holding that bear! She named him Vlad. Vlad quickly became the hit of the classroom.

Soon everyone was posing with Vlad for a photo. Natasha picked up the camera and started playing photographer. She has a knack for photography I think. Here are just a few of the photos we took. Our visit on Sunday ended early and we were sorry to go. We had a fun time with everyone. We could have easily stayed all day playing Uno, checkers, cops with the boys (they had toy guns), listening to their music (some of the girls felt comfortable enough to dance a little)

and snapping silly photos with Vlad. It was not until we were driving away that I realized we many not see some of them again. I wish we could take them all home. They are all such great kids.