Update #11: Saturday October 3; Update from Home

We now have had Connor home for just over two months. After 30 days in Ukraine, we arrived after a long 28 hour trip to be finally reunited with our daughters, Elizabeth and Nicole. We were so grateful to return home and have our house set up to welcome a baby! Since we didn’t know what age of child(ren) we would actually end up adopting, we hadn’t set up anything prior to our departure. We arrived to a beautiful crib ready and waiting for that TIRED boy! Special thanks to Oneales for passing on not only a crib and bedding, but a highchair, stroller, baby gates and toys galore! And there are many, many others to thank who have since blessed us with everything we need for Connor.

 

Connor is a delight in all ways. He has slept through the night since arriving home - now there’s an advantage of adopting a 15 month old! He is attaching amazingly well to our family. Just today Brian got to see first hand that Connor won’t allow his new parents to waltz off and leave him in the church nursery; he’s content to be there, just as long as one of us stays right there with him. His big sisters both love to dote on him and have been a big help during our family’s transition.   

 

Connor is perfectly healthy.  We took him to a local international adoption doctor who tested him for everything imaginable, examined him thoroughly, and declared him healthy.

 

Thanks for so many prayers for us throughout this entire process. Despite that we were initially looking for two older boys, we are so glad that God changed our desires and led us to Connor. He truly is the perfect addition to our family.

 

We hope you enjoy the new pictures under the “Third Set of Connor Pictures at Home”.  Also check out "Slideshow of Connor - by Elizabeth" and our new family portrait in "Family Photo Album". Words can’t adequately describe how he has blossomed. He is now walking everywhere, babbles constantly (he never made a sound in the orphanage), and all in all is a very happy little boy. It feels that he has always been with us.

 

 

 

Update #10: Tuesday-Saturday July 20-24; He’s our boy! Return to Kiev; will be home Wednesday night 7/28

Most of this week was spent with our daily visits with Connor, waiting for paperwork, and visiting the “internet café” to correspond with our girls and other folks. As we mentioned earlier, Raymond and Leslie Von Ligten from Holland have been with us in Mykolayiv throughout this process; our respective translators have teamed together to expedite the extensive paper chase. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time with them.

Then, on Friday, it all came together. At 8:00 AM we had court with the local judge, a nice man who reminded Brian of Telly Savalas. He asked a lot of questions, pretty much as a formality since he access to all our documents. He cut off Brian with sort of a Ukrainian “Bah!” just as Brian was making his (very eloquent, of course) opening statements. The poor judge missed out on Brian’s best commentary! But we forgave him because after comments from us, the orphanage director, and the local government “inspector”, he declared that Connor was approved to be adopted by us! July 23^rd will be a day of celebration for the Clark clan!

After the dual court hearing (which was also declared favorably for Von Ligtens), things really got busy. Brian and Raymond jumped in a taxi with one translator for an hour ride to the village where (through incredible coincidence) both of our newly adopted children were born only ten days apart. There was little time to spare, and the taxi did about 85 MPH on roads better suited for 50. We spent about 1 ½ hours in the village while the new birth certificates with the adoptive parents’ names were produced by a one-finger-typing clerk with a TYPEWRITER! She had to re-do the certificates because on the first set she used the phrase “Republic of Ukraine” rather than “Ukraine”, which has been the official name of the country for the 13 years since independence from the Soviet Union! We think someone may be ready for retirement here. This was followed by another white-knuckle trip back to Mykolayiv to get the birth certificates stamped/notarized and to make a petition for the Ukrainian passports. The final legal stop was at the police station, from which we finally procured passports at about 4:15PM.

Meanwhile, Meg and Leslie were getting the families’ possessions packed and moved to a central location and shopping with the other translator for gifts for the orphanage director, taxi driver (whom we had essentially retained for 11 days), and caretakers. We converged on the orphanage at about 5:30PM to dole out the various gifts, gather up the kids, and make a mad rush for the train station. Due to Meg’s ever vigilant bag-counting-whenever-we-go-anywhere habit, we realized that one of our suitcases was missing. They were able to call the taxi back to the train station – fortunately he still had the bag (containing all the baby stuff and two pairs of eyeglasses, for starters). We had to run through the station to board the train for Kiev.

This train was a bit older than the last one and did not have air conditioning, but we were so relieved to be on it with Connor, now officially our new son! He did wonderfully with the car and train rides as well as the couple hours of wandering and shopping we did in Kiev on Saturday morning. These are all completely new experiences for him, but we think because of the 40-odd hours we logged with him at the orphanage, he is feeling comfortable enough with us to take it all in stride.

We’ll see about the plane ride! After our Monday and Tuesday appointments to fulfill the American government requirements here in Kiev to get a visa for Connor, we will get up at 4:00AM on Wednesday to get to the airport. After layovers in Amsterdam and Minneapolis, we will arrive in Boise on the 10:59PM Northwest flight Wednesday night. Do the math: with the nine hour time change, that’s 27 hours of travel with a 15 month old. How fun is that? Please pray for a calm Connor!

 

Update #9: Saturday – Monday July 17-19; Weekend in Mykolayiv

 

After marking time over the weekend waiting for the paperwork, we just got word that some critical documents did indeed get signed today and are on their way to Kiev. This raises our hopes that we will be able to leave Ukraine for home next Tuesday July 27. We will check on Tuesday flight availability tomorrow. We are now about three weeks into a four week process and are we ever ready to get home!

 

We understand that some people are having trouble viewing the first Connor pictures on this site (“First Set of Connor Pictures in Ukraine” to the left). We don’t know what the reason is, but the site is set up properly and apparently if you retry it a couple of times, the pictures do generally appear. Maybe the free web hosting service was not such a good idea! We just posted some new pictures on the “Second Set of Connor Pictures in Ukraine” link to the left.

 

We think that the orphanage is dressing Connor in some of the best clothes they have when we come to spend time with him. Today, however, he had on a blue and green polka dot shirt - "matched" with a pink striped sun suit, complete with ruffles on the little seat!

 

We bought Connor a stroller (in Ukrainian flag colors) for the trip back and a few changes of clothes. We are a bit intimidated by the thought of the four days in Kiev and the trip home with a newly adjusting child and unpredictable access to food with which he is familiar.

 

We are still enjoying our two daily visits with him very much. He has been a bit fussy with us the last two mornings – having all this attention and spending so much time outside is probably a lot to get used to when he spends most of his day puttering around on the floor with the other kids and about a 7:1 child to caretaker ratio. The afternoons have gone more smoothly – probably due to the snack we bring for him and the stroller ride he enjoys so much.

 

We were amazed yesterday morning when we observed the morning bathroom ritual at the orphanage. They had 12 kids all sitting quietly on little potty chairs in a big playpen (check out the picture in the “Second Set of Connor Pictures in Ukraine” section). They sit there motionless after they are done, waiting until the caretakers come and take them off the chairs and dress them. Remember these are 15 to 20 month olds, and they are essentially potty trained! We have never detected the “essence” of a messy diaper since we have been here.

 

Update #8: Waiting it out in Mykolayiv; Thur-Fri, July 15-16, 2004.

 

What a wonderful feeling of relief to have accepted a referral for a terrific child! No more doubts about whether we would be able to get a referral at the NAC. No more doubts about whether we would like the referral they gave us. We submitted our petition to adopt Connor John Clark to the local authorities, and, barring any unforeseen calamities, it is just a matter of time before he is ours!

 

How much time that will be is the concern. Once Sergey gets all the paperwork done in Mykolayiv, we will have to return by overnight train to Kiev, where there are two additional days of mandatory appointments for the American government (medical exam and visa application) before we are free to leave. It now is sure that we will miss our currently scheduled flight on Friday, July 23. Mid week the following week (about July 28) seems probable at this time. This is really a disappointment since we really want to get back home to our girls as soon as possible. There is little we can do except pray for quick processing of the adoption legalities. Please pray with us.

 

We are immensely enjoying our two-a-day sessions with Connor, totaling three to four hours a day. He is warming up to us well – smiles are frequent and we have figured out how to elicit some good belly laughs. He definitely recognizes us when we come in now. All indicators are that he will attach to us very well. We honestly enjoy him more each time we see him. It is interesting to see his response to so much focused attention – surely more than he has ever received because he has been in the orphanage since he was born. It seems a bit overwhelming for him at times; sometimes we just let him scoot away and get a little space.

 

The feeding routine is pretty amazing. They have four kids at a little table with generous portions of food in front of each. They have been trained to wait, looking at the food (keep in mind these are 12-18 month olds) until the workers come and basically shovel it in! One worker will feed two kids at a time, alternating spoonfuls to each one. When we are there, they set Connor aside and let us feed him. He can really pack it in for a little guy!

 

Conner was just moved to his current “groupa” about three weeks ago. The workers there seem to do their job well, but enthusiasm seems a little thin. However, we were outside walking today when suddenly a very gregarious caretaker from another groupa yelled “Hey, Artem!” at Connor and came over to see him. We passed him over to her. She jostled him around and exuberantly tickled him as he beamed and giggled in recognition of this woman who is obviously a caretaker from his last groupa. She yelled at the building and the two women who stuck their heads out were joyously informed “Hey, Artem is getting adopted by these people”. We didn’t have to speak a word of Russian to understand this exchange! As she handed him back to us, she said “Mama, Papa!” We are thrilled that he has been cared for by someone so warm.

 

Update #7: Travel to Mykolayiv, meeting “the boy”, accepting referral; Mon-Wed, July 12-14, 2004.

On Monday we packed up (getting tired of packing up and living out of suitcases, to be sure); Brian spent a half day working at the HP Kiev office. At 6:00PM we were picked up and taken to the train station. We were very happy to find that Sergey was going with us again to the region. He is very effective at his job, is a wealth of information, and is simply an enjoyable person to be with. Another nice surprise was to see Raymond and Leslie with Lena, their translator, on the same train; we thought they had traveled to Mykolayiv one day earlier. If this works out for both families, our respective translators may be able to work together and expedite the massive amount of paperwork for both children that must be done in Mykolayiv before we can return to Kiev and HOME!

We were pleasantly surprised with the experience of the overnight train. Of course our point of reference is three years of train travel in Bangladesh! We shared a four-berth compartment with Sergey just a couple of doors down from the other family. The six of us shared a nice late-evening meal in the diner car, where we discovered a little of Sergey’s deep level of knowledge about the history of Ukraine and love for his country, despite his young age of only 25. We were glad to get a few hours of sleep on the train before arriving in Mykolayiv at 6:30AM on Tuesday. The scenery before we got into town shows an area greener and wetter than Kiev in the north. We saw many thousands of acres of sunflowers, just coming into bloom. Beautiful!

We got off the train and moved into an apartment that had been rented for us. As we got cleaned up for the orphanage visit, the pins and needles of anticipation/anxiety increased yet again. There has been a lot of that on this trip! After a (thankfully) quick stop with the local authorities to get permission to proceed, we drove down a dirt road with puddles of water 6-8 inches deep.

This orphanage houses children from 0-3 years and seems to be much larger than the other facilities we have seen. We met with the head doctor, who was very helpful and went through all of the boy’s medical records; there were no big surprises or diagnoses that we had not heard of at the NAC in Kiev. He is quite small for his age on the growth charts, which is not unusual for an orphanage kid but a little concerning.

Then they led us into his “groupa” of 14 kids, in a clean room with two large playpens and four tables with tiny chairs. The caretakers picked him up, handed him to Meg, took the other kids outside, and left us alone with him for an hour or so. He seemed to handle seeing us for the first time pretty well; he didn’t cry, but he was pretty shy – no easy smile or cooing. Later we observed him interacting with one of his regular caregivers – he reached up to her and was all smiles. He has big brown eyes and dark hair, and is all in all a cute kid! He is strong, spunky, and really seems to know what he wants and goes after it. He is not quite walking, but will be very soon.

Today is Wednesday; we just got back from the orphanage. We spent more time with the little guy and had a visit with a doctor from Kiev. She gave him an examination and addressed a couple of concerns we had, giving us the assurance we needed to make the final acceptance of the referral and get on with making him our boy! He certainly kept checking us out, gazing into our eyes and even smiling at us. He had a bit of a rash yesterday which is already fading today. Then we were able to spend time with him and the other children in his “groupa” in a large playroom. We got to observe his interactions with other children – he knows when he wants a toy and goes for it, regardless of the size of the competition! Our time with him and his “groupa” further convinced us that he is a great kid and that we are really blessed to have received this referral!

His name is Artem Evgenovich Kubitsky. We elected to not keep any of it, especially since he is so young. There have been extensive and confidential Clark family negotiations, including via email with our daughters, Elizabeth and Nicole, to come up with a name. Congratulations go to Nicole for her passionate and convincing letter which ended the debate: his name will be Connor John Clark!

We should be able to see him at the orphanage from 9:30-11:30AM and 4:00-6:00PM everyday while we are waiting for the necessary paperwork. This will include birth certificates, petitions to the government, and countless other documents to be prepared, approved, notarized, sent to Kiev, etc. etc. etc. Sergey has experience helping some 30 families through this process and is studying International Law, so he is very adept at working through the system.

Go check out the Connor pictures on the “First Set of Connor Pictures in Ukraine” link to the left!

 

Update #6: Weekend in Kiev; Sat-Sun, July 10-11, 2004.

While we certainly wish we could be making more progress on this adoption, we cannot leave for Mykolayiv until Monday evening at 7:00. Therefore, we are having that romantic European vacation that we have always thought would be nice. We toured the 1000 year old St. Sofia Cathedral. It was remarkably beautiful and peaceful once we sat on a bench in a quiet corner upstrairs. You can read a little about it at: http://www.kiev.info/culture/sofia_cathedral.htm

Then we rode a cable car down to the river and got on a boat for a one hour river cruise. Unfortunately, Brian did not ask enough questions and we ended up on the only boat that takes a FOUR hour cruise! It was much more than we had bargained for time-wise, but it was great. We even went through a set of locks into a humongous reservior lake north of Kiev. This probably took us within 40 or 50 miles of Ukraine's greatest points of recent infamy, Chernobyl. Russian pop music blared across the deck the entire time. Total cost for two people: $11.50!

One of the really neat things has been our times with other folks that are adopting. Other than those we have already mentioned, we have logged a lot of enjoyable time with Brenda and just this morning met Michael and Wendy. We have done some touring with Raymond and Leslie from Holland. We found out their referral is at the same orphanage as ours, so we probably will see a lot of them next week.

It is great to compare notes on our experiences and encourage each other. Out of the seven couples we have met, four have had to reject their first referral (including us). It is nice to know that we are not alone in making that difficult decision.

 

Update #5: NAC appointment #3; new referral; Fri, July 9, 2004.

We spent Thursday evening and early Friday morning looking forward to our third and final NAC appointment with a mixture of anxiety, anticipation, and prayer. It was bottom of the ninth and two outs, and we really needed a good hit!

We had a third psychologist help us at the NAC, as well as Nastya, our translator for this session. We had been told that there were still no younger healthy brothers. We were shown two non-related boys who had just become available. Unfortunately, the new rules prevent us from adopting both, although we would love to. We chose (sit down now) a 15 month old! He is reported to be perfectly healthy and from a very good orphanage in Mykolayiv region, in the south on the Black Sea. In fact, and this is amazing, he is from the same orphanage from which two of the three couples we had dinner with two nights ago had adopted (see previous update). It has a very good reputation; the kids we saw were chubby and healthy. Meg had wistfully thought at the time “Why can’t we get a child from that “baby house?”

We will spend the weekend in Kiev and leave for Mykolayiv on Monday. We hope to see him on Tuesday and let you know as soon as possible whether we accept the referral. Based on what our team has found out, it seems a high likelihood there will be no unpleasant surprises, but of course we will not know until we get there.

As you know, this represents quite a shift in focus for us – only one boy younger than we had anticipated. But we are totally thrilled and excited about this and anticipate raising this boy “from the ground up” as it were. Even though we did not think much about toddler issues before we came, we know that Elizabeth and Nicole will look forward to helping with those diapers!

Thanks for your prayers on our behalf.

Yahoo!

 

Update #4: Rejection of first referral, travel back to Kiev; Wed-Thur, July 7-8, 2004.

We must start with a disclaimer on our process of updating this website. We have to use the local “internet cafes”, and much of the updating is done by a bleary-eyed Brian without a spell checker or the benefit of Meg’s proofreading. When he did the last update, Brian finally had the capability to copy all the updates from the website to a floppy disk and bring them back to the apartment where Meg could see what we really posted. We had some good laughs about such literary gems as “tread the needle”, “the older bother”, and “our base option” – not to mention multiple instances of mangled spelling. We have corrected and re-posted these so that you can see that we truly are semi-literate when we work together.

After we grappled with our decision about the brothers all Tuesday, that evening we had a very helpful conversation with an American couple who “happened” be in Cherkasy. They had adopted an older Ukrainian child and knew others who have done the same. They pretty strongly felt that we would be taking too great of a risk for a negative impact on our adolescent girls and family unit to get this particular pair of boys with their ages and background. This confirmed what we had been thinking and hearing from others throughout the day. This advice, combined with the medical concerns, made our decision clear. We finally felt at peace to say "no" to the referral, even though this was an incredibly difficult decision.

Wednesday morning Sergey completed the necessary paperwork with the local authorities to get the referral officially “refused”. We left Cherkasy by early afternoon bound for Kiev, where our team had arranged another apartment for us. They are working very hard to get us back into the NAC as soon as possible. We are hoping for an appointment on Friday. We do hope to be referred to a pair of younger (less than four years old) brothers, but because of the vacationing officials we mentioned earlier, it seems more likely that we may be offered just one boy. This would be fine as we have concluded that we would rather have just one boy young enough to mold into our family than two older ones. We would have the option of returning for another child on a later trip. The NAC would then allow us a new set of three appointments.

Last night we met with three other American couples who are completing their Ukrainian adoptions. Their children are beautiful and seemed at ease in the midst of so much transition. It was encouraging to see such happy endings! One of the couples is from Boise; they live about ten minutes away from us!

As we waited to hear about our next NAC appointment time, Brian spent part of Thursday working at the local HP office, with his laptop hooked up to the HP network. Meg got to do laundry – fun, fun! Thanks for your emails (we got a lot today!). We really appreciate your prayers.

 

Update #3: Weekend and trip to Cherkasy, first orphanage visits. Sat – Tue, July 3-6, 2004.

We won’t bore you with much detail about our weekend activities, except to say that Brian’s two bloopers were turning all our laundry blue in the weird little Korean front-load washing machine and getting miserably lost, turning a six mile run into a very tired and sore 12 miler. Kiev is a beautiful city and we had a couple of opportunities for shopping and sightseeing. We eagerly looked forward to our Monday trip to Cherkasy.

Back in the US, Monday was a holiday, but we had a very long day here. Sergey, our translator/driver/government liaison/direction-finder/make-everything-happen-guy picked us up at 5:30. He is a much less fun but much more careful driver than Alexey, which may be good because his Toyota has no seatbelts in the back. As we left Kiev he told us we would be missing the Olympic torch passing through town in just a few hours. We found ourselves very much enjoying Sergey’s company and all the work he did for us.

In USSR days, Ukraine was known at the “Breadbasket of Russia”. We could easily see how it earned this distinction on our three hour drive to Cherkasy. We drove past scores of miles of beautiful wheat, corn, squash, and sunflower fields in both directions as far as the eye could see.
 
We spent a couple of hours going to various government offices getting the necessary permission to visit the six year old brother. The eight year old is in another town, so we had to wait to get permission to see him separately.

You should know that there are three levels of orphanages here. The “baby house” is for children 0-3 years, the “detsky dom” for 4-7 years, and the “internat” is for 8-15 years. Since our preference was for two children 3-6 years, we had assumed that we would be visiting the detsky dom for both kids until we had accepted a referral in an older age range.

In the early afternoon, we went to the Cherkasy detsky dom to see the younger brother. We spent a lot of time with the orphanage director, getting details on his history and how he came to be in the orphanage, behavior, and reports from his caretakers. We also discussed his medical history with the orphanage doctor. There was a significant health issue about which the NAC did not inform us. Hmmm. His family life before the orphanage was unfortunately pretty typical but less than we had hoped.

Then they brought him in where we talked with him for about 10 minutes through Sergey. He seemed to be a bright and pleasant little boy. We liked him, but since we have to consider him along with his brother, we tried to be non-committal to him, the orphanage staff, and ourselves.

We were amazed at the condition of the detsky dom. It was much larger, well maintained, and equipped than we could have imagined. The grounds were full of small groups of children participating in various activities. Everything was clean with bright colors everywhere. The staff seemed to be very dedicated and professional. All in all, we were very impressed by our first Ukrainian orphanage visit.

We spent the rest of the afternoon going to a small village to get permission to see the older brother and find out more about him. We finally were able to find the “inspector”, who was very enthusiastic and helpful. Unfortunately, she gave us the bad news that because of her impending vacation, if we were to decide to adopt these two boys, we would be set back in our schedule at least one week, causing us to return to the US about July 30. This was a bit of a shock, but despite all parties trying to come up with different alternatives to expedite the approvals, we could not see any alternatives. So, we resigned ourselves to a longer stay in Ukraine should we decide on these particular boys. Such is the unpredictable nature of adoption here.

Late in the day, we went to the “internat” to talk with the orphanage director about the older boy. The facility was definitely not as impressive as the detsky dom in terms of equipment or upkeep. It seemed that what Meg had heard about the internat (it is better to get children before they are sent there) may be well-founded. All the children were at a camp very close to Cherkasy for the summer.

The director was temporary and did not personally know the older boy but told us what was in his file. One surprise was that he had been at the internat for about one year rather than the one month we had heard at the NAC. Hmmm. There was also a confirmation of a medical condition that the NAC did inform us about but that we had hoped would have resolved itself. It had not. Hmmm. After that we drove back to Cherkasy and moved into a very nice apartment arranged by the orphanage director. We finally got to bed at almost 11:00 PM.

We drove to the older brother’s camp first thing in the morning. Again, we were greeted by a very enthusiastic and dedicated staff. They told us he was a basically good boy with no major behavioral or health problems. They brought him in and we talked for a few minutes before asking the orphanage director if we could have the boy take us for a tour of the camp. We spent most of an hour going around the place, which was a very nice set-up for the kids.

Unfortunately, we left the camp quite conflicted and unfortunately not seeing eye-to-eye. At first, Brian (being the task oriented guy that he is) enjoyed the boy very much and was initially ready to say “yes” to the referral and proceed with the adoption of the brothers. Meg is far from convinced. Her concerns include: the boys are really older than we had wanted (there are several potential issues with this in terms of their bonding with our family), the older one had been in the internat for one year rather that the one month we had assumed, there are some medical issues including a “new” one we had not heard about, and she did not feel a “connection” with the eight year old at the first visit.

We are spending Tuesday afternoon trying to decide what to do. Unfortunately, if we reject this referral, we can have only one more opportunity for an appointment at the NAC in Kiev – they only allow three appointments and we have already used two. Due to what we have heard from our facilitation team, it is very unlikely that they will have any additional pairs of younger brothers that would meet our criteria this week because of the officials being on vacations. This would mean that we hopefully would be able to find one younger boy (with an option to come back later) or (shudder) come home empty-handed.

Yet, for the reasons listed above and some counsel we have received in the last few hours from people with painful first-hand experience in this arena, we are not feeling good about the referral. Most of this counsel seems to point to the wisdom of refusing it. One comforting thought is that the delay necessitated by a third appointment at the NAC will probably not take us beyond the delay caused by the vacationing inspector from the older boy’s orphanage.  It seems we will have to take a week longer than planned in either case. This is really hard since we are missing our girls so much – Brian lay awake last night missing them, and Meg went through three Kleenexes as she looked at their pictures today in a photo album they put together.

We would appreciate your prayers over the next few days as we obviously have some difficult decisions to make. If we do go back to the NAC, we need to see God’s hand move with the officials and the paperwork in order to get a better referral.

Update #2: Tue-Fri, June 29 - July 2, 2004 (travel from Boise to Kiev, first day in Kiev, two appointments at NAC).

We are sorry for this belated and long update. Time and internet access have been pretty limited since we arrived.

Our trip to Kiev (via Minneapolis and Amsterdam) went very well. For about ten minutes in Amsterdam, we thought Brian had forgotten our credit cards at home. Meg finally figured out where he had stashed them; he is glad he brought her along.

Before getting on the Amsterdam-Kiev flight, we had a really nice talk with a missionary couple that works in Ukraine. They gave us some pointers, including the memory trick of how to say "good" in Russian. You think of "horror show" for "ha ra SHO". Now that we are here, we hear the phrase all the time.

We were met at the airport by two members of our adoption facilitation team, Alexey and Nastya. Brian likes Alexey's driving because he can really "thread the needle" in the chaotic traffic here and he hit 100 MPH coming into town from the airport. He really should wear a seatbelt, but you can be sure that we did!

We have been put up in a comfortable one-bedroom apartment within walking distance of the National Adoption Center (NAC), shopping, and restaurants. The apartment is quiet and has a decent kitchen where we can prepare light meals and boil drinking water.

We had dinner with Laura and Dave Davenport from Houston, another couple adopting with our team, with whom Meg has been corresponding. They got a referral from the NAC for two sisters ages five and seven years.

If you have not read our description of the adoption process in Ukraine (see separate page on this site), you should probably do so to help you better understand the rest of this update.

Alexey and Lena, our translator, picked us up for our 9:30 appointment on Thursday. We waited in the dingy lobby for about 30 minutes before being led down the long corridor to meet with the "psychologist"", a quiet elderly man. Brian had to give the roses that Lena had brought along as a customary gift. Brian has never given roses to another guy and really did not find this part of the experience something worth anticipating or repeating in the future. Oh, well.

The room had three small desks where families could be interviewed and shown the paperwork for available children. A love bird in a cage chattered directly behind our heads.

The psychologist asked us to give a short bio on ourselves and what children we hoped to adopt. Then he showed us what children were just becoming available. Unfortunately, none matched our "ideal" criteria of two healthy brothers ages three to six years. The only close option was a sister and brother of four and six years. After a few minutes of soul searching and quiet discussion, we decided to ask more about this set since everything except the gender mix seemed ideal. The pschologist called the children's orphanage. He found out that all the kids from that orphanage had been taken to Spain to a summer camp and therefore were unavailable for adoption. Then we saw files for two older brothers (seven and nine), but we thought that these were too old. We were also offered four brothers under six years (gasp!), but then learned that they were also at a camp in Spain.

After quickly looking through a large binder with information on more sibling groups, our appointment time ran out without us making a selection. This was a huge and unexpected disappointment. We were told that we would have another appointment on Friday, which was good since most second appointments involve days of waiting. However, without more children becoming available this time of the year because of vacationing officials, the goal of that session would be for us to expand our criteria to consider other children.

We had dinner again with the Davenports at the "Rock and Roll Cafe". The food and fellowship were very good, but we were pretty heavily weighed down with our unsuccessful NAC trip. After our appointment we felt discouraged because we were of course hoping for the perfect referral on the first NAC visit. Yet we also feel that God has faithfully led us along this adoption path for so long that there must be a reason for all this, so we trust that His will is being accomplished in His way, not ours.  

Back at the apartment, we spent a lot of time talking and praying about our options. Should we just get one child and come back to Ukraine in the fall for another (we definitely do NOT want to adopt just one)? This has a lot of cost and logistical problems that we would rather avoid. In addition, we very much want to adopt siblings so they can be together to ease their adjustment. Should we consider slightly older kids, including other brother/sister combinations? This seemed the best option.

Our Friday appointment was at 11:30. Oleg, our facilitator, and Lena spent a lot of time with us discussing our options as we waited. We had a different "psychologist" this time, a young woman. The first child's file we saw was for a 15 month old boy with no siblings. We were puzzled why we were being shown a child that was such a poor fit for our desires. We kept asking about the two older brothers whose paperwork we had seen the day before, and were finally told that they had been to the US, had stayed with a family that was now in the process of adopting them, and were therefore unavailable.

They brought out another binder with paperwork representing children that were supposedly healthier and otherwise more similar to our criteria than we had seen the day before. How the binders are organized is a mystery to us. We saw several sibling groups, but they were either too old (11 or older), had too many children per family group, or were not available for adoption.

Then we saw the papers for two brothers ages six and eight. Despite being slightly older than we had origianally hoped, they seemed to be a good fit. The brothers were recently separated because the older one became too old to stay in the middle-age orphange (there are three age levels in Ukraine). The psychologist called both orphanages to get updated information. We were very glad to hear that they are both reported to be healthy and available for international adoption. We accepted the referral and will be traveling to visit them in Cherkasy region (bordering Kiev region to the south).

We are very relieved to have a referral in hand, even though we cannot travel to see the boys until Monday. We will travel there with another translator; we understand it is about three hours by car.

 

Update 1: Monday, June 28, 23:45 MST: Getting ready to go!

Wow! What a hectic few weeks this has been since we found out our appointment date at the National Adoption Center! It's almost midnight, we leave for the airport at 6:00 AM tomorrow, and we still have a bunch of stuff to do! But we are feeling a lot of anticipation and are so appreciative of the prayers and help of so many friends and family. The girls are with Meg's parents for this first stretch of time; we hope they have a great time with family while we are gone. The dog, cat, bird, and fish are farmed out to various helpful friends.

We land in Kiev at 15:00 on Wednesday, about 22 hours after we leave Boise. Kiev is nine hours ahead of Mountain Time.