Petition and consent

Here's one good reason (from NPR.org) we are glad to be in Ukraine:

The National Weather Service says the storm could drop up to an inch of freezing rain and issued a blizzard watch for Tuesday and Wednesday for southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois and northwest Indiana. Five- to 10-foot snow drifts are possible, and the weather service said winds could reach up to 60 mph on Tuesday.

I had to get that out there first, though, because the other reason is much better: we have officially begun the adoption process of these three precious girls! In fact, today was one of the best days of my life.

It turns out that not only our notary but all the notaries in the province were out of their office on Friday. We met some Italians that morning, just before we first met our girls, who were there to pick up their child after starting in December and holding their breath over the Christmas break; when they found the notary closed, they actually went to another city looking for another one to get the passport application rolling and could not. The delay may end up making our trip more than 3 days longer because of the alignment of a couple of offices' schedules, but these 4 days of bonding made today's late-afternoon consent process a joyful and relational event for all of us. Considering that adoption is an awesome symbol of our adoption into our heavenly father's family, which happens when we accept him, we are thrilled that our children's acceptance of us was not a "Yes, but will you be there too?" or a dispassionate "Fine" but an immediate, delighted, public embracing of us when given the opportunity.

You probably want me to go back to the beginning. So I will. We met before breakfast and headed to the notary's office in time to get there when it opened. The Italians were already there with their little girl, upbeat but really chafing at the wait, especially when the notary ended up arriving more than half an hour late to unlock the door. She was young, jovial, and kind, though, not your stereotype of a notary (which is really a kind of lawyer), and she got our documents prepared very quickly. We did take a break while she was doing that, though, and had a coffee across the road while Val picked up the kids' birth certificates from the orphanage. We had to sign in a half dozen places, officially documenting our petition to adopt these specific children, and then after breakfast took the documents to the social services office so they could start their process. We already knew they were in meetings until lunchtime, but the arrangement was that in the afternoon we would all meet at the orphange for the consent process; Val was thinking we would not actually have playtime today.

Well, we ended up having a pretty long playtime, and it was great. The jewelry craft had dried and was ready to assemble, so all 5 of us had a good time at the beginning getting bracelets and rings put together and tried on. I had my best talk so far with the oldest girl while we colored, my first big, happy hug from the middle girl (who so far has stuck pretty close to Julie), and one whole matching game with the little girl on my lap (which turned out to be a very successful way to distract her from a balloon game that was starting to get a little too active, a victory in our first of what will be many battles of wills).

It was getting close to 5 and we were wondering if today's main focus was not going to work out after all when Val got a call from social services. We were just finishing the matching game when the chief walked in along with the orphanage lawyer; the orphanage psychologist also came to certify the statements. The chief asked as soon as she walked in if they wanted to be adopted and go to America with us, and the kids all said "Yes" so fast you'd have thought they were afraid of missing their chance if they answered slowly.

The plan had been for the youngest one to verbally consent before a small committee who would formally attest to it, but she spunkily insisted that she wanted to write it herself, which probably saved some hassle. So she strained over the paper, tongue out in concentration, copying out the formal statement with Val and the lawyer prompting her on spelling (including the Cyrillic version of our names). It took long enough for all three to write their consent statements that we had plenty of chance to enjoy the magical moment and get some cute video and pictures. Julie focused on keeping the little girl busy as soon as she was done, dressing her up in Julie's knit cap and scarf and sunglasses.

In case it's not obvious, my heart is already mush. In fact, I told Julie back on Friday night that I was feeling emotions that I hadn't felt since the year that we were dating, basically that here's someone that my life just is incomplete any day that I'm not with them. There have been other kids that we saw needed a family and we felt we could do that for them, but these kids felt from the beginning like they belong with us. I won't speak for Julie ("Yulia" in Ukrainian), but I don't think she could resist getting a crayon drawing today with a bunch of hearts and "____YJulia" and "JuliaY____" from someone calling her "Mama".

Tomorrow, medical histories from the orphanage doctor need to go to social services, who will prepare a new stack of papers to be sent to the SDA in Kiev. And we are now officially in waiting mode, although at least we get to keep visiting every day while we wait.

Third visit

Wow! Things are just getting better and better. Today the girls took a short break to get their temperatures taken (the middle one had a fever, but it was getting better, and thankfully we are still feeling well in spite of sneezes and sniffles and kisses). Just before they left, Val asked if they wanted to go home with us and all 3 said "Yes!" enthusiastically (and perhaps with a hint of "Are you crazy?"). So tomorrow we are going to get the paperwork going with social services and the orphanage lawyer.

In fact, today was the first day that the oldest really seemed happy the whole time. The little one requires a lot of attention and the middle one solicits a lot of affection, so we have been trying to make sure the oldest one didn't get left out, but she definitely has warmed up to us now. Today she gave me a big hug as soon as she saw me, and Julie spent the first hour working with her at a make-your-own jewelry craft kit that was right at her higher skill level. Yesterday she had declined to get her nails painted, but today she was happy to do it. Then, I got to talk with her alone some while we drew pictures together and found out she likes sports, especially soccer. We ended up playing with a couple of little bouncy coosh balls that light up when they move, tossing those back and forth across the room, then keeping a balloon in the air with hands and feet. It was good to do something a little bit active even while inside.

We had a full 3 hours with the girls today and it just flew by. We did a small puzzle and played the matching game again to lots of giggles and exclamations. We also had books that change colors when you paint them with water-filled markers, and I went through both of those with the little girl, and also played catch with her while sitting on the floor and was pretty surprised how much coordination she has. You do have to keep an eye on her; twice we were distracted for a moment and suddenly found her pulling out Julie's netbook, which we had used at the beginning to show videos of our two little Hoosier nieces singing and dancing.

I think the oldest girl has felt pretty responsible for her sisters. Yesterday she was quite careful to straighten up the sofa covers and get things looking nice as we were packing up. Today, the little girl started slamming her coosh ball around as soon as we gave it to her and somehow managed to break it (not easy: it's made of rubber and also inflated?!). Her sister said, "I'll take that one and you take mine," which shows you something about her personality. So we are looking forward to giving her a chance to let go of that and have someone taking special care of her instead.

The room we meet in appears to be a library for the grade school, but it is very suitable for us, with an L-shaped couch, nice rugs, and two kid-sized tables with chairs. In the last 15 minutes, there were two other girls that wandered into the room, which kind of changed the dynamic, since they participated occasionally in the conversation, so it was not quite as private and comfortable. However, Val told us on the walk back to the hotel that he had not asked them to leave because he heard them saying to each other, "Look how happy they are that they are going to have a family," and "I wish I was getting adopted." Also, our girls did not seem embarrassed to keep playing with us.

Second visit

Today's visit lasted at least 2:30 hours and went just as fast as the last one. These girls are little sweethearts and so fun to be with! The youngest especially is very expressive; we were playing a game where you have to match one half of imaginary colorful animals to the other, and her enthusiastic noises when she saw a match made all of us laugh. All three of them are eating and sleeping in the infirmary now, although they are much more cheerful than I am when I have a cold. We started out by coloring together for at least an hour on blank paper (we had left behind the coloring books last night since there is nothing to do in the evening in the infirmary), so we have our first little stack of signed masterpieces for the fridge. I got to do a whole number-themed sticker book with the oldest and youngest. The middle girl played the whole matching game seated on Julie's lap and gave her lots of spontaneous hugs. The oldest girl voted to play the matching game a second time, which we did, although the youngest was certainly the most into it and I had to promise her that we would play again tomorrow. Then we all 5 ended the session cooperatively playing Eagle Eye, working together and leaning all over each other looking for random objects in these colorful photographs of masses of miscellany; even after doing that both days, I think there are hours of fun left in that game.

It turns out that yesterday the chief of social services, after getting feedback from us while the girls were on a snack break, actually encouraged Val to get the paperwork started and he would have done that but the notary was out of the office that whole day. So we are going to have to wait until Monday to ask the girls for formal consent and start the government wheels turning. I am trying not to feel like, "What could go wrong between now and Monday?" As it is, at least we have extra time to get to know the girls since we can visit 7 days a week. We even have permission to take them for walks except we haven't done that because they are sick.

Today, we did walk into town twice, this morning to buy a hairbrush, fingernail polish, and a drawing tabliet for the visit and this afternoon mostly for exercise after a late lunch (we were with the girls from 12 to 2:35), also looking for coffee filters, which we could not find even in 6 small grocery stores; too bad, we will just have to spend the weekend getting great European-style coffee from the hotel's 24-hour restaurant instead of using the drip coffeemaker. The crisp mountain air is awesome. It feels like you are breathing in pure good health with a hint of fragrant wood smoke from people's fireplaces.

First visit

After a 16:30 hour train ride, we arrived in Uzhgorod around 8 this morning. Although Ukrainian trains make sure you wake up frequently during the night because of stops, lights, or jostles, I find that trains anywhere in the world put me quickly back to sleep; unfortunately, Julie and our facilitator Val both lost a lot of sleep. I still was groggy enough in the morning to forget my glasses, either in the train or in the van.


A driver was waiting to pick us up and take us 20 km to the town of Perechyn, where we will probably be staying for some time. On the way, we actually got to see the Slovakian border, as well as lots of beautiful forests and Carpathian foothills; check out the satellite view on Google maps if you want to see what the surroundings look like here. By 9 we were waiting in the hall outside the social services office for someone to arrive and unlock it. The inspector was the first of the delightful, friendly people we met today. The chief arrived shortly afterwards, a very kind, motherly figure who went out of her way to make us feel comfortable and make some calls to find us a good hotel. Since this is ski season, the nearest one was full, but it turns out that the other one is just a short walk from the orphanage, on the very edge of town, so it is actually more convenient. This is the most remote part of Ukraine, and prices are very low. We are paying about $30 a night for a suite with a couch, extra large bathtub, shower, 4-chair dinette, fridge, coffeemaker, and Wi-fi; the smaller rooms were booked up, and we like the idea of being able to eat light meals in our own room. We had a chance to get settled and showered and then rush through lunch (including the best borscht I've ever had) for a meeting at the orphanage that was moved up from 2 to 1.


After a brisk 10-minute walk through the snow on the ground and the first bright, warm sun we have seen in weeks (in Canada, the U.S., and Ukraine) the chief of social services met us and introduced us to the very pleasant vice-director of the orphanage, who sent messengers to get the girls from the infirmary (since the youngest had a fever), the yard, and from an unknown location. We were able to meet with the youngest for a while alone and found her to be extremely engaging and talkative from the first minute. The middle girl walked in after that, much more reserved verbally (we weren't able to find out her nickname except by asking her little sister) but in contrast giving Julie a hug immediately (and a couple more later). The eldest girl came in after we already had some activities going, so she joined in on those right away; she comes across more grownup but had plenty to say and plenty of laughs. Although Ukrainian is their first language, they do fine with Russian, which is lucky for us and allowed us to interact with them quite effectively. We also had Val nearby a lot of the time for the times when something needed to be explained.

The short version is that these girls are absolutely amazing and we are going to have a hard time waiting to bring them home, assuming all will go well, which we are.

All 5 of us had a blast even though all 3 of them had colds. Probably the most interesting thing is that the social worker made it clear at the very beginning that we were here to bring children home with us to America and asked what they would think of going. The answers were all somewhat positive, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm, which was very natural seeing that we hadn't done anything together yet. The only real concern expressed was a cute question to the social worker: "Will you be there?" Because this conversation got sprung so early, we whipped out our photo album and ran through pictures of our house and our extended family. They were trying to get the youngest girl to say which bed she would like to sleep in, and she just continued to point to all the pictures of the house including the backyard and say, "It's all mine!" which I was happy to agree with. We spent the next couple of hours with a number of games and activities that gave us all lots of chances to interact and to get close as we focused on the same things, some together and some in two groups.

After leaving the girls with some chocolates and the photo album and getting some hugs and kisses, we sat down for a minute with the orphanage director, who was also explicitly supportive of our adopting these children. We left the orphanage with plans to return tomorrow at 12; we will also be able to visit on the weekend. After we got back and resolved an issue with the wireless router in our part of the hotel, we were were very ready to eat at 5, and bone tired when we got back to our room at 7:30 or so. We didn't take many pictures today, but we did get to taste some regional specialties. Mine was a dense roll of ground meat wrapped around egg and served with white mushrooms (a delicacy in Ukraine that grows more in local forests than in most places, and has a bright taste like nothing I've ever had). Julie had something I can best describe as Hungarian gnocchi with stewed meat (the province of Transcarpathia is 12% ethnically Hungarian). Trout is another regional specialty, but it'll wait for another day. The hotel, especially its restaurant, has a mountain lodge feel to it. Hopefully we'll sleep well here; jet lag has been more brutal than either of us is accustomed to.

Paperwork in Hand

Today we went back to the SDA office to pick up our referral paperwork. Everything seems to be in order. We are planning to leave on a train tomorrow at 3:45 pm. It will be another overnight train ride that will take about 16 hours and will cross a mountain range.

Yesterday evening we went back into the city to see the ballet "Romeo and Juliet" at the National Opera House. It was the first time either of us had been to a ballet. The performance was wonderful. The ballerina that played Juliet was a tiny blonde who could make gravity look like it didn't apply to her. We couldn't take pictures during the performance but here are a few from afterward.








































Advertisement in the metro giving basic instructions to new consumers of the OREO. I love the little "lick" track on step #2.

Appointment Results

We left the apartment this morning a little after 8:00 am to join the rush hour crowd of people streaming into the downtown area. We squeezed into a bus and then transfered to the metro where we were packed in so tight you nearly didn't have to worry about holding on to anything - there was no way you could have fallen down. The last leg of our trip was the most pleasant. We took the funicular (think cable car on a railway) up a wooded hill right in the middle of the city.

We met our facilitator at the State Department for Adoption office. After a relatively short wait, we were ushered in for our appointment. We started by looking at children under age 8, but every file we were shown had children who had serious, uncorrectable medical conditions. We pulled out our paperwork to extend the age up to 11 years old which opened up a few more options. We found ourselves trying to decide between a group of 2 brothers with a sister and a group of 3 sisters. The psychologist who was working with us contacted the orphanage where the first group was located and spoke with the oldest brother as well as the director of the orphanage. At best the boy seemed to have mixed feelings about being adopted. Based on that information as well as some good feedback from another facilitator who had met the three sisters, we decided to request a referral for the second group. The girls are ages 10, 9, and 7.

We will pick up paperwork tomorrow and hope to get a train ticket to travel on Thursday. We'll be heading west over the mountains to the Transcarpathian region. This region borders Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. We couldn't get much farther away than where we were last time and still be in Ukraine! Our facilitator tells us this is the busiest time to travel in that direction as it's the middle of skiing season. Getting our train tickets may prove to be a challenge.

We are excited to meet these girls but glad to have a day or two more to recover from jet lag before we take the overnight train to their region.

Model of the funicular

Funicular car descending into the station

Snowy day at the SDA

Appointment Time

We spoke with our facilitator on the phone today and learned that our appointment will be at 10:00 am tomorrow morning (7 hours difference from Indiana time = 3:00 am). We'll be taking a bus and the metro to meet him at the SDA office tomorrow.
Our first full day here has slipped by quickly. Stan has been able to put in a full day's work. I've kept busy getting our clothes ready for our appointment tomorrow, sewing on a few buttons, fixing lunch, and doing some Russian study.
This afternoon it started snowing enough to accumulate. It left me wondering when was the last day when I didn't see snow. . . Edmonton, Indiana, Ukraine - I must be going to the wrong places. I guess I need a visit to Hawaii, right, Kris?