Good adoption photos

Here is a website of a family who adopted from Ukraine recently - they took tons of photos of things I totally forgot about.

And now with my camera missing in action, I am panicked and considering just buying a new one. Though I know that as soon as I get a new one, I will find the old one.

Here is their photos page -
http://www.sff.net/people/spiziks/adoption/pictures.html

Extended Family

Must to my joy and surprise this morning, I opened my inbox to find an email from Cinderella's German host family! I had sent them a letter and a CD with all of the photos of Cinderella we had and I tracked it and knew it was delivered.....and I was hoping for a letter in return. But I was expecting a letter in the postal mail, and here I get something even better - email!

It was in German, but thankfully I know of many translation websites, and I was able to translate their letter. I was crying the whole time I was fervently cutting and pasting each block of text.

It seems that they found our old blog on LiveJournal, and found my email address there....not to be an age-ist, but from what I was told, they were an older couple, so I did not think they would be active on the internet. My parents can check their email and my grandmother can do basic computer functions, but they would never have been able to scour the internet for someone's contact information!

They read our blog, and our letter and said that we had been misinformed or misunderstood some information concerning them. They said they were always upfront with Cinderella and her director about their inability to adopt the girls. They never made any concrete plans about the girls post-orphanage life. I was led to believe by the information I was given that this couple was "competition" to us adopting the girls....how relieved and thankful I was to finally get the facts directly from the German family themselves! It appears that we will have a good ongoing relationship with them and they will easily become part of our extended global family :)

They also are putting together a CD of all the photos of Cinderella they have from her 4 summer visits to Germany and their 5 visits to Ukraine and I am hoping they may have more information concerning Cinderella's health and history.

Dossier Appointment

I'm not going to give specifics for security reasons, but our appointment to have our dossier for Cinderella and Belle submitted is in a week or two, towards the end of January. We are SOOO excited! I have not heard of anyone else whose facilitator has gotten an appointment - at least if they did they aren't talking.

I have heard that the facilitators who have already submitted dossiers in December 2006 (they started accepting new dossiers on December 19) already have appointments at the SDA for March. With the rumors that the SDA will finish up the final backlogged dossiers and single adoptive parents in February, March makes sense for the new appointments.

So, assuming that not many people got their dossiers in between the 19th and the New Years holiday break, there may still be March appointment slots available. Also, since we are adopting older, known siblings with medical problems, they may put us towards the top of the list for appointments.....we can at least hope.

Twins!

Here are a few photos of us hanging out with the Nolte clan (JebNolte on FRUA) - they got back just before Halloween with the two older siblings of their previousely adopted little Ukrainian princess. Don't Chris Nolte and my husband Andrew look like they could be twins! Its scary!

Dossier updated and in Ukraine

The SDA posted a notice, which was later confirmed by the US Embassy in Kyiv that they were indeed accepting new dossiers. The problem was that there were a bunch of new rules...most of us in the adoption community expected something like this since there was no conceivable way for the SDA to handle the impending deluge of dossiers January 1. The problem was, no one was sure WHAT the new rules were going to be.

The new rules included:
1. facilitators now had to hand deliver dossiers
2. facilitators had to call a specific hotline to make an appointment to deliver the dossier
3. facilitators could only submit two dossiers per month
4. all dossier documents must be valid for at least 6 months AFTER submission
5. a copy of housing proof is recommended to be included (read: required)

So, after a few days of frantic phone calls to our homestudy agency, an entire day of paperchasing and visits to the apostille office and post office, the dossier was completed and mailed as quick as the holidays would allow to our facilitator in Donestk oblast. I checked the tracking number this morning, and it left Kyiv yesterday morning for its final destination. So, it is ahead of schedule according to the post office estimates. Our facilitator has a early/mid January appointment to register our dossier - she was one of the few lucky facilitators to get through on this "hotline" and get an appointment. Many facilitators are not able to get through, and those that have gotten through are being told there are no more dossier appointments until March. Go us!If everything gets to our facilitator in time and the SDA accepts our dossier with no issues, we should have a March or April appointment to bring Belle and Cinderella home!In SnowWhite news, we got to talk to her on the phone for a few minutes thanks to our Ukrainian doctor friend! When we asked what her favorite subject in school was her response was "I want a bicycle." LOL Then she said drawing/art was her favorite subject, but only after making clear that she wanted a bike! She is definately my girl hahaAs to her paperwork - I have every person I know in Ukraine working on it. According to the actual family code of Ukraine, the police report is NOT necessary for SnowWhite to be released for adoption. Since the bio family has made no attend to remove her from the orphanage system for more than 6 months, that is enough for the judge to terminate parental rights. Our facilitator is going to talk to the director of her internat at the end of January about this. The Ukrainian doctor is also going to call the regional police about the police report. Our friend G is also pressing on the detsky dom director to check on the police report again. LOL so they are getting seriously pestered by "my" people. the squeaky wheel and all.

New Facilitator, updated dossier, and visiting Ukrainian doctor

So, I never got around to finishing our trip story...I will eventually :) It has been SOOO busy around here. We have decided to switch to a new facilitator for our adoption - we liked Sasha, but he was not very pro-active and didn't keep us "in the loop" very much. Our new facilitator- Masha - is VERY pro-active and emails us almost daily! She is working on getting our two oldest moved to the same orphanage so that the adoption will be faster and easier. She also caught some problems in our dossier that we need to fix - better now than when we are in court in Ukraine! In summary, she is AWSOME. We have been updating all of our dossier documents as they start to expire in January. Some of the documents are "good" until June, so we are going to submit the "old" documents while we wait for the updates to come in. When the updated documents eventually arrive, we will send them in to Ukraine. But, for registration purposes, many of our documents are still good. I'm going to the Secretary of State's office today to get all the notary stamps "apostilled" as that is a required level of authentication required by the Hague convention and Ukraine. It just verifies that the notaries are indeed REAL notaries. I also need to get our GBI state police clearance renewed. This is one of the first documents to expire in January, but it is a tedious process to update - I have to go to the GBI office, pick up the fingerprinting cards, take them to the Atlanta police department to actually have the fingerprints done, then take the completed cards back to GBI and pay them $30 to run the prints through the state system...then wait 10-15 days for the results/document. A lot of driving ugh.We have also been busy preparing for a Ukrainian visitor! A pediatrician from a special needs baby house in Kharkiv Ukraine is staying in our home for a week and receiving training with Andrew at Emory hospital in pediatric neurology. I know of this doctor and his orphanage through two different charity groups - Life2Orphans and a smaller group called OrphanBaby. I've arranged for training for him at Emory, CHOA, the Marcus Institutes IA medicine clinic, and a trip to MedShare to get some free medical equipment and supplies

Article about Kyiv

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=526728
Kiev filled with beauty, Orthodox history
By WAYNE SNOW
Special to the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Nov. 4, 2006

Kiev - There is something invigorating, a little edgy about going behind the old Iron Curtain to visit Kiev, ancient home of the first great Slavic civilization and birthplace of the Russian Orthodox faith.It is not easy for Westerners. The language barrier is daunting and services considered normal on the more well-worn tourist circuit are non-existent or still in their adolescence.Still, with a rich and often painful history that predates Moscow by hundreds of years and its cautiously hopeful future, Kiev is worth the effort.Depressing Communist-era high-rises compete for a spot on the skyline with multitudes of graceful golden-domed churches. Old Russian cars share tree-lined streets with shiny new imports from the West. Beautiful parks are seemingly at every turn a scant 60 miles from Chernobyl, the worldwide symbol of environmental disaster.Spring and summer here are beautiful, belying the fact that this is a city of the far north - farther north than Quebec - with extremely harsh winters.Humankind has been harsher. Over the centuries, Ukraine has been overrun by the Mongol Golden Horde and absorbed variously by Lithuania, Poland and Russia. Josef Stalin engineered famines that killed millions in the 1930s. World War II took an additional 8 million to 9 million lives.Today Ukraine is struggling to find its way as an independent nation in the new world that emerged with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its political life is torn between those who favor traditional ties with Russia and those who covet membership in NATO and the European Union.In two visits to Kiev in the past year, I did not hear people talking politics, except for one small communist gathering on a side street near the Parliament building and a larger gathering of nostalgic communists getting ready for the May Day parade. In both cases, the gatherings seemed anachronistic.Instead it seemed much of Kiev was in love. It was spring, the weather was mild and people - many of them as couples - flocked to the parks and the vibrant heart of downtown around Khreschatyk St. and Independence Square. The city was festive for no particular reason.On both trips, I stayed at Sherborne Guest House, a 24-hour staffed apartment building near the Dnipro River within easy walking distance of most of the must-see sites. The apartment was a 10-minute stroll from the city's top tourist site - the Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery. It is one of two medieval religious landmarks in the city on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites.The Lavra traces its origin to the arrival of St. Anthony, who moved into a cave on a hill overlooking modern Kiev around 1051. Although most of the original buildings have been destroyed and rebuilt over the centuries, it remains one of the most sacred sites in Orthodoxy.I was there for the Orthodox Easter service in April. The combination of the elaborate iconography and the beauty and emotional power of the Old Slavonic liturgy was an unforgettably moving experience. Although I would strongly recommend that any visitor to Kiev go to an Orthodox service, be forewarned that it is physically demanding. Liturgies are long and church-goers stand during the service.Caves where monks livedThe 70-acre Lavra complex includes more than 20 churches, a sprinkling of national museums and an iconic 300-foot-tall bell tower that is closed for renovation. But its most famous feature may be the Far and Near Caves.The caves are where the monks first lived and were later laid to rest. Tours are available in Russian, Ukrainian and English for a small fee. The dim light, incense, iconography and the preserved remains of the saints create an experience that is solemn and even mystical.Claustrophobic tourists should think twice before going in, however. I am just under 6 feet tall and in some places had only an inch or so of clearance. There are many tight squeezes. With a line of people front and back, there is no easy way out should panic set in.St. Sophia, located in the heart of the old city, is also on the UNESCO list. Like the Lavra, it has endured centuries of damage and destruction. The current incarnation dates mainly to the early 1700s.It is most famous for intricate mosaics and frescoes by 11th-century Byzantine artists.On both of my visits, there was a special treat. An old man with wild white hair and an angelic voice sat on a bench near the church singing folk songs and playing the bandura, a harp-like Ukrainian instrument believed to date to the 14th or 15th century.A short walk from St. Sophia is the blue-walled St. Michael's Monastery, rebuilt and dedicated six years ago after its destruction during the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. Its bell tower is a great place to pose for pictures with golden domes as a backdrop.Symbol in disputePerhaps the most striking of Kiev's cathedrals is St. Vladimir's, a 19th-century gem with a canary-yellow exterior topped by a series of blue domes and a single golden one. It is also an important symbol in the ongoing religious dispute between Ukraine and Russia.Unlike the Lavra, which is still under the control of Moscow, St. Vladimir's is part of the break-away Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The cathedral is on Taras Shevchenko Blvd. With lines of trees reaching to the horizon in a park-like median, Taras Shevchenko is a lovely example of one of Kiev's most memorable and surprising features - its wonderful trees - as well as a tribute to the nation's most revered poet.Unlike many American cities, Kiev is exceptionally oriented toward pedestrians. At many of the largest intersections, stairs lead down to underground passageways, lined with shops, flower stalls, food markets and arts and crafts vendors. It is a safe and leisurely way to get to the other side.The easy maneuverability is complemented by a very good and cheap public transportation system using buses and trains. I enjoyed the train stations, both for the mosaics and other art work and for long escalator rides down to the train platforms.Kiev's tree-lined streets always seem to lead to a park. The city has two large botanical gardens - one across Taras Shevchenko from St. Vladimir's and the other south of the Lavra on the right bank of the Dnipro. The latter, the Central Botanical Garden, is home to another pair of monasteries and forms the southern end of a long unbroken stretch of parks extending for about five miles northward along the river.The chain of parks takes in Kiev's impressive World War II museum and the giant Motherland Statue, skirts the back side of the Lavra, leads to Marinsky Palace and the adjacent Ukrainian Parliament and eventually reaches the Podil, Kiev's traditional merchant quarter. Marinsky Palace, built by Bartolomeo Rastrelli in the 18th century for Empress Elizabeth, is a blue-and-cream gem used on ceremonial occasions. It is a vivid reminder of Kiev's tsarist past. Although the palace is closed to the public, the park is open to all and offers panoramic views of the river.At the northern end is Andrevsky Uzviz, an old cobblestoned street that connects the Upper City to the Podil. Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, a legend of the Soviet era, lived there and his home is now open as a museum.Billed as Kiev's Montmartre, Andrevsky is home to museums, artists, musicians, restaurants and souvenir stands. This is the place to buy nesting dolls, traditional painted Ukrainian eggs, T-shirts mocking Lenin, old Soviet military uniforms and other souvenirs. It also features the quirky, eclectic Museum of One Street, which traces Kiev's history in fascinating fashion.Andrevsky is a linguistic respite, much welcomed after the strain of struggling to understand Russian and Ukrainian phrases. Many of the vendors speak English, something not generally common in the city even at tourist sites. At the top of Andrevsky is St. Andrew's, another photogenic design built in the mid-1700s.Its teal domes make it one of the most photographed sites in Kiev. I watched on successive days as three different couples had wedding pictures made with it as a backdrop. According to legend, the apostle Andrew, the patron saint of Russia, put a cross on the site where the church now stands nearly 2,000 years ago and predicted that a great city would someday grow there.

Cinderella recovering from outbreak

Cinderella is thankfully now out of the hospital and has been moved to the orphanage medical wing. Thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts! I know that it made all the difference in her recovery. She still will not be able to come for the hosting program, as that is the decision of the local "sanitary committee" - not the orphanage director. For those of you who did not get my email or see my FRUA post, Cinderella's orphanage had an outbreak of Hepatitis A, which is a food/water-borne viral infection. It causes tummy problems, vomiting, nausea, fever, and liver inflammation. In kids it usually has no symptoms at all and clears the body in a week or two. But since Cinderella has Hepatitis C (not active), it made her quite ill. I see this as a sign/message that we need to focus on the adoption, and not bringing her here for a vacation. That money would be better spent getting her and Belle home sooner rather than later. Hopefully this will also send a message to their aunt and uncle that the girls need to come and live in the USA where they can get better medical care - and preventative care, like vaccines. Hep A has a vaccine, which these kids obviousely never got. That's like tempting fate - putting 300 unvaccinated kids in a crowded warehouse, there is going to be an outbreak or three. The director of the orphanage gave us a list of medicines they are going to give Cinderella during her quarentine and continued recovery in the orphanage medical ward - two are herbal supplements - total voodoo medicine with no real evidence to support it- and the third item is an immunoglobulin shot which is what we sometimes use in the USA so that's at least medically reasonable. I just worry about them not using a disposable needle....many many times they use the same needle for giving "vitamin" shots to kids without changing or even cleaning the needle in between kids - they literally walk from one bed to the next sticking the kids. No wonder they have a high Hep C rate!

Bio Family and Winter Hosting

So we tracked down Belle and Cinderella's biological aunt and uncle and our translator friend took a train down to meet them. The aunt is the sister of the girls biological father who died last winter. We learned the father, mother, aunt, uncle, and cousins names! What a great thing for the girls for us to have this info and photos for their life books. So many adopted kids never have any info on their bio family, so they end up feeling empty and disconnected. Aunt and Uncle by their car, coming home from the hospitalThe aunt is definately the leader of the family LOL (glad to see the girls come from such a strong line of women!)and she said that she wished to care for the girls, but due to her illness she is unable to. A German family that has hosted Cinderella 2-3 times also wished to adopt the girls, but they are too old to adopt according to German law. The German couple has met and befriended the aunt and they all worked together to come up with a plan to help the girls once they aged out of the orphanage....of course that plan was based on the assumption that no one would ever adopt the girls. Of course now that we have made contact and told the aunt our intentions, their plan is no longer reasonable. The aunt has not opposed the adoption, but says she must contact the German couple to discuss it since she is an honorable woman and had already made plans with them. Fine with me - I think they all want what is best for the girls, and what is best for the girls is to have a home sooner rather than later (8 years later if they waited until they aged out)We also hope to have Cinderella here in the states for a winter hosting program. We are still working on the details with the host group but we think it would help the aunt and the girls know we are good people and that the girls would have a good home here. We are also tracking the boxes we shipped to SnowWhite and Belle. I know they were put on the ship a week or so ago, and that they should make it to the girls before December. We are also still working on the paperwork for SnowWhite - it is so unfair to her to be stuck in that system for as long as she has and not be registered for adoption. I will finish the trip report hopefully today - we only have Cinderella's part and our last few days in Kyiv to finish.

Security

I added all of our photos to a password protected album, so our family can easily link to and view the photos. If anyone wants to view our photos of Ukraine, the orphanages etc, please email me at mhemmen621@hotmail.com and I will send you the password. Also, someone on the FRUA discussion boards had the idea of giving "our" kids nicknames in our journals instead of using their real names- at least until the adoptions are complete and the kids are legally ours. I thought that sounded fun so I've picked Disney Princess names for the girls! SnowWhite, Cinderella, and Belle.

Photos

Sadly to protect our adoption I have had to remove all photos of the girls. Its sad - there are enough issues with Ukrainian adoption from the Ukrainian authorities WITHOUT having to worry about being backstabbed by a fellow adoptive parent. I mean, there are close to 100,000 kids in Ukrainian orphanages alone (though not all are registered for adoption; maybe a third are) so why do we adoptive parents feel the need to compete with each other over a handful of kids?!?! In my opinion - the corrupt hosting programs are the problem. Some hosting programs use this same handful of kids (not all hosting programs, but a few) for multiple families. Also adoptive parents want to have a photo of a kid - the whole idea of traveling "blind" is bad, but unfortunately its Ukrainian law. A law they need to chance in my opinion. I think referrals need to be known BEFORE the family travels. Why waste all that time in country looking for the right kid? This is not the kind of decision that should be made under that kind of pressure or under those time constraints! Families should be shown the anketa's of kids prior to travling, have time to think about it, and then accept a referral BEFORE getting on a plane. This would make everyone happier and make this whole process easier on everyone.

Paranoia

ok, I'm a paranoid person by nature, but I was trying NOT to lock any of my posts or be too vague since my family checks this blog and they definately AREN'T registered users....So I "sanitized" a few of my posts, and locked a few. I pulled out all names of the girls, translators, details of locations...Someone on FRUA asked about the "dark haired girl" in my blog and did I have any info on her....she may have meant on of the many kids in the other photos - but me being paranoid was like "you mean MY daughter? of course I have info on her...." anyways...I just don't want to jeopardize our adoption of her. She's not registered anyways....and once she is, she's ours so PLLBBBTTTT!!!! We've been working on her paperwork for a year now. We have a dossier requesting her (and our other two girls)- they will be submitted once the SDA says we can submit them. I know this has been a BIG controversy on the FRUA boards - telling these known kids that you are adopting them - pros and cons etc. SW asked me if I was going to be her Mama. Since that day, I've worked on doing just that - becoming her Mama. I've made sure that all the girls know that this is not a black and white process, that things could happen to make it take a long time, and it may not happen at all. BUT, I did tell them that they have a choice in all this. If they want to be part of our family, then they can say so - they can refuse other families (though it is not likely that our girls will ever be picked by potential families as they are older, except SW who is still youngish), they can tell their director what they want etc. Its THEIR life!!! I know they are just kids, but most of these kids have seen more intheir little lives than most of us have seen in our long lives...and they should be allowed to have a say, FOR ONCE, about their fate - in an age appropriate manner of course. will post more news later :)

Trip Report-Part 4

So we did some laundry - after figuring out the German controls - and hung the clothes out to dry on the porch. They were mostly dry by Saturday morning - there was also a cool "S" shaped pipe in the bathroom that had warm steam running through it - I guess to keep towels warm?- but it also worked for drying clothes. Saturday is a bit blurry, but I know we went shopping, found jackets for Andrew and I, went to dinner and then went back to repack all of our stuff. We were allowed to leave some of our stuff in the Kyiv flat since we were going to be back in 2 days, so we were only going to bring the necessities with us to XXX. We met up with G, took the metro to the train station in the center of the city, bought a Kyiv cake (there are tons of stands selling Kyiv cakes at the train station, so don't worry about getting one ahead of time) and went inside the train station. We were early, so we got some food from the little cafe inside the station, took some photos of the beautiful mosiacs on the ceiling of the station and waited. They called our train and we boarded it with no issues. We had tickets for the general sleeper section of the train - not our own compartment. It wasn't bad though. Very neat actually. They have little compartments without doors with benches and tables - the benches can be used as beds and there are also 2 beds above that fold down. There are rolled up futon-like mattresses on shelves above the beds. The train-lady comesaround with bed sheets, you pay her 6 grivnas and get your sheets, a towel, and a blanket. You put together your own bed and store any of your luggage in a compartment under the benches - so no one can get to your stuff while you are sleeping. The only bad thing was the LOUD announcements at every station they stop at - ALL night. Other than that we slept good and arrived in XXX at 6am Sunday morning. After we got off the train, I wanted to take a photo of the train station sign above the building- it was all lit up and really neat. I guess this was a problem as we got yelled at by some ex-KGB officer LOL. Our driver, Andreiy, was waiting out front for us - it was still dark and this sweet older man was sitting out here ready to go! His car was like many other Ukrainian cars - a solid metal, bright green, Russian made car. The inside was falling apart, but you could tell it was well cared for - mismatched seat covers, pillows etc. Andreiy was by far my favorite "character" from the whole trip. He reminded me SOO much of my Polish grandfather. He spoke NO English, but was really good at hand signals and getting concepts across.Andreiy's carAndreiy and Andrew!We drove 1.5 hours up to XXX village where Cinderella's sister, Belle, lived. We had never met her before, nor did we have any info on her other than the address of her internat. We waited outside the gates while G went in to get permission for us to visit. The director was not there, nor were any of the "decision makers", but eventually the caretakers agreed to let us meet Belle and give her the gifts we brought. We wait in the concrete-floored dirty "lobby" of the internat until they found Belle- it was amazing how much she looked like Cinderella! They brought us to a little room to visit - G explained who we were, about us hoping to adopt Cinderella and how we found her. We had G ask her if she wanted to be adopted too and she said yes and shyly smiled. We then got the WHOLE story about they family and how they ended up in the internats. I won't go into it here for their privacy, but their father died and he was a good man and his sister - their aunt- comes and visits the girls and had spoken about adopting them, but had never followed through on it - probably they want to but can't afford it and don't have room in their flat for two more people. So we left there after thanking the caregivers and hugging B goodbye and started the drive back to XXX. We stopped along the way in a city called Znam'yanka - this is the city where B said they were born and lived and that their aunt and uncle lived here. So we wanted to get some photos for C and for their lifebooks. Its a small city, "famous" for its train station. We also stopped a few times for Andreiy to show us the local agriculture...I guess he used to be a gardener in the Soviet times and worked at a nearby botanical garden that has since been abandoned. He also had a fervent hated of some weed he called "Ambrosia" that ruined the soil for the good plants. He definitly liked to tell stories haha. We also got some good photos of the rolling hills and little villages and the Ukrainian black soil.

Trip Report- Part 3

Trip to Skola InternatSo we get to XXX detsky dom early in the morning - like 7am - and the kids are all ready to go! The teachers told us that SW was up and dressed for hours since she got to leave the orphanage with her Mama and Papa. The orphanage workers also try to hype up the kids about starting school - to lessen the kids fears of moving I guess. Sad thing is, the internats are far worse than the detsky doms - often no hot water, poorly maintained buildings, dirty ripped clothing....After this morning, all three of our girls would be in Skola Internats - most Americans want to adopt "babies"- ie under the age of 5 - so they never see these internats and therefore the internats never get donations or sponsors let alone money from their own government. The older kids are seen as worthless and undesirable - and if the government can't exploit them (through adoption, hosting programs, and sadly prostitution) they don't bother to fund them or their boarding schools. The younger kids a valuable and desirable - so they are well funded and maintained. Anyways, back to the trip. We go to the nurse's office/medical cabinet as she has questions about the medical supplies we donated - specifically the digital thermometers. They use Celcius and we use Farenheight, so she needed to know what temperature reading would be considered "sick" on these American thermometers. We also used this time to find out about SW's health and orphanage healthcare in general. She said SW was NOT part gypsy, but was actually of Moldavian descent, which is far better in Ukrainian eyes - gypsies are treated as lesser humans, much like African Americans were treated here in the states. Then,into the room comes none other than little Miss Z! This is the little girl who my friend C wanted me to check in on as she is good friends with the little boy C is adopting. I didn't think I'd get the chance to see her since she was in a different groupa than SW and from what C had told me, Z was most likely not going to be "graduating" to the internats that year despite her age. But I guess the regional authorities overruled the director's recommendations since Z was one of the 5 kids we were going to be transporting to the internats! I was so glad I was going to have a chance to take photos of her and give her a hug on behalf of my friend. We get all the kiddos together and out to the yard we go, suitcases in tow. The representative from SW's new internat had not shown up, so the staff scurried about to make arrangements for one of their own caretakers to accompany us on the trip - which was awsome of them since they weren't required to do so - but I guess it was there way of saying thank you to us for renting this private bus for the day to transport all these kids (we paid out of our pocket). We get all the kids settled and their luggage packed in and off we went. It was going to be a long trip - 5 hours or so - so I had bought coloring books, toys, and snacks for the kids. The director had said she was going to send "bread and water" for the kids, so taking her on her word, I assumed they wouldn't have more than that which is why I bought this stuff...well the caretaker gets on the bus with a huge box of goodies! I felt like I was insulting her a bit by bringing my own stuff, but G explained my misunderstanding. Not only had she brought water, but she had butter cheese sandwiches, cookies, juice, candy and coloring books. The three kids going to Cherry internat were sweet - Z was one, and the other two were sisters. The younger sister was only 5 years old, but they wanted to keep her with her older sister so they sent her even though she wasn't the traditional age for an internat. The kids made a mess with the pens I bought for them - they were stamp, bubble, light-up pen combo things. The kids were stamping everything, so the ink was everywhere and I had to keep doing the mom spit-on-the-napkin thing to clean them up. We asked directions a few times, and stopped for bathroom breaks a few times. A few times the van stalled out and G , Andrew and the driver had to get behind the van and push to get it jump-started! LOL I wish I could have gotten a photo of that. We also stopped along side a forest for a pee break - no way was I pulling up a pine tree to pee haha. They all did their thing and then decided to go mushroom picking...which I guess is a pretty common Ukrainian pasttime. We finally get on our way, ask more directions and then stop to drop off the Cherry internat kids at a cross roads. The representatives from Cherry transfered their luggage, signed the papers and off they went. Z was crying the whole time. It was also at this point that SW's mood plummeted. She became grouchy, distant and sad. After fighting with herds of sheep for access to the road, we finally get to SW's new internat - her and one other little girl from XXX detsky dom will now be living in this place. Its in the middle of NOWHERE - and I mean nowhere. Like BFE, cows-outnumber-the-people, nowhere. There were 4 or 5 houses and the internat. That's it. No stores, no gas stations, not even a beer tent! The staff were nice though - very willing to help us adopt SW and not at all shy talking about helping us. They even gave us a banquet to thank us for transporting the kids. We were served "sour grass" soup, sausage, smoked pork fat, fresh raw tomatoes, apple juice, bread, and buckwheat porridge. yum yum LOL Through all this SW is being very cold and distant - refusing any type of reassurance from us. I keep breaking down in tears at the thought of leaving her in this rural farm town- she is such a prissy girl, totally not suited to raising pigs or bees (which they do there - the smoked fat was from pigs they raised, the woman beamed!). I insisted on seeing where she would be sleeping - it was a small dirty room with thin stained mattresses and a hard bare floor. Half the mattresses were torn and falling off the beds. Lovely. So it was time to say goodbye and I just lost it. I told SW that I loved her and we would be back soon to get her and then I darted into the van and broke down. Even Andrew started crying, and as we started to pull away, SW started crying. Eventually we were dropped off at the train station in Nizhn (just Andrew, G and I - the driver and caretaker were returning to XXX) and we waited in the rain for our train to arrive. A stray dog started folowing us, so I gave him some cookies....then some sausage...so he started following us more. This is a dead give-away that you are American BTW - feeding stray animals. Ukrainians just don't do it. I don't think they even see these animals - they totally ignore them. The train ride to Kyiv is only 2 hours long, and we went directly back to the Kyiv flat, changed out of our wet clothes and went to bed. The next day we were going to catch up on rest and laundry and do some shopping in Kyiv.

Trip Report-Part 2

Visit with SnowWhite. So we wake up, get all of our stuff together (we can't leave anything in the Kyiv flat) and get on a mini-bus to XXX early in the morning. Its a 2 hour drive, but its comfortable enough. Thankfully the bus had a little place in the "trunk" to put our bags. We get to the city center and take a shabby little "local" bus towards the detsky dom. All the old babushkas are looking at us all weird - we stand out as Americans in the smaller towns because of our straight white teeth, my glasses, and I guess our clothes. We tried to dress like Ukrainians....and we were mistaken as Ukrainians in Kyiv more than once....and we are NOT typical fat older Americans like most of the Americans they are used to seeing at the detsky doms...but still they KNEW somehow. We get off the local bus and start walking with all our bags. It was a long dirt road, but it looked familiar to me from my trip in January. When we got the the little green shed at the branch in the road, I knew which way to go. I even remembered where the directors office was. We go in, hug the director, she invites us in to her office and tells us to sit down and put our bags down while she has someone get SnowWhite for us. G talks to her in Russian about our visit, plans, and the status of SnowWhite's paperwork - when suddenly in runs this little elf of a girl screaming "Mayleesa" and jumps into my arms. G introduces her to Andrew, whom she has seen photos of but never met, and she immediately hugs him. We give her her gifts - some we brought with us and some were left at the orphanage over the summer a charity group. As before she is fixated on the cameras and photos. We go back to her groupa, play with her and her friends, she shows off her gifts etc. We were even allowed to have "alone" time with her - with no caretaker supervising us. She flat-out refused to draw pictures for us with paper and crayons....but she loved Papa's laptop! LOL She draw us a few pictures there and even wrote our names over and over in Cyrillic and her own name in English. She really bonded with Andrew - drawing pictures of him and her together and "forgetting" to include me! haha Then it was time for the kids to have lunch and nap, so we went to the market to get fruits and juices for a birthday party/graduation party for SnowWhite. Her birthday was earlier in that month. G had arranged for a driver, Vladimir, and he drove us to the local Rynok to buy fruit - we got plums, tangerines, and bananas. The kids get fruit fairly often, but nothing exotic like plums, so this would be a treat for them. We also went to a indoor market and bought juice, cookies and lollipops. When we got back to the detsky dom (which translates as "Children's Home"), SnowWhite is waiting by the door for us and comes running. We have the little party and the kids make a mess with the plums! None of them could unwrap the lollipops, so Andrew and I became the official lollipop unwrappers. SnowWhite went through her gifts and pulled out the toys she didn't like to give to her classmates. She was very possessive and didn't want to give anything up, but we finally convinced her to share. She also had tons of fun with the polaroid camera we brought - telling her classmates to get together for group shots, assigning her friends to "shake" the pictures as they came out of the camera. The kids just LOVED seeing the photos instantly - so it was worth the expense of the polaroid film. When she ran out of polaroid film she commandeered my digital camera. After the party we left the orphanage and Vladimir took us to dinner at a local cafe he recommended. It was empty, but very nice and the food was good. The staff had issues giving us back change when we paid the bill though - and we paid with a $40 bill (200 grivna bill), so that tells you about their economy there - don't ever pay for anything with a bill bigger than a $20 (100 grivna) as they likely won't have change. That night we stayed at Vladimir's mother in laws home/flat. Ludmilla and her grandson (Vladimir's stepson) lived in the flat - we slept in Ludmilla's bedroom, George slept in Dennnis's bedroom, and they slept on the fold out couch. That was the coolest part of our trip I think - staying with an actual Ukrainian family. Ludmilla is a caretaker at SnowWhite's orphanage - though not for her groupa. She knew SW by reputation though LOL. She told us alot about how the orphanage is run, how the caretakers get paid and just the orphanage culture in general. It was eye-opening. The caretakers actually get paid more than the average Ukrainian - they consider being an orphanage caretaker to be hazard pay type of work - like police or firefighters here inthe US - because these kids are "disturbed" "defective" and "genetically inferior." Dennis was a hoot. He is 7 years old - same as SW- as was starting his first day at school the next day. They REALLY dress up kids for the first day of school - this boy had a tuxedo hanging on the door ready to go! He spoke no English, but knew the English alphabet very well- and when he tried to talk to us, we'd tell him in Russian "We don't speak Russian"...so he'd say whatever he was saying again, slower and louder. LOL It was the same thing with the kids in SW's groupa. No matter how many times you tell them you don't speak Russian, they continue to try. SW was smarter than that though - she was very adept at sign language and a few English words. Andrew wow'd Dennis with the laptop, showing him how to draw like SW did, how to play pinball on it and such. These kids picked up computers very well - Ludmilla told us that at the orphanage the kids actually have 2 computers and they get classes on how to use them. Ludmilla herself was a very warm and gracious host. They had no hot water in the building, but she boiled two HUGE pots of hot water on the stove and poured them into the bath tub for Andrew - without us asking BTW. We were fine without hot water, but once she had done it we couldn't turn her down and be rude. Though she worked at the detsky dom, her father and husband (not sure if she was divorced or he was dead? but he wasnt there)were bee keepers. They made honey...so she breaks out this huge honey comb from the cabinet and slices us off some pieces....I really didn't want to eat it as I am really not a honey fan to begin with, but again, not to be rude, I ate it. I almost puked, but I ate it. Andrew was laughing at me. You chew the honey while its still in the comb - suck all the honey out and spit out the waxy comb. Lovely. Next morning we go to the detsky dom again and visit SW- she runs into the little locker room yelling "Mayleesa" again and jumps into my arms. We play with the kids again, and even got to go outside with SW- totally unsupervised, just the 4 of us. We played a bit on what little playground equipment they had and then sat on a bench. G explained to SW everything -and I mean EVERYTHING. That we wanted to adopt her, was that ok with her, yes, when could she go home with us, why was it taking so long, about the change in ministries, about her birth mom, everything! She even asked some very mature and thoughtful questions, which G then answered to her satisfaction. We finally got our cell phone working too and make two short phone calls to our parents in the states so they could hear SW's voice - she spoke in English, but she was just repeating what G was saying haha.Then we started making plans to transport SW and some of her friends to their new internats. The kids needed to be moved the next morning, but neither orphanage had the transportation to do it. If we didn't arrange something the kids would end up on the local city buses with their bags- how scary and traumatic would that be? So we found a guy with an older mini-bus who would drive us. We rented him and his bus for the day and he only charged us 1 grivna per mile - what a deal! It was plenty big enough for us, G, the 5 kids and their caretaker/chaperone.

Trip Report- Part 1

Well we got to Ukraine in one piece with no issues - no delays, no missed flights, and our luggage even got there ok. At Newark we took the little bus thingie to JFK and hung out until our flight left. The sleep treatment Dr. Epstein (Andrew's coworker and mentor) gave us worked wonders - we had no jetlag when we arrived. Did some shopping in the Zurich airport, then finally arrived in Kyiv. The passport control in Kyiv was a royal pain in the arse - huge queues with like 2 people working at the passport counters - it took over an hour. Customs was easier- they just trust you to let them know if you packed anything valuable - Andrew was unsure about our laptop, but when he asked a guard he said, no we didn't have to declare that since it was for personal use. Get out of the secure area and find G easily and then we go outside to find a bus to the city center. After about 45 minutes we are at our flat, our host Ramon gives us a tour of the flat - he is very proud of the recent renovations he has made and his English book collection for his guests. Ramon lived on the first floor, just below our rented flat. He even shows us around the neighborhood and introduces us to his favorite 24 hour shop - Baloo Market. I think we settled in for the night at that point - some of the days blend together in my memory. The next morning we met with Dr. Andrey and his associate Irena - they are from a baby house in Kharkiv and my Andrew and I have been helping them through a charity group we know. We tried to arrange to bring an EEG machine for them (to diagnose epilepsy in the orphans), but could not get the proper papers in time for the trip. So instead we just hung out in the flat with them, drinking coffee, answering their questions about neurology and epilepsy, and making plans for Andrey to come to the US for training.Then G shows up and we head to downtown Kyiv for some sightseeing and shopping. Shopping in Ukraine is very different from shopping in the US- in the US you just hop over to Target of the local mall. Not so in Ukraine - most of their shopping is done in open air flea markets, or indoor mazes of little shops - the exception to this are the few new western-type chain stores that have opened up in Ukraine. So, we went to this market that was a collection of kids shops, went to the Ukrainian version of Office-Depot and bought school supplies for the kids, and walked around the main area around Maidan in Kyiv. That night we walked to G's island (not really an island, but a neighborhood surrounded by man-made channels, like a Ukrainian Venice) and met his wife, his dog, and his crazy neighbor. His neighbor used to be doctor in Soviet times - now he is an artist...His flat was filled with tons of paintings - mostly of sunflowers and melons. Its just amazing to see the enthusiasm in this man for his freedom to express himself, to enjoy himself, and his pride in his work. He's not painting this stuff with top of the line tools either - he paints on pieces of cardboard. I want to put together a little gift of paints and supplies for him and send it to George. We loved the area of Kyiv we stayed in - Livoberezhna. Just on the other side of the Dnieper river from downtown, away from the tourist area. We had 3 or 4 markets, a McDonalds (for coffee, not food - we loved Ukrainian food), plenty of beer tents, a cafe, an internet center and a metro station. We went to bed early that night since we would be heading to XXX to visit SnowWhite the following morning.

Trip 2 to visit girls

So, we straightened out the "competition" over Oksana - sorta. The host mom is not interested in adopting Oksana, but the agency(s) involved in that hosting program are still spreading rumors about a Ukrainian family wanting to adopt Oksana...which is funny since the orphanage director confirmed that Oksana was not even legally released for adoption, nor was she registered. Which means that not only can we not adopt her, but neither can a Ukrainian family. Plus, according to the new State Department of Adoptions, only 10% of adoptions each year are to Ukrainian families (90% are international families)and of that 10%, 80% request a child under the age of 1 (which are not available to international families at all). So, Oksana has 0% chance of being adopted by a Ukrainian family, even when she finally is registered - which we are working on still. My friend, George, who works with Life2Orphans, tracked down Oksana's mom's last known address (given to him by the orphanage director) and she has not lived there for 3 years and no one knows where she is - ie she abandoned Oksana. So, the director is working with the local police department to file a sort of missing persons/abandonment report, which they will then use in court to have the judge terminate her parents rights. Once this happens, the director can file the adoption registration papers with the district level. After one month there, it goes to the region/oblast, and then one month later it goes to the national SDA database....then we have to wait one more year to adopt her...unless they change the laws, which is likely according to rumors. They are saying it will be reduced to a 6 month wait, not one year and maybe even no wait for kids over 5 yrs old. Since I last updated this the SDA also announced its grand opening and new policies about new dossiers - they are going to process the backlog of registered dossiers this fall, and then they will accept new dossiers in January 2007. Since we are not registered yet, we have to wait until January - which means some of our papers will expire and will need to be redone this fall and retranslated and resent. But so far the SDA seems to be keeping its primose - registered families are getting their appointment letters for September. They are also apparently favoring families who have "identified" or "known" children - ie through hosting programs, previous adoptions etc - we fall into this category! :) so hopefully this will bode well when they start accepting new dossiers too - there is rumor they will start accepting new dossiers for older known children starting in November...But in the mean time, we decided to go visit the girls in Ukraine - now we have plenty of time to save up money for the adoption, so we might as well spend some of what we have saved to visit and reassure them we are coming to get them...eventually. So, we leave this next weekend for Ukraine. Things started out bumpy in the planning, but thanks to good ol' George, things are now wonderful. He really came through for us and offered to go with us as a translator, made apartment arrangements, travel etc. AND he saved us tons of money. My only fear at this point is the whole plane ride to and from Ukraine. Not because of the "terrorist threat" - I guess it is related in a round about way though - I'm affraid of making our connections and losing our luggage. The main part of the flight I am worried about it the flight from Atlanta to JFK. We aren't flying into JFK - we are flying into Newark NJ and somehow we are transfering to JFK. We also have a short layover in NC - only 35 minutes! I like having more time between flights, but since its a domestic connection, it should be ok. I hope. We aren't bringing a whole lot of luggage and I'm even considering FedExing some of my "gifts" to George so we don't have to put them in our luggage. At least we arent driving to NY like we had originally planned. Talk about JetLag.

Competition?

I didn't realize that adoption was a race or competition. Let me back up and give you all the background. Oksana was brought to the US for a winter hosting program. Fine right? Normally, yes. The group that brought her here though was an unethical, treacherous group called Adopt a Miracle. They photo list children, which is illegal according to Ukrainian law. They often promise host families that they can guarentee the adoption of their host child, require them to sign a contract and a hefty up front deposit. I have heard two different stories - one is that the host mom did not want to pursue the adoption of Oksana. Great - good for us. The other story, which admittidly is cominng from AAM, is that the host mom IS trying to adopt Oksana....I also have one or two people (not host mom herself) saying that Oksana wants to be adopted by host mom....This is what I tell myself over and over so that I don't go mad:1. Host mom is reportedly an unmarried woman - Ukraine will put her dossier at the bottom of the stack when considering who will adopt a child. So, this gives Andrew and I am advantage.2. We have had ongoing and continuous contact with Oksana for over a year. This woman only spent 3 weeks hosting Oksana. Sure she had more "face" time with Oksana, but we have had more contact with Oksana and provided her more support in the long term. 3. AAM has admitted that the majority of their families DO NOT end up adopting the child they hosted - they are happy with the kid they adopt, but it is usually not the host kid. 4. AAM is notorious for having their adoptions fall through all together. They are a dishonest agency. With the reform of the Department of Adoptions in Ukraine, I doubt that any "connections" they had under the old, corrupt regime will no longer be there. They are also famous for lying to their clients, messing up paperwork etc. We have a good social worker and facilitator - this is an advantage for us.5. As far as I know, we have far more charity hours logged and many more "contacts" in Ukraine than host mom does. This will probably benefit us.Even with all this in our favor, I still am freaked out. I CAN NOT lose my daughter!!!! I think what is making this worse is that since the DA is not yet open, we can't have our facilitator (and our other contacts) check on Oksana's file, nor can they speak to the DA on our behalf and plead our case. I am sure once it opens and we have our represenatives talk to them, it will be a done deal in our favor. But it is still an unknown at this point, and could go horribly wrong. It just REALLY SUCKS that with 100,000 kids in orphanages there, this woman has to try and "compete" with us for one child!!! Pick someone else damnit!!! This one is ours!! One woman is saying she visited Oksana in April and Oksana asked about host mom and said she was waiting for host mom to adopt her....Oksana is 6, almost 7....she could very well be confused and be thinking of me, her sponsor Mom. Sponsor...host....very similar. Plus, we are both from America. Olesya at BFC says that Oksana asks about me by name every single time they visit Pryluky. Oksana always runs right up to Lesya as soon as she is in the door to ask about me. I asked Oksana about her hosting trip in January...she said she didn't like the lady she visited and she wanted ME to adopt her, not that lady. WTF am I supposed to believe?!?!On top of all this stress, there is still the fact that Americans have restrictions on them for adoptions there - Oksana does not meet the criteria of the restrictions - this rule has been bent in many cases, but who knows what the new DA will do. Will they remove the restrictions all together, will they amend them? Also, Oksana's orphanage director is now saying she isn't registered for adoption at all - in fact her mother still has parental rights to her. Oksana has two siblings that live with mom....I can believe that a mom and siblings exist, but what I can't believe is that she would have given up and abandoned Oksana and not had her rights terminated. Oksana has been in the orphanage system for a long time. Plenty of time to get her registered. I just want to scream!

Dossier Completed

So, we finally got all the paperwork together for the dossier. This includes:1.the homestudy2.state police clearance3.INS approval4.letters of employment for us both5.specific medical forms for each of us from our doctors6.letter of obligation (to reigster our kid with the Ukrainian embassy and file reports)7.petition to adopt/request to be registered as adoptive parents in ukraine (this also lists the info on the girls we are requesting8.power of attorney for our translator to act on our behalf in ukraineThe power of attorney was the last thing we were working on - we needed our translator's passport number, date of birth, address etc. and it took him awhile to get that to us as he was "in the field" helping another family. So, now I am waiting for Dani to fax the dossier to us, so I can scan it into pdf and then I will email it to our translator to check for errors. Once he gives us the ok, Dani will get the apostilles from the US government (verifies the notary stamps - basically an extra layer of legalization). Sasha, our translator, will start translating the dossier into Ukrainian and we will mail him the completed, stamped hard copy of the dossier in english - I think we send the original directly to the Ukrainian government and then he submits the ukrainian translation to them.The ukrainian government then has 10 or 20 days to register the dossier and assign us a number. They send us a letter with our registration number and a range of dates for an appointment. We have Sasha contact them and schedule the specific date for the appointment. Normally you want the earliest date possible and the first appointment of the morning, but in our case, we are hoping to adopt Oksana first and her "file" doesn't become available until August sometime, so we won't be able to "get" her until then, so our appointment will be in August hopefully. My friend Dima is talking to Oksana's orphanage director tomorrow about us adopting Oksana - hopefully she will be helpful and supporitive of us adopting her. I met Lidia while I was there in January, so she should remember me. I have also since January, arranged for her kids to get DVD players and movies, and I paid for a oven thermometer for their kitchen. Hopefully she will agree to write a letter of recommendation to the Ukrainian government and send us a copy for our dossier. We'd also like it if she told us the exact date Oksana becomes available and/or if she would reserve Oksana for us in the event that we can't get there on the exact date. An agency can't do this according to Ukrainian law, but the orphanage can, so there is no law being broke by doing this. My friend Gayle is back in Ukraine right now, completing the adoption of her second Ukrainian son, and she is planning on visiting Marina's orphanage in Kirovograd on Saturday. Her first Ukie son is from Marina's class/groupa, and she is trying to adopt another one of the kids from that class. While she is there she takes photos for me of Marina, and will deliver some gifts I sent for her. The hardest thing about getting gifts to Marina is that I don't have anyone I can trust to deliver the packages to her and no consistent way to verify if she gets the gifts. Oksana gets her gifts through the Big Family Adopt an Angel program that my friend Dima owns/runs. Since it is an organized charity trip, I get verification of my package arriving and photos of Oksana opening her gifts. Since Gayle is delivering my gifts to Marina this time, I will probably get photos of Marina getting her gifts. Gayle said she will also talk to Marina about the previous packages I sent, and about this illusive sister her caretakers say she has. As for the money - by adopting Oksana first, it will cut back on our costs - Marina's region has some unusual legal fees that they require that are not required anywhere else in Ukraine, so that was going to add $2000 on to the usual costs. Also, Marina's orphanage is 4 hours outside of Kyiv, while Oksana's is only 1.5 hours away. This affects travel expenses. Andrew has gotten an offer for some side work - scoring sleep studies for a local sleep medicine lab. It will pay $35 per study he scores, and he can do one report in about an hour - so he says he wants to try and do about 25 studies per week (3 per week night, and 5 each weekend day). All this will be untaxed (we pay taxes on it at the end of the year) so it will bring in an estimated $3500 per month towards to adoption....so if all goes well this will pay for it all. I am a pessimist, so I am still holding on to our other options - my wonderful aunt and uncle who agree to give us a 2K loan, our social worker, Dani, who agreed to give us a loan, and Andrew could probably get some money from the doctors he works for. We also plan on having a "money shower" - instead of bringing baby gifts, people donate $20 or so. A girl I work with also wants to collect money from people in the office. Every little bit will help. I want to have 10K in our pocket (literally) when we go - well, maybe 6K since we will need 1K for airline tickets to get there, and we can wire the 3K for our translator's salary ahead of time. So, the baby shower. I'm hoping to have it Memorial Day weekend. I've got the invites already. Just need to send them out and then start planning the party.

INS Approval!

So, we got our INS approval - YAYYY!!! This means our American-side of the prep/approval process is complete. All we have now is to finish up our dossier, have it sent to the Ukrainian government, have it translated into Ukrainian, have the translated version sent to the UA govt, and then wait.....Right now the UA government is switching control of the adoption center from one ministry to another. Rumors say that this new center and staff will be a BIG improvement - hopefully less corrupt, more accomodating, and the new minister has pledged to double the number of adoptions processed. Our big concern is the money. We need to pay for: our plane tickets there and back, our hotel while there for 3-4 weeks, food/spending money, 3K for the translator's services, $1800-2K for the required lawyer in K-grad, orphanage donation of approx $500 which is pretty much required, US Embassy visa fee of $400 per child....plus, we will not be working those 3-4 weeks, thus no paychecks except for what vacation and sick leave we can use up. Both of us are also looking into working out some sort of teleworking agreement with our work so we can get paid for some of our time while we are there. We won't be "busy" everyday - alot of the time spent there is waiting....waiting for signatures, waiting for paperwork, waiting for a court date etc. AND while we are out of the country, our bills still need to be paid. We are going to try and work out something with our apartment complex so we don't have to pay rent the month we are gone. One of the things we were counting on as far as money fell through - our tax return. Normally we have gotten $1500 back - but due to a series of circumstances, this year we OWE $150. So, now I am considering taking on a second job ugh. I've learned in my life that you can't count on other people to help you out - you can only depend on yourself. We have a few people - family and friends - who have said they will help and loan us money. We CAN save alot of it ourselves, but it would take time and time is not something you always have control over in an international adoption - they invite you when they have an opening! not when you have enough money necessarily LOL. Plus, every month our little girl sits in that orphanage is a month she could have been in a loving home with us.