In Kharkiv

Made it to Kharkiv ok on the overnight train. Andrey picked us up at the
train station and took us to McDonalds, and now we are at his office. I
normally hate McD's, but I have not had a hamburger in a month and so this
tasted like filet mignon today! Andrey's office here (his private practice)
is very nice - it looks like a high class american pediatric office even.
Even has its own on site lab for running blood tests and such. Later today
we will go to his baby house and play with the babies there, then go for
dinner with his wife and son. He got us a place to stay very close to the
baby house and then tomorrow we will go to the baby house again to help
train his staff and let them practice their english on us. tomorrow night we
will leave Kharkiv and return to Kgrad.

Our timeline for returning to the states is dependant on how fast we can get
the girls new passports and such in kgrad. the lawyer there says it can take
up to 5 days.....up to.....so hopefully it will take only 1-2 days. if this
is the case then we should be on our way to kyiv by middle of next week,
then flying home sometime over the following weekend or monday. we pick up
the girls from their camps this weekend and visit aunt nadiya's house for
the last time.

here are some photos from our 10 day wait so far

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Court went great

Court went fine and we are now the official parents of Marina Charlotte and
Kateryna Selene Hemmen. We did the court hearing in the judges office- the
"mean-" judge who everyone used to get here is now gone and has been
replaced by a nicer young lady about 40 years old. She had two staff
present, the kgrad lawyer was there, the lawyer from katyas orphanages was
there and a representative from the oblast inspectors office - Nina did not
make it back to kgrad and our friend sveta ended up translating for us in
court. they asked us many questions, especially about why we wanted older
kids and why we just didnt have bio kids of our own. they asked this like 5
times.they also asked about how we planned to help the girls learn english.

we pick up the decree on friday the 27 or saturday the 28 and then pick up
the girls on saturday, visit aunt nadia on sunday and finally get the new
passports and birth certs started on monday - for those of you in ukraine or
about to be here, there is supposedly some new law about the new passports
and birth certs having to go through kyiv, which may add a few days on to
the wait in region. this is what the local lawyer told us anyways. she also
said we have to have the passport photos done at the local passport office
and not in any shop in the town. makes no sense to me, but hey.....

other than that, we are hanging at svetas every day and meeting her friends
and friends of her son.

love,
mel and andrew

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Court tomorrow

So got the call this morning that we have court tomorrow. 2pm or so...things
change minute to minute in Ukraine, and appointments are flexible. So from
here on out its pretty predictable - court, 10 say wait, 2 days more in
Kgrad to finish up paperwork and get the girls from camp (we hope we can go
pick them up after court, before the 10 days are up), then a few days in
Kyiv to do embassy paperwork and get flights home.

As money is very tight after paying the lawyer, we aren't sure how we will
be flying home. Maybe we will only be able to afford flights to JFK and then
call our families to come rescue us.

Did some clothes shopping at the big Rynok in town today. For less than $20
USD we got a dress, shoes, and two shirts. Other than that been hanging out
with Sveta and her family here in town.

Little piece of info for you Americans waiting to come over here - in
Ukraine the word pepperoni means pepperoCHINI- ie a long green pepper and
not our beloved salami like meat. Be careful when ordering pizza here! We
kept getting these green peppers and thought something was getting lost in
the communication until we asked Sveta about it.....

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Photos

Back at Sveta's house and using her computer. Hopefully this will work this
time, but since she is primarily a German translator her keyboard is wonky.

Photos are of the following:
Marina and her friends putting on a little dance show for us
Marina on the monkey bars at Dendropark
Marina#s new friends, Masha and Sveta(younger)
Marina at her camp
Katya at her camp

Melissa

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Third time I'm trying this

sorry this is short, but this computer cafe is annoying me. I dont think the
guy knows how to access a stupid jump drive. last time i had no problems -
but with the language barrier, I can't tell him he is doing it all wrong.

anyways. court will most likely be this week. if all goes well in Kyiv it
will be Monday or Tuesday. Then start the 10 day wait. I will send photos
later when I can get access to my jump drive.

Melissa

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Papers at SDA and Marina at Camp

Just got back to Kgrad from taking Marina to camp. We had considered staying
with her at the camp, but it is in the middle of the woods, no where near a
town or city. The director said we could stay, but given that I need
internet to continue to do my job and get a paycheck...there really was no
choice. The camp was nice enough though - basically an orphanage in the
woods - much like the once Katya is in, except Katya's camp is in a small
town, not in the woods.

Marina was beginning to miss her friends anyways, and was looking forward to
going to camp before leaving for America so she could play with her friends
for a bit. Thankfully the camp is about 40 km from Kgrad so we can visit her
more easily than we can visit Katya as Katya's camp is over 2 hours away by
car - 4 by bus.

We got the call yesterday morning from Masha that our paperwork was
submitted to the SDa for the final approval for court. Technically they have
5 working days to review and approve the paperwork, but Anatoliy and Masha
are going to call and bother them ever day in hopes that they will process
it by the end of this week ie tomorrow. That would mean court on Monday,
with the 10 days starting on Tuesday.

Ukraine is starting to annoy us - its quaint and novel the first few weeks
you are here. Now we just want to get the girls and go home. One of the
daily annoyances is the total lack of cold drinks at any of the mini markets
or street shops. Cold beer, of course - cold soda, juice or water, nowhere.
It is hot here - not hotter than Atlanta or even Florida, but there is
almost no airconditioning anywhere. Its not so bad if you stay in the shade
- on the minibuses its the worst.

Other than that, we are eating lots of icecream, and getting into a routine.
Internet cafe at the city center, lunch, shopping for food for the hotel
room, visiting friends we've made here in town, then back to the hotel. We
know which minibuses to take to the hotel, the city center, DendroPark,
Furshets, and the orphanage. We took Marina to Dendro park twice while we
had her with us - my dad will kill me when he sees the photos - he is an
engineer at Disney and never allowed me to go to those seasonal carnivals
with the rickety looking rides - and here I am a new parent and I'm letting
my daughter go on these rusty, rickety rides that look like they are from
some horror movie. But she had fun, and a whole afternoon there cost us $6
USD.

I will post photos again soon - its just a pain to sort through all the
hundreds we've taken and put the good ones on the memory stick and then have
the internet cafe guy plug in the stick (they won't let you plug it in
yourself)

Melissa

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Marina goes to camp

We got a call from the orphanage that we have to have Marina back at
Barvinok tomorrow night so they can get all her things together for camp.
Then we go to Barvinok the next morning and go to camp with her - maybe even
stay at the camp with her - that is up to the director of the camp.

Our papers also get submitted to the SDA for final court approval tomorrow,
so please pray that they will review these papers quickly and get us the
final ok in a day or 2- technically they have 5 days to review the regional
approvals. Once we get the SDa approval, we have court the very next day.

Once the 10 days are over then we go to the camps to pick up the girls (we
have to pay for this transport)

Thats one of the things that many people may not know about - all the little
costs during the trip - driving and delivering paperwork is considered an
"expediting fee" and therefore costs extra above the cost of our
facilitator....every trip to Katya's orphanage and district cost us $40-60,
plus paying the driver to wait. The mini buses go to these places, but the
buses take twice as long to get there as a car, and the trains take 4 times
as long. And since you are already in country they kinda have you trapped.
you pay, you have no choice. that kinda pissed my husband off. especially
when they dont tell you that you have to pay until the cost is already
accrued - ie they dont tell you ahead of time. other than that we are happy
with our facilitators - they do a good job.

Thankfully I speak enough Russian to get by here, and we have the phone
numbers of some students who speak English in Kgrad in case we need help -
other than that we are alone here in region. We take the mini buses
everywhere, rarely do we take a cab. 80 kopeks versus 10 grivna.

Melisa

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photos

here are the photos for those reading the blog. I guess the email upload function doesnt keep the photos attached

Photos

No updates since yesterday. Still in a holding patttern until court. Marina
goes to camp next week. Maybe we will get to stay with her there.

Here are some photos.

Melissa and Andrew

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Lawyer cleaned us out

Well, things were going soooo well. Too well. So the lawyer in Kgrad had to
go and ruin it. She was demanding $4000 USD for her work on the court
paperwork. Every other family who had been through Kgrad recently had said
they paid around $1000-$1600. We talked her down to $1500 for the court
work, and $1000 for the passports ("expediting fees" since they CAN take up
to a month to process the passports, but she will get then in 20 minutes!).

Thankfully we got a great deal on an apartment - we are staying in the guest
house of Dr. Tkatch, a friend of Carola and Dieter, and we are only paying
$12 USD per night. It has a european toilet, shower, bathtub, and fridge,
and REALLLY comfy hospital beds. No clothes washer, but thats no problem -
the only problem is when we wash our clothes in the tub, there is no where
to hang them to dry. oh and no kitchen. so we eat lots of fruit, kolbasa,
cheese, bread, juice.....

There are two internet cafes in downtown kgrad - one by the main market in
the park with all the beer tents - Papa Andrew takes Marina over to a cafe
and gets her Fanta and icecream, and Mama Melissa goes to the internet cafe.
The other cafe is hotter and more crowded, so I think I will use this one
more.

Marina has to go to camp on July 12 - nothing we can do about it. The
orphanages must be emptied out so the caretakers can go on vacation. Galine,
the assistant direcvtor of marina's orphanage is talking to the director of
the camp to see about marina remaining with us in kgrad though, so that is a
possibility. Otherwise, we can stay at the camp with her, or stay at dr
tkatch's guest house and visit her at camp - the camp is like 20 minutes
away. Katya's camp on the other hand is 2 hours away. After the 10 day wait,
we can pick her up there though. We visited Katya yesterday so she could
write out her petition agreeing to be adopted. We even bought her new shoes
and hair bows. She said she would save them for that night's disco, so she
could show them off.

Marina also did her petition, we did a bunch of running around, more
paperwork etc. All the papers will be in the lawyers hands by tonight, and
then they will be submitted to the local "rada" for approval on Monday. The
official local approval conclusions will be ready that same Monday, and then
they will be submitted to the SDA for final approval for court on Wednesday
(SDA only accepts these petitions for court on M, W, and F). The SDA has up
to 5 working days to review the petitions, but Nena and Masha think they can
use Anatoliy (who submitted our dossier) to prod them a bit and get it done
in 1-2 days. The very next day we can have court. So, current timeline puts
us getting home in early August unfortunately - the first week at the
latest, hopefully the end of July though, if everyone prays really hard and
crosses their fingers and toes for us.

Please also pray that we can find the money to get home.

We promise to post photos tomorrow. We've just taken SOOOO many, we need to
go through them before getting to the internet cafe.

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Inspectors and tons of paperwork

We have been enjoying having Marina with us the past few days, and received
permission from the director to keep Marina with us when the Germans leave
to go back to Germany this Thursday. This weekend we spent visiting the aunt
and uncle, and Katya at her orphanage. Katya left for summer camp this
morning, but the camp is only 50 km away from the orphanage, so it will be
no problem for us to pick her up once the paperwork is filed. I will write
about the aunt and uncle later....

Sunday we took Marina to Center Park here in Kgrad - its kinda like a
permenant carnival with rides and little cafes - like a smaller version of
Hydropark in Kiev. Marina and Andrew had a great time going on all the
rides! In total it cost us under $10 USD for the day. Dad, I think we have a
roller coaster junky on our hands! Marina loves the "big and fast" rides :)

Today we spent going to see all the inspectors, lawyers and directors,
getting the needed papers to file for court. We should have all that
finished tomorrow, and have the papers for the SDA. The SDA then has up to 5
days to process those before we can have court, but Nena thinks we can get
it in a day or so. Then court, then maybe 10 day wait, then
home.....meanwhile, we continue to wake up to Marina covering our faces in
kisses!

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Update on our status

Ok, this computer lab does not want to see our word document i typed up for
this update, so i will synposize a bit

we got referrals for both Marina and Katarina - they found Katya's papers no
problem. the appointment lasted 15 minutes, they asked no questions, and
even helped us with Oksana's paperwork. They even gave us the referral
papers the same day - only 2 hours after our appointment. So, we don't have
to wait until monday to begin the process, we can start today. We leave kyiv
tomorrow morning and go straight to Marina\s orphanage to pick her up - Mila
the director gave Carola and Dieter permission for Marina to stay with us in
our apartment in Kirovograd. Saturday we will go to the aunt and uncle's
house in Znamenka and see Katya and talk to the aunt to make sure she isnt
going to cause problems for the court. Then we go to Pantievka on Saturday
also to get permission for Katya to stay with us in Kgrad. Monday we have
our official meeting with the district social workers and the orphanage
directors. We also meet with the Kgrad court lawyer that day. We should get
court quick and may even be able to get the 10 days waived if the aunt
testifies in court that she does not object tothe adoption. (which is the
point of the 10 days - for people to object). The aunt is the only relative
of the girls.

We tried getting an internet dial up card to use with our laptop in the
apartment in Kyiv, but the lines are always busy. Hopefully in Kgrad we will
have more luck.

Side note, the Cunninghams got a good referral on the first try too - we saw
them when we picked up our paperwork Wendesday afternoon. And a single man
from the USA who has been waiting outside the SDA for 2 months got his
dossier submitted and got an appointment. The USA line outside the SDA for
dossier submission is nearing 340 at this point just for those waiting to
submit. Many facilitators have multiple places in line though and no
dossiers, and I know of one who has a place at number 71 in line if anyone
needs a place. She is going to be our facilitator in Kgrad since Masha is
nursing her 6 month old baby still and cant be away from him for long.

Melissa and Andrew

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2 days until we fly out of the USA

So the count down has begun....

We have a few more things to do - and we are starting to realize that we will be leaving our home for a month. We go out to dinner and say "Wow, this is the last time we will be able to eat here for more than a month" - weird I know, but its the simple things you miss when you are away from home. For me it will be Target and my favorite Thai restaurant.

Going to get my last Target "fix" today - one of the duffel bags I bought was the wrong size, so I need to get a bigger one.

Also need to go to the bank today to cash all the gift and loan checks and clear out the savings account. I've been avoiding logging on to my bank account, afraid that all my money has disappeared or something. I know it hasn't, but the anxiety is still there.

Had to drive to the FedEx main office to pick up the envelope with my loan check in it from my aunt and godfather. I got there as they opened the doors, and still was late getting back for my meeting at work - 11 miles from FedEx to my office and it took over 45 minutes. Welcome to Atlanta! haha

I'm really nervous about carrying that much cash out of the bank. I'm not worried about the bills being brand new - we've never had a problem in Ukraine with that before - in fact we had more problems with the new bills since the design has changed - many exchange booths didn't know about this change and didn't want to accept the new bills. After I get the cash, I'm going to put it in labeled envelopes (thanks for the idea Beth T.!) so we don't accidentally spend our kids visa money or anything.

In good money news, I talked to my credit card company yesterday and they raised my credit limit by $300 for this trip! Its not alot, but every bit helps.

Heard from our friend George in Ukraine - I had him call the girls uncle to let him know about the FedEx package I sent to his home for Belle's birthday. He told George that the director of Cinderella's orphanage wouldn't let her visit with them, and that both girls were going to "camp" on July 2. I find that odd since I know that Cinderella's director KNOWS we are coming and said she pulled her name from the hosting list....Belle's director on the other hand....the phone is still dead so we can't get in touch with her. But since our appointment at the SDA is on June 27, I assume the SDA will call the orphanages to let them know we are coming, and tell the directors to pull the girls from the hosting/camp lists.

Calm and Nervous

So, we are not in melt down mode anymore thankfully. Our aunt and godfather loaned us the money and fedex'd the check here. It should be arriving at our apartment complex front office any minute now. I'll go to the bank tomorrow and cash that check, the gift checks I have, and cash out our savings account. In total we will have 8K in cash approx.

We also are going to continue getting our full salaries while we are gone - so the bills will get paid and we will have money to spend in Ukraine. I still have to call the bank and credit card company and let their fraud department know about our trip - so they don't freeze our account! I bet it would seem odd to them to suddenly see charges from Ukraine! Plus, this helps protect us from fraud, since the card company will know that any charges after our return date are probably not us, therefore rejecting those charges.

Got prescriptions refilled last night. Parents visit went great and Mr. Harry went home to Florida with them.

Did have a minor emergency last night - our pet sitter bailed on us last minute. Though I could easily find another pet sitter in Atlanta, I really trusted this woman, and she was willing to visit our kitties on the schedule we wanted and she charged us far less than the standard sitters do. If we had to use a regular phone book sitter, it would have cost us double what we planned on spending. Thankfully, our good friend from MedShare agreed to come over and check on the kitties every few days for us. She and her hubbie will definately be getting a BIG bottle of vodka from us!

Things left to do:
Clean up house after parents visit
Go to bank and get money into labeled envelopes
Finish last bit of packing
Get laptop set up for trip (for work, for watching DVDs, link to blog and email etc)

Having a Melt Down

I am totally in melt down mode right now. Our budget for the adoption trip is far too tight for my sanity and I'm hoping that my favorite aunt and Godfather will be able to draw up the emergency loan paperwork.

I am also going to talk to my parents this weekend about the possibility of their help if something goes wrong when we are in Ukraine, financially. I'm not worried about anything else really. We've been to Ukraine, stayed there for extended periods of time, can speak enough Russian to get by, and know our kids. Paperwork doesn't scare me.

The big unknown for me is the airplane tickets for the trip home. Someone who is there now was quoting $6000 for return tickets. I know that that is just a number, and I have no clue how many people they are buying tickets for, where they are flying to, what class they are flying, what airline etc. But I still freak out.

We live in Atlanta, a major airline hub. So, airfare is generally less to/from here. Our one way ticket to Germany were only $600 each. Based on other people's experiences, I was making my estimates based on the assumption that #1 kids cost less to fly, and #2 airfares purchased in ukraine are cheaper. We didn't by round trip tickets for two reasons - #1 we are flying into Frankfurt and out of Kyiv and #2 we knew that most airlines charged you a ton of fees to change your flight, sometimes people end up just buying a whole new ticket.

Arggghhhhhh! I need a happy pill. Or a beer. Or both :) I don't know how I am going to survive the next week.

Real Parents

I saw this quote in another Ukrainian AP's blog and liked it, so I'm copying it here:

Natural Child: Any child who is not artificial.
Real Parent: Any parent who is not imaginary.
Your Own Child: Any child who is not someone else's child.
Adopted Child: A natural child, with a real parent, who is all my own.
--- Rita Laws PhD

Really sums it all up.





Someone asked about if/where we were registered for "Welcome home" gifts for our girls. We aren't registered anywhere and probably won't. One of my few coping behaviors during this 2 year wait has been "nesting" for my future daughters. They have everything and more that they will need for many years to come LOL. I have tons of clothes, toys, books, educational games, bikes, car booster seats (for the younger 2), furniture, linens etc.

What we have always needed the most help with is the cost of the trip itself. All the above mentioned things were bought slowly over time. The adoption trip itself is a huge amount of cash, all at once. Thankfully, we have a wonderful aunt and uncle who had the ability to give us a monetary gift to help with this, and we were able to build up a bit of a savings account. We also have a small credit card. All of the other adoption costs have been slow and over time, so we've had no problems paying all that, its this all-at-once-trip-cost that is freaking us out.

We've been blessed with the offer of a personal loan from the same aunt and uncle, should we need it, and with cooperative and understanding employers who have worked out a way for both Andrew and I to get our full salaries while on the adoption trip. Bully for us.

Also, since we are not using an agency and are using a cool facilitator, we are saving alot of money there. We are also flexible and easy to please people, so we will have no problems in country with our accommodations, no matter how "soviet-style" they are. Our last two week trip to Ukraine cost less than $800 which included our apartments, a translator with us everyday, sight seeing, drivers, train tickets - everything but the airline tickets.

We may end up being in Ukraine a little longer than we had hoped, as I learned that June 28th is a Ukrainian holiday and most of the government offices will be closed June 28 and 29 for the long holiday weekend. Which means the SDA may not issue our official referral to the girls until July 2. I guess that will be ok as we are planning on visiting SnowWhite during the holiday weekend, so that will mean less traveling if we stay in Kyiv until the weekend, then head to the girls region July 1.

Final preparations

So, we aren't getting anywhere about Belle's paperwork, so we will have to just deal with it once we get to Ukraine. Masha is still working on it, but as the phones to the orphanage are broken, its no use for us to keep trying to call there to get info.

One funny thing I found out - the director of Cinderella's orphanage, when speaking to Masha, said that she knew someone was coming to adopt Cinderella, but she wasn't sure if it was "the Americans or the Germans" - I guess we confused her by tag-teaming her with phone calls LOL since "the Germans" and us are now working together!

So, I have a few more things to pack, the clothes are washed and ready to be packed away, travel sized soaps and shampoos are purchased, and I went to Sams Club to get a big 4 pack of single use cameras and a big pack of Lithium batteries for our digital camera. Our biggest problem on our last trip to Ukraine was finding "good" batteries that actually worked - I swear that the shops were repackaging dead batteries and selling them to us stupid Americans. The only batteries that I could find that would work were Energizer brand for high tech devices, and they only sold those in the big western-style stores like Furshets and MegaMarket.

My parents are coming up from Florida the weekend of the 16th to see us off - they are going to take our dog, Harry, with them back to Florida and I'm putting together a packet of info for them - copies of our passports, a list of contacts they may need, and a general itinerary of where we will be and when. We are also giving them a key to our home and one of our swipe cards to get in the gate to the complex. My parents are going to come back up to open up the house and stock the fridge a few days before we return (they will probably head up at the same time we are headed back to Kyiv for the Embassy meetings).

Also meeting with the cat sitter that weekend. She is an awsome chick - we've known each other a long time, and she watched the cats last time we were in Ukraine. She always cuts us a deal too since she knows we are adopting. So, we also have to give her a packet of info in case anything happens with our kitties, get her a key and swipe card for the gate.

Only things left to do is finish cleaning up the house, finish packing, and set up the laptop (install games, put links to the webpages we will need to access for work etc)- oh and finish putting together the photo album for the SDA and judge to look at.

Poll: What do you want me to post about?

Hi all,

I read about 10 blogs of other adoptive parents every day, and some I like and some I don't....some people babble on for paragraphs about their sight seeing and food, others complain about everything, some spend half their post "talking" to specific people back home. IMO, I don't particularly like these things nor find them helpful or useful.

Our blog's purpose is to let our family and friends back home know what is going on with our adoption. I try not to post too much extraneous news or info about the rest of our life. If I need to ask someone a question, I will email them privately.

So, to you our reading audience, I wanted to know if there is anything in particular you like and don't like to see in these types of adoption blogs. What do you want me to mention and write about during our trip? I know most of us use these blogs to prepare for our own eventual trips and garner some sort of sense of what to expect when we travel and how our own appointment and trip will go. For example, while I love to read a good blog about a family adopting a toddler on a "blind" appointment, I tend to more closely follow and read the blogs about people adopting older kids, and/or known kids, as that is the type of adoption we are doing, therefore those blogs are more helpful for us to estimate how our trip will go.

No news on Belle's paperwork

Received an email from our facilitator and a Ukrainian friend of mine, both confirmed that the orphanage's phone is broken. So, we can't get in contact with the director to find out about Belle's paperwork.

Masha talked to the "lawyer" in Kirovograd, but I'm not sure which lawyer she means, and I don't think this lawyer has found out anything. But, Masha is a genious and I totally trust her - if it can be done, she will get it done.

Of course, I'm in freak out mode. Thank God for Clonapin. I don't really have any more trip-related errands to run, so I'm trying to keep busy with little tasks I should have already done, like setting up our laptop for the trip, compiling a contact list for people we want to visit or call when we are in Ukraine, packing....

Andrew and I aren't sleeping well, and not eating well, and we are both really nervous about our SDA appointment and getting BOTH girls out of there. I know we will be fine though - we've spent 2 weeks in Ukraine before, so this is just a bit longer, but we are still worried about money mostly - money we will have to pay in Ukraine and our paychecks/jobs back home. Every time I do my calculations I know we have enough money, but there is always that nagging "what if" in the back of my mind saying that we should have a bigger buffer, we should have more money on us "just in case."

Thankfully the girls are visiting at their Aunt and Uncle's home nearby the orphanages, so at least they are getting to spend some quality time with their relatives and each other before the chaos starts.

Prayers and Good Thoughts Needed!

All,

I just heard back from our awsome facilitator with preliminary news about Belle's paperwork...not good news so far, but its not totally hopeless yet. One person at the SDA that she talked to said that they had NO file on Belle at all, so they could not tell me when she would be available for adoption. Our facilitator also contacted the lawyer in Belle's region who handles registrations and adoptions and the woman agreed to research it and call her back with more info tonight.

Please pray that they will find Belle's paperwork and that the SDA will make an exception to let us adopt Belle as she will be 14 years old this summer and will never be adopted by a Ukrainian family.

If they do not find her paper work, one of two things could happen - they could let us get her registered, let us adopt Cinderella, and then come back for Belle later, or they can deny us both sisters since we cannot adopt them together at the same time. The letter from the SDA made it sound like we could adopt Cinderella without her sister, but the orphanage director says it is not possible to seperate them. I hope we don't have to - my hope is that we can bring them BOTH home on this trip. If not, we need to at least bring Cinderella home and sign something promising to come back for Belle.

My husband is a total wreck about this; having nightmares and not sleeping. He said the other day "maybe this would have been easier if we didn't know the kids we were trying to adopt" and I told him that this would be difficult either way and that the only thing that has kept ME going is the faces of MY kids and the promise I made to them in my heart. If I didn't already "know" my kids, I would have thrown in the towel on Ukrainian adoptions months ago.