Prayer Request

So, I've heard yet another rumor about Oksana. One of my friends in New York, who is trying to adopt two girls from Oksana's orphanage was told, by her kids, that Oksana was adopted by a Ukrainian family and was leaving the orphanage.

Now, I've heard this rumor a dozen times before, and its never turned out to be true. But there is still that kernal of anxiety in my heart about it. The fact is, Ukraine is unpredictable and there is a slim change it is true.

But, there is more of a chance that it is not true. #1. You can't always believe a 10 year old's word about something like this - they could be fibbing, it could be a misunderstanding etc.

Also, the woman helping all of us with the kids registration for adoption confirmed that Oksana's parents rights were never terminated, and she was never registered for adoption. The only possibilities are: its foster home program, or her birth mother was found and has taken her.

Ukrainians don't adopt older kids. Almost never. I think its less than 1% of the time Ukrainians actually adopt domestically do they choose a kid over 2 years old, and most of those times its a biological relative (their niece or nephew etc).

We also confirmed at the SDA when we were there adopting Marina and Katya that Oksana was not registered. Ukrainians can't adopt the kids either if they aren't registered for adoption. That is what the 14 months is for - for domestic adoptions only. Once that 14 months is up, then the kid can be adopted internationally.

Also, the director, the regional inspector and the SDA are all aware of our efforts to adopt Oksana. I know they can't "stop" a ukrainian family from adopting the kids, but they do have a say, and usually once the ukrainian family knows that the kid is going to America, they back off. Same with the foster homes. Once the foster group finds out that the kid is going to America soon, they take them off the list.

So, I'm at a loss, and I am praying desperately that this just another misunderstanding and rumor. With so many people aware of our efforts, I don't see why someone would allow an adoption or foster home to go through for Oksana. Oksana is also aware and wrote us a letter just a few weeks ago, calling me Mama Melissa and telling me to hurry up her documents so she could come live with us. The kid has to agree to an adoption or foster home placement, so I don't thik Oksana would agree either, and she can be quite the handful when she doesn't want to do something!

So please, pray for our family and for Oksana that the situation will turn out the way it is supposed to. In my biased opinion that means Oksana being part of our family, as any placement in Ukraine will not give her the opprotunity to reach her full potential as living in America would.

Parenting with Love and Logic

So I broke down and bought the book. I've heard so many good things about it. As I've started reading it, I've realized that alot of the ideas are good ones, but they would be hard to implement when my kids don't speak fluent English yet. Most of PWLAL is about talking...giving the kids control through options, expressing feelings instead of giving order etc....but what do you do when your kids speak only pidgin English?!?!

Some of it we had already been doing too - if the kid doesn't change their behavior, you change their location. ie, when they throw a tantrum in Target, one of the parents takes the kid out of the store and to the car. If only one parent is present, you leave your basket where it is, and take the kids to the car and go home.

Many of our problems have been with the kids NOT making one of the given choices, NOT staying in their rooms to cool down, etc. They are far too big for us to pick them up, but we often have to do this in the end. Marina often needs to be physically restrained during her meltdowns so she doesnt "take-off", hurt herself or others or damage property. We have to physically pick her up and carry her out of the store when she has a tantrum as she will not walk out on her own two feet. We do't hurt her in any way- just bear-hug her until she calms down, or fireman carry her to where she needs to be.

Some of the battles we are losing include: being honest, going to bed at night, waking up in the morning, and constantly (and I mean constantly) comparing themselves to everyone else and how things that happen to them are "not fair!."

The food battles are mostly over. Marina is finally drinking milk, and they almost always eat their food at dinner. Lunch is another story, since I can't be there to make sure they are actually eating their lunches. I have talked to their teachers, who take them to lunch, so I have them keeping an eye out for me.

Another big challenge lately, including this weekend, is their Russian friends. Their Russian friends are not adopted. The parents are Russian immigrants, and these kids have lived with those parents their whole lives. Problem is, they still have many of the "bad habits" that are part of Russian culture - ie running around barefoot in the woods, peeing outside instead of using a toilet, going down to the lake to wash the dishes instead of using the nearby washhouse, letting the kids wear questionable clothing etc. Its been very hard to enforce our rules and boundaries on the girls when their Russian friends' families don't have similar rules.

We had an incident this Saturday while trying to attend Masha's birthday party. Even though Georgia is in a state of emergency drought, and Lake Lanier is 19 ft below where it should be, Masha's family decided they wanted to go camping and have a birthday picnic at the lake. andrew and I being in medicine, and I being an infectious disease specialist, we knew that in its current state, Lake Lanier posed a health risk to the girls. Their immune systems are still not 100%, they are on the INH for latent TB, and with the lake so low, all of the bacteria, viruses, and parasites are super-concentrated into a smaller amount of water. We told the girls that we would go to the lunch on the condition that they did not go in the water and they would not be allowed to go swimming. I dislike non-pool swimming anyways, but this was especially troubling, and they agreed to the condition. I was cleaning a few things out of the car when I hear Andrew bellowing across the park for me. Apparently, the girls, along with Masha and another Russian kid, went down to the lake to "wash the picnic dishes in the lake water" (YUCK!!!) and got their feet all muddy. On top of this they were not wearing their shoes while tromping through the forest (where there was visible broken glass from boaters). I catch up with them as they are returning to the dreaded lake to wash their feet. I stop them and reinforce that they are not to go near the lake water. I let the first transgression slide, as I thought that maybe they misunderstood that they were not to even put their feet in the lake. I tell them to go up to the little bath house and wash their feet there. A few minutes later we spot them on a private boat pier, splashing around and dipping their hands and feet into the water. Well, we had given them a second chance, and they chose to disobey us again. So we ran over, got them away from the water, and let them know that we were disappointed that they went to the water even after we reminded them not to, and then annouced that we were leaving the party and going home. PWLAL, If you can't change their behavior, you change their location - right? They were upset, screaming, wouldn't go get their shoes (which they had again left behind at the campsite and not worn while running through the woods), and we finally got them to the car, in tears.

The biggest issue came with trying to explain our decision to the russian families there. They had no idea WHY it was not ok for the kids to run barefoot and muddy around the lake. They seemed to not want to simply respect our wishes as the girls parents - i got the feeling that they felt that we were sub-par parents that needed to be educated on how to raise "russian" kids. that somehow by us not being russian, we were not good enough parents for the girls because we were depriving them of their "culture" by prohibiting them from doing these things. Not wanting to burn-bridges with our daughter's best friend's family, I explained as best I could over and over. Then I finally returned to the car, and we left. The girls wailed most of the way home, beat the back of our car seats, refused to put on their seat belts etc.

more later, and photos too.

Headless Ken

Sorry its been so long between posts. I'm trying to keep this up so that I have a written record of this process, and so other adoptive parents can learn from our experiences and know that they are not alone.

The photos are: the girls portrait, the girls at Sonic with Marina's friend Syka who is from Kyrgystan, and the girls in Helen Georgia for Octoberfest with Katya's friend Masha from St. Petersburg.

The most recent disaster happened Tuesday night and has had some aftershocks that are still continuing today. Marina had a MAJOR meltdown around bedtime on Tuesday. Initially it started out being an issue with her attendance in her school's after school care program. Its not like the kids are still in school during this time - they play, do fun crafts and activities, etc. Its necessary for her to go to this program as her school lets out at 2pm and we work until 5 pm or so, and she definately can't be at the house by herself at age 10.


So, we got her moved back to Briarvista after a huge disappointment with Fernbank Elementary, and she seemed happy about this return, but she was still having issues about staying at school after school ended for the day. She began to escalate, saying she wouldnt go to school, she wouldnt go to bed etc. The exact process escapes me now, as it was 10 at night when she was escalating, and I was tired. I remember that she refused all attempts by us to compromise with her and get her to sleep. She ended up sitting at the dining room table, which is very close to our foyer and front door. Marina has a habit of "taking off" when she gets upset. She literally leaves the house and disappears. Usually we get her back into the house quickly, but not without a physical fight on her part. Knowing this was a possibility, we were not comfortable with leaving her alone in the common area of the house for fear that she would take-off, this time in the middle of the night.


So we sat down at the dining room table with her, and tried to reason with her. We knew that there was something deeper at issue here than just not wanting to go to the after school program. Eventually it came out that she wanted to live "on the street" and not with us. She started to get really confused, angry and sad and started transfering her memories of her birth parents onto us - ie. we were the ones who drank vodka, we abused her, we gave her the scars on her arms and legs, we "boomed" her (our word for hit or beat), etc. She also started defending her birth father, the one who actually drank the vodka and abused her, saying she loved him and wanted to live with him. We tried to bring her back to reality, with reminders that her birth father was dead and that we were her forever parents now, and that we never hurt her and did not drink vodka, that we knew that those things happened to her and that it made us very angry and sad that it happened to her. We got out some Barbies from her room, and put them on the table in front of her. She picked up the Barbies and acted out some of the abuse (we had a ken, barbie, and a little sister barbie). By the end of the "skit" ken's head was chopped off, the little sister was across the room, and the barbie was on the floor. My table also has some nice big dents and gashes it in now from where she banged the barbies' nice hard bodies into it.

Eventually she let Andrew rock her, and we got her to lay down on the couch with Andrew. This was 2am. Needless to say, we kept her out of school the next day due to emotional exhaustion, lack of sleep, and a need to be near us after this catharsis.

Well, Katya had a headache that morning. I gave her tylenol and sent her to school. She had slept through this whole ordeal, and she was not fevered, so no staying home. She was livid about this. Also, I guess the girls had split up the barbies between them, and the ken that got beheaded was claimed by Katya. Katya is still pissed today. Almost no talking, no acknowledgement, she just sits in her room ignoring us. She wouldnt even eat dinner last night. She is also pissed because her friend Masha has not been at the English school for about a week now, due to standardized testing at her home base school and a dentists appointment. On top of all that (oh the teenage trauma right?), her homebase school electives shifted. She is no longer in "technology" ie computer lab, she is now in visual arts. This is part of the electives program here - every 9 weeks, the kids change electives. Next 9 weeks it will be music, or something. Of course the school is still a major issue, and does not communicate these things to us, so we had no way to explain or prepare her for this change.

Thankfully, that is one of our successes - we got the IEP meeting scheduled for November 7th. Since the parents get 50% say in the decisions, and we have Katya's english teacher on our side, the annoying homebase school counselor has no chance of opposing us! yippie! We are also having our therapist, Madga, come with us to speak on Katya's behalf. Thankfully, she and Ms. Savitt, the english teacher, are native Russian speakers and have both noticed that Katya has language delays in her native language. This will qualify her for the IEP. If not, we will claim that there were developmental delays noted on her medical records from Ukraine (which there might be, but I can't read all the records!), and Katya has PTSD and cumulative cognitive deficit. When Katya has an IEP, the school will be forced to make educational accomodations for her.

In other news, we finally got our first set of family portraits back, along with the portraits of the girls. We will probably take advantage of our portrait club membership and bring the girls back to take photos in their princess gowns this month, and again around christmas and maybe again in january. The princess dress photos are more for them - they really really wanted to wear those fancy dresses in the family portrait, but Andrew and I overruled them, and we all wore matching outfits.

Crazy doctor and tooth fairy

The girls have been to two meetings with the therapist so far, and though we love Dr. Magda, the girls are still hesitant. They think that only crazy people see psychologists, so they think we think they are crazy. Thankfully Magda explained to them that she does not see "crazy" people, and then she explained why they would be seeing her - she explained about how that when babies grow in their mommy's tummy and when they are babies, they learn that when they do certain things, a mamma or papa respond and meet their needs - ie trust and attachments are formed. Magda then explained that they most likely haven't had those types of relationships in a long time, since in the orphanage there are just so many kids and not too many caretakers. So they got used to taking care of themselves and not having someone meet their needs, and that is what she was going to help them do with us - have them learn to trust us and attach to us. They seemed ok with this.

Magda did say that Marina's relationship with Carola and Dieter will likely cause problems in her attachment process, since she saw this as a type of "family" experience, even though it was more like "going to the grandparents for the summer" type of experience. Carola and Dieter didn't have Marina for long enough periods to really enforce behaviors or norms on her, and they didn't really have to make her do things she didn't want to do like going to the dentist or going to school etc. I know they didn't spoil her with lots of toys, as dieter told me that they did teach Marina about spending money and how to be responsible about it. And she is good at that for the most part.


Katya has very low self esteem, which Magda says is why she wants to wear the skimpy clothes. She prescribed at least 7 hugs per day for Katya, even if Katya doesn't want them. This will teach her that she is worth receiving love and affection, and hopefully enhance her self image. Katya has had a rough few days - it may be PMS, it may be normal teenager mood swings, or it may be her starting to grieve....we don't know. We are going camping this weekend and she had a meltdown in Target because we wouldn't buy a lawn tennis set she wanted. We did offer to buy the less expensive set, but she wanted the expensive set, so we said no. She stormed off in the store, disappeared for 20 minutes, was crying in the ailes, and then went out to the parking lot alone. She wouldn't even get in the car when we were leaving. Finally, when threatening to physically put her in the car, she got in, but not after spouting out a loud protest of some sort in really fast Russian. We have no clue what she said, but she sounded upset and she was still crying. She was still pissed off this morning.

Marina also had a melt down on Wednesday, but I can't blame her for that one. We ended up waiting for close to 3 hours at the dentist office for them to fit her in to pull two of her rotten baby teeth. We had a scheduled "exam", but not a scheduled "treatment" so they had to fit us in. Marina was bored and frustrated, and probably scared. They gave her nitrous/laughing gas, and a local numbing gel and pulled the two teeth. One was so bad it came out in pieces. The other they put in a little plastic treasure chest for the tooth fairy. Unfortunately since the girls are still having problems with their sleep routines, we couldn't get the money under her pillow. I think we may send her the money in the mail "from the tooth fairy" since she likes to get mail, and it will hopefully let her believe in the tooth fairy for a little while.


The girls each have one best friend, who are of course both Russian speaking. We have met Marina's friend Syka who is from Kyrgystan, and tomorrow we meet Katya's friend Masha and her family as they are coming up to Helen where we will be camping to go to the Octoberfest there with us.

Little brother found and health update

So, we finally got up the courage to call the phone number the Kirovograd lawyer gave us for the little brother's adoptive family. I left a message during the daytime, so as to give the family the choice to call us back or not. Well, he did - Kolya's adoptive father that is. Greg adopted Kolya in 2002 from the Kirovograd baby house as a single man. He had little to no info about Kolya's siblings or family, other than the parents names. So I filled him in on all the family drama, and exchanged email addresses so we could trade photos of the kids. Kolya looks so like Marina that they could be twins. I sent some photos of the girls and the birth family to Greg and am waiting for his response to those. So it sounds like the girls will get to have continued contact with their little brother and Aunt Nadiya will be happy to have photos of her lost nephew. We did find out that Kolya also had strabismus and is now in corrective glasses- I guess it is genetic!

In medical news, the girls bloodwork came back and it was better than we hoped for. Marina doesn't have Hepatitis C! She was positive for Hep A antibodies, but that is only a mild short term infection, and it gave her the same antibody results that having the vaccine would have given her. She does have a little anemia, but thats to be expected. Katya was also good on all her bloodwork.

Their teeth are another story. Let's just say that they have one or two good teeth in their mouths. both girls need tons of work - cavities filled, root canals, teeth pulled....they did very well though in the dentists office. The hygienists were great, showing the girls all the instruments first and letting them play with them before they were used in their mouths. Marina has an abcessed tooth, so she will need to be on antibiotics before she can have that pulled. Thankfully that one is a baby tooth and the adult tooth will eventually come in to replace it. Katya needs at least 5 visits to complete all the work she needs done, so we'll spread that out over the next year. I've heard good things about xylitol, so I will look in to buying that type of toothpaste and see if we can prevent further damage in the girls teeth. We did cut off their candy supplies though - they weren't happy about that.

So, upcoming appointments include Marina's audiology appointment next week, and then both girls go to the eye center at emory for an evaluation in october. Marina sees her ped dentist later this month, and hopefully we can get Katya's painful teeth taken care of in october or november.

Right now its just a matter of money - we are still recovering from the adoption trip itself, so it will take some time to get our finances back in order.

Medical Appointments, School, and Behavior

So now for the meat of having the girls home for a few weeks now. I know it is hard to think about this time period when you are so focused on just getting thme home, but I am glad to say that my prep, planning and all the books I read were worth it. I think I would have been completely caught off guard and in tears had I not known that it was possible for the girls to have these problems upon arrival.

I'm glad to report that Marina has not had any major meltdowns since we got home. No biting, kicking, scratching etc. She still gets upset and cries, but she is getting better at controlling it with our help.

Our major issues so far have been:
The girls hate American fashion (children's fashion that is....they want to wear adult womens clothing)
The girls are "sicker" than we anticipated - they both need surgeries and medications for a year or so.
The schools have been a pain in the arse and totally unwilling to help us put the girls in the proper classes.

So that's the summary. If you just want an update, thats it. If you are going through something similar, or going to be going through something similar soon, I will detail out the first few weeks home below.

The plane ride went without incident. The girls did very well switching airports in Brussels and kept themselves entertained for the long ride across the ocean. They even did remarkedly well in ATL through immigration and customs. My parents took us home and the girls spent most fo the next few days hanging out with their grandparents, checking out their room (and rearranging it!), and going to the pool.

We argued with the school about how and when to register the girls. They would not accept an appointment. They said we had to come sit in a hallway at 730 in the morning at the international center (for all international and immigrant students) and just wait. Marina was not happy about this. The girls also knew they would be tested in English and Math. Math they were excited about, and English we told them it was good if they got a bad score. They thought this was hillarious! The woman who did our registration was Polish and she spoke Russian, so the girls were happy. They at first tried to place the girls based soley on their chron age. I told them no, I would home school them before allowing them to place the kids in grades they were sure to fail in. Thankfully I had their Ukrainian school transcripts, and showed the woman that the girls only completed 2nd and 6th grades respectively. They agreed to place the girls in 4th and 7th. But then they were arguing that we could start the girls at all until their specific georgia med forms were completed. I knew this was wrong and that the girls could get provisional enrollment for 30 days until we had our ped appointment the following week. After sending a copy of this policy via email to the director of the international center, I got them to release the girls files so we could enroll them at their "home base" schools. So the girls would be going to the international center (via bus from the home base schools) for the majority of the school day to learn english, and then spend 1 or 2 hours at their home schools.

Unfortunately Kat's home base school counselor is a complete twit. Total robot, typical public school guidance counselor. She refused to put Kat in PE or Art those 2 hours at the end of the day. She put Kat in Biology and Geography! I mean, come on, the kid doesn't speak, read, or understand English yet! We are still to this day fighting this. We thankfully got Kat's biology switched for Advanced Gifted Math, and she is loving that and doing well (90's and 100's on homework!)


Doctor's appointments. Let me start by saying I LOVE LOVE Dr. Vayman and her staff. I don't care that its a 45 minute drive to her office. She is the best. First was Kat's appointment, and since it was in the afternoon, Marina was with us. Kat broke down crying about changing into the paper gown, but thankfully I convinced her that it was a princess dress, and she and marina were ballroom dancing in the exam room when the nurse arrived. Did the hearing and eye screening, transfered her vaccine record to the GA form, and got her more vaccines. She was not happy about having 3 vaccines and one PPD placed, but she did ok. Her ears are ok, and she needs to see an eye specialist about the strabismus. Her abuse was more extensive than I thought, and Dr. Vayman (who speaks Russian BTW, as do some of her staff) told me to think about counseling for both girls. She recommended the same woman I had already planned on seeing. Coolies.

Marina's appointment was the following morning. So no school for her. Kat was not happy about that. Marina did ok and didn't need as many shots. But her hearing is almost completely gone in her left ear, and her right ear isn't great. So we will need an audiology appointment and possibly tubes in her ears. Dr. Vayman thinks it was multiple untreated ear infections that caused the damage. Her eyes are also bad, so she will need glasses. She is not happy about that at all. Dr. Vayman outlined all the blood work they were ordering, and the xrays and such and we would have to have all that done at Children's Healthcare at Egelstons as they didn't have a lab there at her office.


Finally got the blood drawn and the xrays done on Monday. both girls needed chest xrays since their PPDs (tuberculosis skin test) were VERY positive. Marina had a documented history of positive PPDs and Katya's we measured at home and called it in to the doctor. Marina also got a bone age xray done since she is way below the growth curve for her age group. Getting the stool samples for the parasite testing is turning out to be more difficult since the girls won't tell us when they poo. Marina probably has Giardia parasite infection since she farts so much.

Dental appointment is today at 230pm, and the girls don't seem too nervous about it. I eased them into it by letting them know last week about the appointment (I draw little pictures on the calendar since they can't read english yet and have it posted in the kitchen), reminded them 2 days ago, yesterday, and this morning. I explained that the dentist would only clean their teeth and examine them - no surgery, drilling, or pulling. I told them that they may be sore, but that I had medicine for that (orajel and tylenol). Kat has visable cavities on her front teeth, and who knows how many ones in back. I know from Dieter and Carola that Marina has a few, but most of her teeth are new since she is still getting her adult teeth in.

One thing I have found interesting is that the girls are torn about American kids meds - they are all sweet, good tasting, and chewable. Some they like, some they hate. Marina hates the kids toothpaste we got her that tasted like bubblegum. She wanted regular mint. They also are doing the fluoride rinse ok. No flossing yet - one thing at a time.

Still fighting over food and clothing, but I expect that to lessen with time. I'm just waiting to find Marina with a pair of scissors in her room cutting her shirts to be shorter like Ukrainian shirts! She already suggested cutting out the built in shorts in all her skirts (all kids skirts come with built in shorts now so they don't accidentally flash anyone).


We started a new rewards and discipline system yesterday and the girls like it so far. Its the basic "marble jar" system - each kid gets a decorated jar with their name on it, and when they do something good, they get a marble, when they are bad one gets taken away. Once the jar is full they get a treat (for our girls, something like a manicure at the salon, roller rink trip, movie theater, or a new CD). We wrote out a long one page letter to them and translated it on the internet explaining this system, also wrote out a daily schedule for them so there is no question about when they need to wake up, take a bath, or go to bed, and finally wrote up a chores list for each girl. Chores make they feel like part of the family (or so all the books say) and that they are contributing to the household. Each girl has 3 chores, and if they choose to do them, they get $10 a week. If not, they have no spending money. We made clear that we bought their food and basic clothing and school supplies, but anything beyond that was to be bought with their own money.

Some photos from Kyiv and at home

As we were not in Kyiv very long, I didn't have a chance to post any Kyiv photos. Some are also from our last days in Kirovograd region and the plane flight home. I will post more later about the girls medical exams here in the states and their experience in school so far.

Bio family photos: Aunt Nadiya, Uncle Valera, Cousin Tanya, second cousin Karina, our girls and us
Getting ready for Kyiv - look at those sunglasses! All the women here wear these things and they are sold on every street corner for about $8 USD
In Kyiv
Airplane ride home
First week home

Registered for school, first play date with Russian speaking kids tonight

the girls seem to be doing ok so far. the days consist of going to the pool a dozen times (it seems), meal times, and the girls singing Russian karoke with the little karoke machine we got from Target.

My parents left on Tuesday morning, and the girls didnt want them to leave. I assured the girls that we'd go visit their Babushka and Deyadushka in a few weeks over the labor day weekend. My parents seemed to like the girls too. I knew that once they met the girls they'd like them - they were more scared of the adoption itself than the girls.

Marina got to talk to her friends Dasha and Yulia who are visiting a friend of mine in Wisconsin, so that was nice for the girls to be able to chat a bit while they are all in the US. Dasha and Yulia go back to Ukraine soon, but hopefully not for long as my friends should have their dossiers submitted for these girls soon.

Clothing and eating seem to be the big issues right now. The girls don't understand why they can't dress like prostitutes here. And they are very upset about the school dress codes. Katya doesn't have as many clothes as Marina, partly because I totally misjudged her size and bought clothes that were too small, and partly because Marina had clothes from Germany. Food-wise Marina doesn't want to try anything new and seems very particular about how things are prepared. They love watermelon, cantelope, ramen noodles (they ate this at our hotel in ukraine alot), and french fries. Thankfully there is a Ukrainian deli and market a few blocks from our house, so I brought the girls there yesterday for them to pick out some food they like. We also used the picture dictionary to discuss what they liked to eat and how they preferred it to be prepared. We've been to a few resteraunts since being home, and they seemed to like what we ordered them- I usually translate a few things from the menus and ask them which they would like - having control over their food and making them own choices seems to help.

Some of the unexpected things that have come up include the girls gluing things to the walls of their bedroom and putting stickers on everything, including the walls....this I put a stop to the first night home. They also didn't like the rugs in their room, and didnt understand why there was a rug on top of the carpet (its white carpet since we are in an apartment until our house is built).

Also Katya has no clue how to ride a bike. I don't think they make training wheels for an adult sized bike, so we are going to take the girls to our central park tomorrow so we can teach Katya on the grass where its softer and there are no cars. They also don't like the whole helmets and seatbelts thing, but they are doing it none the less with little argument. They just usually give me that high pitched "Maaaa" sounding frustrating, and then ask me "Pochimoo?" which is "Why" in Ukrainian. Another favorite question is "Shto eta?" which means "What is this?"- thankfully I know quite a bit of Ukrainian and Russian, so we've been able to communicate pretty well.

They definately don't like that Atlanta has so many black people. I'm constantly hearing "Mnoga chornee" from the back seat of the car. Katya was defaintely not happy that there were black people at her school. I'm going to have to ask one of my local Russian friends to explain this one to them.

After battling with the international center, I finally got the girls registered for school here and they start on Monday. For some reason the international center wanted to ignore the state policy about the 30 day waiver period for the vaccination forms. We have the vaccination forms from the embassy visa medical visit, but it needs to be transcribed onto the GA state form by either our doctor or the health department. I'm not bringing my girls to the health department, especially not when its a 3-4 hour wait for them to transcribe one sheet of paper. We have their ped appointments with the Russian speaking doctor next week - surely they should be allowed to go to school for 2-3 days until I can get our private doctor to fill out this form?!?! So, after my badgering and emails with web link to this policy, they relented and gave me the registration packets to bring to the girls home base schools. So the girls will go to the international center for the majority of the school day for about 3 months, and only attend one or two classes at their home school. I was hoping that the 1-2 classes would be something like P.E. or art, but the schools here are wacky and put the girls in academic classes, even though they will fail as they don't know any english yet. I'm going to argue this one as well. :) We did get the girls placed in the grades we wanted after yet another battle. They tried placing the girls based soley on biological age. I even showed them the girls school records from Ukraine, showing that they had only completed a few years of school each and could in no way be put in 5th and 9th grades. So they will be in 4th and 7th grades thankfully.

Tonight we were invited to go visit with our friend Dee and her children who are 10 and 16, from Kazakhstan and Russia respectively. The girls are totally psyched about this as they want to talk to other Russian speaking kids badly. The will watch High school musical on disney chanel with Dee's kids and maybe play with our karoke machine (the girls insist on bringing it with us).

Here are some photos

Made it home

Made it home fine, and the girls are settling in fine. We had no problems
with the planes or connections, and the girls were fine on the planes.

My parents picked us up at the airport, and drove us all to our apartment.
The girls have been sorting through alll their toys and clothes since then,
giving us fashion shows, and deciding which clothing to keep and what to
send to their friends in ukraine at the orphanages.

Also just got the email from our friend svetawith the name and address and
phone of the girls little brother. he's in virginia, near dc. i hope we can
call them today and get the relationship going.

thats all for now. gotta get the paperwork in order for the girls health
insurance and school registration.

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In Kyiv and have airplane tickets home

so, got to kyiv ok by bus tuesday night. the apartment is perfect - in
livoberezhna where we stayed last time we were in ukraine in 2006, and only
$50 a night for 2 bedrooms.

booked the airline tickets home at the delta office - unfortunately there
were no available tickets until sunday for all 4 of us, so we fly through
brussels to atlanta on sunday morning, arriving in atlanta at 2:15 pm. price
wasnt bad either - less than $3000 for all of us.

medicals went ok today - met some other facilitators and american families
and their children. found out that the us embassy pasted some new rule about
the vaccine schedule of kids immigrating via adoption - they must be up to
date with their vaccines according to the us schedule, not the ukrainian
schedule. so that was an extra $100 in vaccines as the girls were not up to
date. but at least maybe they can start school before i can reschedule their
pediatritian appointment since all i needed for the school is a vaccine
record. the girls were great, both behaved and took the shots with no
problems.

nina had a stern talking to with marina and katya about how to behave and
how the behavior marina has been showing is not acceptable - she said alot
more too that was bordering on mean, but it worked- we have not had one fit
since nina talked to them. not all day. not when marina was told she had to
get shots, not when we had to wait many times for documents, not when she
found out our flight to america was delayed. not once. she has been
absolutely a doll since then.

also went to the embassy for katyas fingerprints - these are required on all
kids over 13. while we were there they also went ahead and scanned the girls
visa photos (we had lots of extra photos made in kirovograd), and they said
that they could have our visas ready tomorrow afternoon since scanning the
photos takes the most time usually. they also told us to ignore our
appointment time and show up at 8 or 9 am for the actual visa interview.

finally, we went to the translation bureau to give them all the documents to
translate into english for us. the facilitators always use these services
since it is just so many documents that need to be done in such a short
time.

so, we will enjoy a few days in kyiv and then leave here sunday early
morning!

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Got the passports and will be in Kyiv tonight

so the passports arrived by post this morning to kgrad, and the lawyer is
meeting us in less than an hour to pick them up. we just finished buying bus
tickets to kyiv as it would be impossible to find 4 beds together on the
train for tonight. we also just made more passport sized photos of the
girls. they attach these darn things to every single official document here.
the bus for kyiv leaves at 2pm and arrives in kyiv at 7 pm or so. tomorrow
we go to the medical exams for the girls and the embassy visit on thursday
morning. we will fly out of kyiv hopefully on friday morning and arrive in
the states on friday (its an 8 hour flight to jfk, but also a 8 hour time
difference or so, so we will arrive at the same clock time as we left
kyiv.....time travel perhaps?) IF we can get plane tickets. that will be the
issue at this point. our goal is to get to at least JFK. once we are in the
states we can figure out how to get to ATL.

marina is still having serious fits- biting, scratching, pulling hair,
swearing in russian (i asked sveta what this word meant and she looked very
aghast that marina would say this word) etc. we try to keep her sedated with
valerian root but it doesnt help much. the problem is we just dont have the
luxery of time for these fits. if the bus leaves at 2, we have to be on the
bus, period. marina gets upset at almost everything. she wants icecream at 8
am and we say no, she throws a fit; she wants to take a train to kyiv, but
there are no train tickets available (ie not under our control) and she
throws a fit. hopefully its mostly stress and language barrier, but she will
definately need alot of psychiatric help once we get home.

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photos

here are the photos

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New timeline

In talking to the lawyer she yet again had some sort of change to the
procedure that would delay us again....she was trying to say that the girls
needed new ukrainian tax ID#s issued in their new names before the passport
office could even start the paperwork.....and that this could take a week.

Thankfully, it only took one day. We took the girls Tuesday afternoon to get
their passport photos taken at the official passport bureau. The photos were
electronically sent to kyiv with all the documents and forms. now we are
only waiting on these passports from kyiv. the lawyer said that the US
embassy had gotten involved with the delay in the passport issuances, but
the passport bureau told the embassy to shove it basically. so, hopefully
between our embassy complaining, and our people in kyiv, we will have the
passports soon.

we also took the girls for more passport photos today, for some other
documents....i have no clue what for, only that the lawyer called and said
to have them made.

so, please pray that the passports are issued this week, so we can go to
kyiv over the weekend for an embassy visit on monday or tuesday. sorry dad,
but it looks like we will be delayed again. hopefully we will be back home
by mid next week. we looked at our bank account and we should have enough
money for the plane tickets. thank God for that. now though we have to
figure out how to pay our rent this month as it is due today......maybe the
apartment complex will accept a credit card by phone?

in other interesting news, marina is having meltdowns 2 times a day on
average. whenever she doesnt get her way, she gets quiet, folds her arms and
either crawls under the furniture or tries to walk away. the first is ok,
until she starts beating on the furniture or walls and breaks things. the
second is not ok at all as she does this in crowded public places and she
could get lost or hurt. so, we grab her and hold her while she kicks punches
and bites us. hopefully she will not do this for too long since our arms and
legs are getting sore and bruised. katya is doing better than expected. she
wants to learn english and studies for hours a day. we took her to the
market yesterday to buy some shoes, one outfit and pajamas. we got jeans, a
top, a bra, sneakers, socks, hairbows, and a set of pjs for under $40 USD.

we also took the girls to get their hair and nails done yesterday. roma did
katya's hair- she wanted it cut a bit and highlights put in. looks cool.
marina didnt want her hair cut, but we insisted that at least the dead ends
be removed. we ended up doing the manicures and pedicures at the hotel as
none of the salons here in kgrad would do them on the girls since they were
under 15 years old. so marina and i went to a bunch of shops and bought the
supplies- polish, glue on nails, clippers, scissors, nail files, scrub
brushes for feet, massage lotions, foot soak salts, and facial masks. we had
such a blast in the hotel room. boy were their feet dirty!

photos of all that tomorrow. takes me a day to pull them off the camera and
put them on my jump drive.

melissa

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Nearing the finish line

So, there was some delays in picking up the girls. The lawyer had said we
could pick up the girls on Saturday when we talked to her a few weeks ago,
and now she is saying that the judge won't allow her to pick up the court
decree until Monday morning....so she will get it first thing that morning,
get the girls new birth certificates, and then we can pick up both girls
Monday after lunch. Thankfully, one silver lining is that Katya's orphanage
is going to bring her back to Pantievka from the camp for us to pick her up,
so at least we don't have to drive the 2-3 hours to that camp in Svitlovosk.

Then hopefully it is only a few days to get the girls new passports, then a
few days in kyiv, then home. For those of you just getting to Ukraine, or
still waiting for your appointment, please be aware that the passport
issuance procedure has changed - the new passports are no longer issued at
the local level for adopted kids. They are all sent to Kyiv for issuing. The
way it used to work is that an office in kyiv printed blank passport books,
and sent those to the regions to type in the new info. Most regions had a
ready supply of these blank passports....but now that the policy has
changed, the central authority has taken back all the blank passports. Plus,
the Kyiv office was not issuing passports at all for a month or so in the
beginning of summer, so there are a few families who have been quite delayed
by this. I know Beth and Steve Tu were/are still delayed by this.

After we got back to Kgrad from Kharkiv, we took a taxi to our apartment,
slept, and then had Victor drive us to visit Marina. We visited with her for
a few hours, then came back to Kgrad. We also found out that she has a
cousin at this same camp, named Olexander. He is 16 unfortunately. There is
another boy at this camp that I really like, but he is also older - 15. He
looks 12 though.

There is also this little 3-4 yr old boy at Andrey's orphanage who is paper
ready for adoption. He is completely healthy except that he has no eyes.
They were removed due to some congenital cancer he had. Andrey says he is
one of the smartest, talkative and empathetic kids at the orphanage.

Here are photos from Kharkiv and Katya.

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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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