Wonderful day!!!

After a slow morning and waiting a while at the inspector's office this afternoon, we were able to go to the orphanage.

We met Victoria and she is absolutely wonderful!!!! She just turned 4 about 2 weeks ago. She is shy and scared, but that is to be expected. I won't give out too many details about her yet because she is not ours yet, but we have officially said yes to her referral. Her story is amazing and she really is a miracle. Her and Morgan played well this afternoon and I can't wait to see their relationship develop.

So, now we will continue visiting her and hoping that she will continue to warm up to us. It is going to take her some time, which is fine with us. This is the only place and people she has ever known and she was told today that she would be leaving with these strangers that talk funny. I'd be scared too. She is beautiful and has the cutest little giggle!

We are not sure about a second referral. There is another little girl in Victoria's groupa that we are going to inquire about but we are not sure if she is available. The orphanage she is in is very, very good as far as orphanages go. It was very clean and the children seem well cared for. The caretakers and director all seem to care very much for the children.

We aren't sure if we are changing apartments yet. We may look for something a little cheaper for the long term, but we have everything we need here so we will see.

We truly feel blessed and Morgan said Victoria is perfect! She is right. I can't imagine feeling better than this.

I will keep you updated about our visits and as we here any news about court.

SDA appointment

Well, as of this morning things were still uncertain in the region we thought we would be going to so we decide to review the files of other children.

Long story short, we decide to accept the referral of a beautiful little girl who turned 4 a few weeks ago. We were able to pick up the referral this afternoon and will be meeting with the inspector of the region tomorrow at 3:15pm. I am not exactly sure yet when we will be able to go to the orphanage.

Then as we were getting the paperwork for the referral we found out things had been straightened out in the original region. Unfortunately because we already accepted the referral the procedure is that we have to go meet this little girl first and then we can decide whether to go through with her adoption or go back and get the referral of the original little girl. A few hours could have made a huge difference but for whatever reason things have worked out this way for us.

We do feel very good about this referral though, so as long as things go well when we meet her we feel like we will be going through with this adoption. It is still very hard especially since now the other region is open again, so we are just going to pray and see how things go over the next few days. The other thing is that it doesn't look like there are any other HIV+ girls available for adoption from this orphanage, so if we say yes to this little girl we will only be adopting one. We did find out too that the SDA is not giving referrals for two unrelated children at the same appt., so if we were adopting two from another region we would have to meet the first one and say yes and then travel back to Kiev to accept a second referral.

If we adopt the little girl whose referral we accepted we will be staying here in Kiev. We will be moving apartments though because the orphanage is on the other side of the river. The downside to this region is that it is know to be very slow. It takes a long time to get a court date here. Once we know more certain how things are going to go and when our court date is we will make the decision about what to do. Probably Joe and Morgan would return home and then Joe would just fly back here for a few days for court and then go home. We will see.

But for now, things are good! We are all enjoying our time here in Kiev very much. I really like it here a lot, although I am sad if we stay here I will not get to see more of the country. I may have to go sight seeing. Morgan is being so good and seems to be having a good time. They have a zoo and a circus here in Kiev, so we will probably be checking them out if we stay.

Thank you all for your prayers and support! It really means so much to us.

We're here!!!!

Just a quick note to let you all know we are here in Kiev.

Our flight was pretty uneventful until we were landing and Morgan threw up all over the seat. She was so good the whole flight too, poor thing. She isn't sick - I think it was just a combination of being tired and all the travel.

Our apartment is very cute. It is a one bedroom and we have a washer, a kitchen, air conditioning and internet access!!! We are also in walking distance of the SDA. I couldn't ask for more.

We went and had pizza for lunch and it was pretty good.

Now we are going to take a nap. It is only 8:30am at home and we should just be waking up. None of us slept very much on the plane.

I'll try to post a few pictures of our apartment later. Also, we only have a temporary phone for right now, but will be getting another one tomorrow. I will pass on the number.

Our SDA appt. is tomorrow morning at 11:30am. I'm still not sure how things will go. I'll let you know tomorrow afternoon.

I can't believe we are finally here!!!!!

Heading out.

We are leaving in a few hours for Ukraine.

We are still not 100% sure what will happen when we get there. We are okay with our Plan B though if that is the way we have to go.

I will update as often as possible!

Just when we thought....

that this rollercoaster ride of international adoption was on an upward climb, we have been thrown on an upside down loop.

I found out today (4 days before we are scheduled to leave and 6 days from our SDA appt. date) that the region the little girl we are hoping to adopt is in has shut down court proceedings for adoptions. It is due to some law that they passed (the region she is in is considered an independent region, so they can make laws separate from the rest of Ukraine) and there is a bunch of political stuff that I don't fully understand or care to get into.

We are not 100% sure what this will mean for us. Hopefully we will know more this weekend.

I imagine one of three things will happen:

1. Things will get straightened out and we will travel as planned and to the orphanage we planned.

2. We will travel as planned but once we arrive in Ukraine will have to go to a different region to adopt.

3. We will have to post pone our trip.

I am hoping it is one of the first two options. Obviously option #1 is what I am praying for, but option #2 would be okay too. We have known all along that there is no guarantee that we would adopt the little girl we are hoping for. We are attached to the idea of her in our minds and hearts, but the reality is that there are many, many HIV+ little girls in Ukraine that need a family and we would be happy to bring any of them home.

I will keep you posted as I know more, but in the mean time please pray that we leave as we have planned this Tuesday and that we are able to adopt the child (or children, as we are strongly considering adopting a second child) that is meant for us - whoever that may be.

Appointment Date!!!!

Our appointment with the SDA in Ukraine is Thursday, July 30!!!!

I booked our tickets. We are flying out of JFK in NY on Tues. evening July 28 and will arrive in Ukraine on Wed. morning July 29.

We have decided to bring Morgan with us. We are all very excited for this trip!

I can't believe we are finally to this point in the journey!

Wonderful, exciting, awesome news!!!

I found out this afternoon that our dossier was submitted to the SDA today!!!!!

Please pray that they don't find anything wrong with any of our papers. As long as everything is okay we should have our travel date by next week!!!