2nd Ukrainian adoption referral has also failed

Hi all,





Sorry it took so long for us to post regarding our 2nd referral. There is virtually no high speed internet available anywhere in this city - or at least we haven't found any. We just happened to jury rig a medievel dial up connection from our hotel room. 56kps only gives us limited email access. There is no chance of uploading pictures, video, or doing anything with attachments or links while we're still in this city. But 1990s-internet is better than nothing.




The roads were heavily congested this weekend. On Friday it took us 6 hours to make the normally 4 1/2 hour drive from Kiev to this city of Khmelnytsky. In fact it took one hour just to get out of the city of Kiev. Traffic was THAT bad.





We arrived at Khmelnytsky Friday afternoon and after securing the neccesary government paperwork from the regional inspector, proceeded to the orphanage. Because it was a Friday - a work day that always "unofficially" ends just after lunch - most of the orphanage buildings were virtually deserted by the time we got there. It took some time but we finally snagged a Doctor who could confer with us regarding the two sisters. Right away my heart sank as the Doctor began rattling off a list of medical issues about these two little girls; medical issues that were conveniently missing from their State Department (SDA) file (all I could think of was "...please....not again"). Then we met the little girls themselves. They were both cute but it became immediately obvious that once again, we were given referrals of children that could only be classified as "special needs". We still stayed at the orphanage and played with the girls for over an hour. The oldest sister had such a sweet personality. She was not shy in the least and laughed easily. Within minutes after meeting us she ordered me in Ukrainian to "sit here" and then climbed into my lap and produced a book for me to read. The two girls were fascinated and laughed out loud when we blew bubbles around them. Then we got a good laugh when the older one tried to blow them herself. She was also awed by my digital camera and loved it when I took her picture and then showed it to her. Of course as is the case with any little kid, she was also prone to "brat attacks". She didn't like the fact that she wasn't allowed to play with our pretty, purple notepad. I suppose that regardless of country, kids will be kids...





But the medical issues were very apparent and it frustrated and even angered us that they were either downplayed at our Thursday SDA appointment or outright missing from the girls" files. During our time with the girls we even thought that we saw a few anomalies that weren't mentioned either in their files or by the local Doctor.





During the course of our visit I took about 20 digital pictures and almost a dozen minutes of digital video that I wanted to upload to our International Adoption Clinic for their evaluations. If these two were special needs kids, Shirley and I knew that we'd be way over our heads. We still wanted the professionals to view what we had before we made a final decision. But despite our crisscrossing this entire section of the city, there was virtually no high speed internet anywhere. Regardless, 24 hours later we just made our own decision without consultation from the Clinic. We still managed a telephone call to the Clinic and gave ample descriptions of both girls. Just from what the Doctor told us, Shirley and I knew that we couldn't care for them both. We are by no means professionals and it is possible that many of our own theories regarding these kids were way off base. The pros could have corrected that had they had the pics and video to observe. But our gut instinct said that we're wasting our time with this sibling group. So our decision was to reject the referral.





It is another tough decision and needless to say we're not taking it too well. Our frustration level with the SDA is astronomical. I was a State Worker in New Jersey for years and am perfectly familiar with sloppy government work but New Jersey is a model of efficiency compared to Ukraine. Shirley is understandably angry that we wasted so much time and money to come out here on another wild goose chase. Had we been able to contact the orphanage directly from the SDA to get the facts, we either would not have made this trip or would have made it with a better picture in our brains as far as what to expect. Either way would have been a better scenario. But that didn't happen. So now here we sit, stranded in another city wasting another weekend while we wait for Monday so that we can do the formal paperwork thing and return to Kiev.




And just today we caught the SDA giving more disinformation. Anyone who reviews referrals for adoption knows that it doesn't look good if a referral has been seen and rejected by a lot of families. On Thursday we were told that no one else has ever seen these sisters; we were the first. Just today we read in another blog that last week another couple did see these two sisters - Bogdana and Ivanka - and rejected them. And they may have been seen and rejected by another family back in November. Chalk it up towards more honesty for the SDA.



Shirley and I are so frustrated - we already said to ourselves several times today that we really just want to tell the driver to pack his car with our stuff - take us directly to the airport in Kiev and get us out of Dodge. We're sick of being bled of our money, time and emotions. But we also know that if we skip out now without at least trying for a 3rd appointment, we will never forgive ourselves in the future. When it comes to 2nd guessing ourselves, Shirley and I are the worst there is! So thats where we stand now. We'll be Kiev-bound on Monday to start from Square One.





I have an old college buddy who lived in Ukraine for years and has been following our blog. He recommended that I go to the American Embassy in Kiev to voice our concerns. The American Councel sets aside a couple hours a day (I believe its 2pm-4pm) to hear from Americans. While I didn't consider this when I first heard it, I am certainly reconsidering it now. I doubt that it will affect our outcome but at least there will be official documentation about this situation somewhere. After reading so many other blogs about adopting from Ukraine, I know that we are not alone. With only a handful of exceptions, every blog I've read tells the same story.



Our facilitator was very uplifting and says that he will push for a faster appointment date than the 2 weeks it took the last time to get us an appointment. I just hope that its not all in vain.





Well thats it for now. Sorry to post on such a depressing note. Thanks again to everyone for their love and support. I also want to thank those of you whom we've never met but who are following our Ukraine adoption blog. If you have a blog and have it set to private, please feel free to "invite" us to your page so that we can view and comment on your blog as well. You can get our email address off of our profile right here.





Thanks again to all and God bless...








Steve