Our Ukrainian adoption blog starts....

I probably should have started this blog several months ago. This would have meant that this initial posting wouldn't be of such mammoth proportions. But...that didn't happen. So here is our blog intro. Feel free to fast forward through any parts that you deem too dull to read.

First of all, thanks to everyone for their prayers and support during our international adoption project. Shirley and I are excited about our upcoming trip to Ukraine for our child. I must say that the stress level is intense. This is by far the largest project ever undertaken by either one of us. But everyone who has also been through this says that the end result makes it all worth it. So that is how we look at it.

For those of you who aren't too familiar with what we've been going through during the past year, here is a little Zimnes history lesson. We first started to consider adopting a child in late 2006. We immediately ruled out domestic adoption because of some incredibly absurd rules and "rights" given to birthparents in this country. Around December of 2006 Shirley and I attended an international adoption seminar. I do now admit that at that time my main reason for going was more to humor my wife rather than to seriously consider adoption. Fortunately the seminar had the desired effect on me because within two months, Shirley and I had submitted our application to America World Adoption Association (AWAA).

Our initial decision was to adopt a child from Russia. After doing a little homework on the different countries to adopt from, selecting Russia was more or less a no brainer. Physically Russia is huge - about double the size of the USA. Russia has a population of about 145 million. The sheer numbers of Russian children living in orphanages seem to hit me hard. Out of 145 million people, just under 1 million are orphans.

ONE MILLION!!! That is triple the size of all of Mercer County, New Jersey. Even Columbus, Ohio - the 15th largest city in our country – is only about 2/3rds the size of Russia’s total population of orphans!! Unbelievable!!

As luck would have it, good ole Mr. Murphy didn’t take too long to introduce his “Law” to us. No sooner did we commence our Russian adoption project when we hit a mess of red tape. The first half of the year 2007 saw a virtual standstill in Russian international adoptions. Shirley and I heard from other families adopting out of Russia. Many of these families had already selected and met their children, completed the lengthy requirements and formalities and now only needed to make their 2nd trip to Russia to bring their kids home. Now due to government bunglings, they couldn’t even do that much. Their stress level was incredible and we found ourselves sharing their stress. So after about 6 months of this, Shirley and I decided that we simply couldn't wait for the Russians to get their act together. For one thing Shirley and I are not getting any younger. We're a 40something couple; time is a concern. We both grew up with people our own age that are now grandparents and here we are, not even parents yet. So we made the difficult decision to bail on Russia. Those poor little 1 million homeless souls are still over there but there is nothing that we can do to help them.

As an alternate I quickly became interested in the country of Kazakhstan – a Central Asian country that was once part of the Soviet Union. I was impressed at the speed that the Kazakhs move on their adoptions. Adoptions out of Kazakhstan can take as little as 7 months from initial application to actually coming home with a child (versus about two years for Russia and three for China). Another attraction of Kazakhstan was the availability of infants. Shirley and I were always hopeful to adopt an infant as opposed to a toddler or a preschooler. Kazakh children have been adopted as young as 7 months.

There are about 80,000 orphans in Kazakhstan that need homes. If you contrast this to a total Kazakh population of about 14.5 million, you'll see a similar ratio of orphan-to-total population that exists in Russia. I still can't figure out how a country can allow this to happen to an entire generation of youth. Youth is a country’s future livelihood and countries like this may as well be investing into a future of poverty, political upheaval and chaos.

Unfortunately there was one roadblock that virtually stopped our Kazakhstan idea dead in it's tracks. Our adoption agency facilitator told us that Kazakhstan would reject us – or I should say reject me - because I am a Type 1 Diabetic. In this country as well as in Russia, Type 1 Diabetes is considered a medical "condition". In Kazakhstan it would be considered a "progressive disease". Since the Kazakhs don’t allow any “major medical issues” with the adoptive parents, there was no way that Kazakhstan would view me as acceptable and we were advised to not even bother. So there we were, back to Square One.

We finally set our sights on Ukraine. Ukraine is a country that is slightly smaller than Texas with a population of about 50 million. The Ukrainians are very secretive about their orphan population so obtaining accurate stats wasn't all that easy. Nevertheless a UNICEF estimate from the year 2004 puts Ukraine’s orphan number at about 90,000. Do the math and you'll see that the Ukrainians take better care of their children than a lot of other countries. Nevertheless, that still means tens of thousands of homeless children.

Because most of our dossier that was assembled for Russia was also applicable for Ukraine, we lost virtually no time with switching countries. By mid July our revised dossier had been completed, reviewed, and sent abroad for translation and submission to the Ukrainian government. Then came the dreaded "paper pregnancy"; a fancy name for the time period after the dossier is completed. It is associated with a lot of counting down and waiting. And waiting. And waiting......

Word came that we had been granted a court appointment on a very special day. November 26th. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, November 26th is the Feast Day of St. Stylianos. St. Stylianos happens to be the Patron Saint of both Shirley and I. He is also the Patron Saint of all children, both born and unborn; you never see a painting of him without a child in his arms. What better day to receive the news of our Court appointment than on both of our namedays - the same day as The Feast of the protector of all children!! It sure was a strong sign of good things to come!!

Finally – here we are – about to travel. Despite all that we’ve been through, it is hard to believe that it has only been one year since we started this whole process. To all of our friends who spent 2 or 3 years on their international adoptions – I salute and admire all of you for keeping sane. I don’t know how you did it!!

Our travel date is set for Friday February 29th. Our court appointment at the Ukrainian State Department in Kiev is set for Monday March 3rd. That is when we begin reviewing profiles of children. In the meantime we are scrambling to prepare for our departure - making final arrangements and tying up loose ends both in New Jersey and here in Ohio. Later this week and next, we hope to relax a little with farewell dinners and gatherings. Then we’re off to start the real “fun”.

Wish us luck. Say a prayer(s). We’ll need it all. Thanks again to everyone for their love and support. And stay tuned. You’ll be hearing from us.