Shirley and Steve

We're finally back

2008-04-12T10:26:00.096-04:00

God bless America

Home Sweet Home

DELTA AIRLINES got us home from Kiev relatively quick. Everything went like clockwork. Hearing English spoken amongst the people surrounding us for the first time in weeks was like music to our ears. I also couldn't help but notice that unlike processing us for the international flight that left New York, here in Kiev just the boarding part from the gate to the plane started almost 2 hours early. All passengers were herded into a small room in between gate and aircraft and spent nearly 90 minutes standing there. I guess that is how an American-based airline deals with the consistent tardiness of Eastern Europeans. Anyone arriving late.....tough.

We only had one three hour layover in New York. Just as well. We needed most of those three hours to get through passport control, baggage claim, customs, and then finally we had to make it to the gate for our connecting flight. Thankfully we had just a little spare time for a quick Burger King fix (2 fish sandwiches + 2 diet cokes = $15. WELCOME TO NEW YAWK!). The overall travel time from our apartment in Kiev to our house in Ohio was a little less than 16 hours. Thats quick compared to other slightly less expensive flights where there would have been more stops as well as switching airlines. I never went for that and always preferred to stay with the same airline; switching always seemed to increase the chances of lost luggage. But even though we opted for the fastest route possible, 16 hours is still a long ride. Long rides mean lots of time to think.

Our return was bittersweet. Of course we're happy to be back. We miss the familiarity of home and family. We miss American efficiency. We do NOT miss being misled by a xenophobic, anti-American government. Nor do we miss spending $80-$100/night for apartments which if you do the math, comes out to more money than the monthly rent paid for an apartment in Manhatten. But despite the fact that we're happy to be back, our homecoming was empty and painful. When we got home we were greeted by my inlaws. The second they laid eyes on each other, both Shirley and her Mom burst into tears. We went back to our house, were warmly greeted by our dog, had some belated birthday ice cream cake, and were then left alone to unpack our several suitcases and commence downtime for our emotional recovery.

I can only compare what we're feeling to the mourning associated with a funeral. No the pain isn't nearly equivelant to the loss of a loved one - nothing can equate to that. But just as when mourning a death, the sorrow comes in waves. One minute you're at peace and then next you're crying. I can't count how many times during our flight, I'd glance over to my wife to say something only to see her staring out the window with tears streaming down her face. All of the pondering, the 20/20 hindsight and the "what if's" become obsessive. We were robbed of the dream of coming home with a child. We've been at the airport when others have come home with their children from abroad and have shared their happines. And at the risk of sounding selfish, we were ready for our turn. Not just the homecoming at the airport but all of it. My parents have been given three grandsons by my two sisters and I couldn't wait to visit New Jersey and proudly parade their new granddaughter - my daughter - around the family. I knew that she would have been everyone's Princess. For now though, its still only a dream.

Shirley and I have by no means given up hope for children. We have had discussions with both America World as well as other Agencies concerning adoptions from countries that aren't Ukraine but for the time being we have no desire to look into anything international. We have checked out other options though. Since coming home we've already contacted children's services in different counties across Ohio as well as a few neighboring states. Their workers sounded thrilled and even surprised that we're willing to consider children - other than infants - that need to be placed. Mostly healthy children or children with minor issues; children that we would have gladly accepted had we seen these types of referrals in Ukraine. The children services people are ready to help us with procedures and paperwork. They are very appreciative and encouraging and although we plan to stay in downtime mode for at least the foreseeable future, this is definitely one option that we'll be exploring. I know that I am making the children's services path seem easy; social worker friends of ours have warned us that this road can also get a little bumpy. But compared to the quagmire that we've just been through, anything by comparison will seem like a Church picnic. I am still determined to parade my daugher through our Greek ghetto in New Jersey. That will one day become a reality!

Despite the sad ending to our experience, I still can't help but have a little fun with you all. In case anyone can't tell after the past 6 weeks worth of posts, I am a camera buff. I am always clicking away because I love preserving memories. In fact let me put it this way, when it comes to the camera I am a pest. I've loved the camera since taking my first picture. It was back in 19?? when my Mom was pregnant with my youngest sister who is now age....(ahem...I'd better not say). Anyhow, to those still in Ukraine finalizing their adoptions, I thought that I'd post a few pics of home to remind you of what will be waiting for you after the big homecoming. Here is a pic of the washer and dryer at our house. Yes...A DRYER!! Remember them? To anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, Ukrainians don't believe in dryers. They believe in washing clothes and then hanging the wash out to dry. At this time of the year, there is no place to hang clothes except in the living room. And the low quality spin cycle of most washers there means that your dripping clothes are going to be decorating the living room for quite a while - at least a day. Of course one option is to just not wash clothes. I have a feeling that this is the option many choose to go with. It only took a few days for Shirley to notice that people were wearing the same thing day in and day out. I guess when you think about it, not washing clothes is the economical way to go.

Here are a few other pics of some familiar sites. McDonalds, KFC and Wendy's (Wendy's originated in Ohio, so I had to include that one in the KFC pic). And lets not forget good ole Tim Hortons. The best hot coffee around. Beats the battery acid that we were drinking for 5+ weeks (even I had to put cream in it). And yes, Tim Horton's donuts are always fresh. Not like those week-old buttered rolls that can be thrown through a wall. If you're from a part of the USA that has no Tim Hortons, you could say that they're Ohio's version of Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme. Regardless, its good stuff.

Again, thanks for all of the comments left on the blog. Thanks for all of your compassion. Thanks for the personal emails. Thanks, thanks and thanks. I can't thank you all enough. You've been great with all of the support. And I will continue to post as well as to read the blogs of others.

Be well and God bless...

Steve

Thursday April 10

2008-04-10T09:15:00.096-04:00

Hi all,

I hadn't realized that so many days had passed since my last post; it took a distress call from my mother in law pleading "please write something - our phone is ringing off the hook" that reminded me I was overdue. I apologize for keeping everyone in the dark.

To give you a complete picture of what happened on Monday, I'll actually need to go back to Friday and fill you in on some details. Some of this may seem redundant but I'm just going to tell the whole story. On Friday afternoon our facilitator had a meeting with the SDA who told him that they intended to deny us a 3rd appointment. This was to adhere to some law passed back in October 2007 stating that no foreign family could be granted more than two SDA appointments for an international adoption. Despite the fact that many families have been granted 3rd appointments since October 2007 - the current backlog of those looking for new appointments is now so great that commencing law enforcement on this particular ruling NOW seems like a convenient quick fix for the SDA.

Later on Friday our facilitator came to our apartment (yes, just as we were having cake for my birthday) to fill us in on the SDA decision. He also suggested that we go home, update our dossier and come back "when things got better". Our reaction was immediate; no chance! We made it clear that when we go home, we go home for good. Judging from the expression on his face he obviously didn't expect this to be our answer. He tried convincing us otherwise but we weren't buying it. For one thing we don't believe that "things" will ever get better here; the Ukrainian system is in a self-induced spiral and these people have only themselves to blame. Besides, we've gotten nothing but jerked around by this country from Day #1 and at this point we're sick of being here. The thought of having to actually come back turns our stomaches. He finally gave up with the "go home and come back later" idea and then proposed that we meet with the SDA ourselves. They have open hours on Monday at 11am-1pm. This time slot is for parties with issues or questions.

If you remember from our weekend posts, Shirley and I were at peace with whatever the outcome was going to be. What I never said in the posts was that barring a miracle, our Ukrainian adoption project was now dead in the water. But we also knew that we weren't going down without a fight. So we psyched ourselves up for war on Monday morning.

We arrived at the SDA on Monday and despite getting there 30 minutes before 11am, there were still 4 groups of people in line ahead of us. The meetings got started by about 11:15 which is actually "early" here. The first four groups were in and out of that office in 20 minutes and then came our turn. 30 minutes later we were still in that office arguing our case. That SDA lady wasn't budging on her position but neither were we. Eventually she said something to the effect that "she will look into it further and have a final decision made by the end of the day". In other words, her mind had already been made up and now she was trying to shoo us out of her office and get to the next person in line. But it was still another 15 minutes or so before we left. I guess Ukrainians aren't used to dealing with a stubborn German woman and a stubborn Greek gorilla.

I still run details of that meeting through my head. It really was a farce; I suspected the SDA had dug itself into such a deep hole - that their only solution was to try to get as many families like us flushed out of their country as possible. What was somewhat irritating was that a lot of the facts presented by the SDA lady were twisted around to make it look as though everything was our fault. The one part of the meeting that most stands out in my mind is when this woman looked Shirley straight in the eye and told her that she isn't prepared for - nor does she know how to deal with - health issues. Remember, Shirley is an RN (Registered Nurse) with 20 years experience. Who did this lady think she was talking to? Some idiot? For a moment I honestly thought that my normally even-keeled wife was going to blow a fuse. The entire accusation was so ridiculous - it would have been like Shirley telling the SDA official how to be the perfect bureaucrat. It became difficult to take anything that came out of this lady's mouth seriously. If it weren't for how sad this was becoming, the whole scene would have been comical. I'll never forget it for as long as I live.

Unsurprisingly, the "final decision" came late Monday afternoon. As expected, we were denied a 3rd appointment. We actually felt relief; the SDA could no longer play god with our lives. The first thing that I wanted to do was to call DELTA AIR, change our flight reservations and blow Dodge ASAP. Yes - after 5 long, useless weeks in an alien land we were finally going home. But we would also be going home empty handed and childless. 200,000 orphans in Ukraine and we were going home childless. No matter how well we make the best of it, the reality is devastating because we've been robbed of a dream. When Shirley and I bought our home back in June 2005, it came with a backyard swingset (the previous owners had 4 kids). How heartbreaking it is to see that after 3 years, the swingset is still not being used. We are sure that there is a reason for all of this. Although we don't know what it is (and trust me, we've tried to figure it out), there is no choice but to accept His will. Anyway, I am looking foreward to being in my own house, surrounded by honest people. I've had my fill of the political types that believe in their own fiction and excel at talking in circles (Please God - after living through all of this - help me to somehow survive our presidential election).

After setting up some arrangements, we'll be back in our own home by the weekend at the latest. GREAT!! If nothing else, I miss my dog Yukon!!

All those reading this blog that are still slugging it out with their adoptions, we truly wish you all the best. As I've said to several families, I hope to see many pics of your homecomings and raising families over the course of many months and years. We are excited for and want to wish the best of luck to Joe and Tonya (http://eastmanadoption.blogspot.com/) and Ruslan and Inna (http://stolyarov.blogspot.com/) whom we've had the pleasure of connecting with while in Ukraine. There are so many more of you that have made contact with us in one way or another. Mentioning every single name in this blog is impossible; there are simply too many to list here. But you know who you are. If any of you ever find yourselves in Central Ohio, give us a call. Our house is your house. I mean that!!!!!!!

I intend to keep making posts to this blog in the near future. After a little downtime at home, we're going to start exploring other options regarding children and I'll keep everyone updated. In case you're also one of the unlucky families who fared as well as we did in Ukraine, I'll let you know which of these other options can work, and how.

Thanks again for reading. And I again apologize for taking so long to post. Didn't realize the passage of time. Hope to chat with many of you on the sidelines. Bye for now and God bless...

Steve

Sunday April 6

2008-04-06T12:58:00.042-04:00

Happy Sunday everybody,

This has been a quiet weekend. I’ll even go as far as saying that it was pretty stress free. Although we still do not know what is going to transpire during Monday’s meeting with the SDA, Shirley and I are more relaxed and at peace with ourselves than we’ve been in a long time.

The weather was peculiar and Ohio-ish this weekend. It started off sunny, warm and very spring like. For the first time I saw people rollerblading through the streets of Kiev. I even saw what looked like a handful of young sunbathers although I kinda felt sorry for them. As paste-white as their skin was, my guess is that they’d probably be on fire with sunburn by nightfall (that’s OK, I did the same thing during my younger years). Shortly thereafter the thunderheads rolled in. First the rain started and then came the lightning and thunder. In no time the city sounded as if it was being pounded by artillery. We took shelter in our apartment but noticed that despite the weather the natives moved freely about outside. So we opted to venture out as well.

We took a walk to the nearby St. Vladimir Church (notice the black sky in the background). Our guide book indicated that the Church held daily services at 8am and 5pm. We got there right around the start of the afternoon service. The Church itself is beautiful on the outside and very spacious on the inside. Christian iconography was splashed all over the walls as well as on the ceilings high above. Orthodox iconography is beautiful and plays a dual purpose. In addition to being decorative artwork they also have a story to tell, usually passages from the Bible. Remember that during the majority of Christian history, laypeople were illiterate and unable to read or write. Seeing a highly detailed icon of The Good Samaritan, Jesus’ Baptism or The Resurrection would be like reading the details of the Bible passage itself. Since today virtually all of us can read and write, we can’t really relate to the early Christians. Their only methods of Bible Study were either to have an educated somebody read to them, or else to study Christian icons on the walls of the early Churches. The latter was by far more common.

As we approached the St. Vladimir Church, a procession of Church Hierarchs walked by while chanting hymns. It made me think that we chose to go to the Church during some kind of a visitation; possibly a Ukrainian Bishop. The Clerics in the procession were dressed to kill. I was doubtful that the vestments that I saw them wearing were the same ones they'd wear for a normal Church service. The interior was full of people. I tried to get a picture inside the Church but it was pretty dark in there; the interior was mostly lit only by candle light. We lit our candles and stayed for a good part of the Church service. It was very relaxing and refocusing; its always a good thing to step back on occasion and refocus our priorities.

On our way home we walked through the nearby Botanical Gardens. At this time of the year it looked more or less dead and devoid of life although green is beginning to return at ground level. I am sure that come summertime there will be green everywhere. You can see the walkways and paths through the entire area. The Botanical Garden is huge - larger than Shevchenko Park which is just up the street. I’d recommend The Botanical Gardens as another place to bring kids to when their legs need stretching. Or if you want a nice peaceful walk on your own.

As may of you know, we will be attending a meeting tomorrow where we’ll be discussing our situation with the SDA. As I mentioned earlier in this post, we don’t know what is going to happen but regardless of the outcome Shirley and I have decided to be at peace with the result. Saturday marked our fifth week here in Ukraine and we are still no closer to completing an adoption than we were when we arrived in Kiev on March 1. It has been an eye-opening experience and not one that I would recommend. If nothing else, it makes me appreciate the USA; the big, beautiful country that my Greek peasant family came to call home nearly a century ago. I have been abroad several times and no matter where I travel, I am always happy to come back. Ours is the best country in the world!! Granted it is not perfect -no kingdom on Earth is - and any earthly kingdom that professes to be perfect should be avoided. But show me anyplace better than America! Lets put it this way, you may think you're SHOWING me a better place, but you'll never convince me of it.

Thanks again to everyone for reading our blog. Thanks for posting comments and sending emails. Thanks for the phone calls. Not sure when I'll be able to post again but keep checking in and I'll get something out here eventually. God bless......

Steve

Saturday April 5 - the weekend is here

2008-04-05T05:43:00.036-04:00

Greetings from Kiev,

Yesterday at about 7pm our facilitator came to our apartment to fill us in on an earlier meeting that he had with the SDA. He also added that on Monday at about noon we're to go to the SDA for a meeting regarding our case. Please note that this is NOT an appointment, only a meeting. There will therefore be no news to report until Monday afternoon at the earliest regarding an appointment. Possibly longer, depending on how quickly the SDA moves.

For whom it may concern - my birthday pizza dinner was nice last night. We found a small pizzeria near the apartment. We had eaten at this particular pizza chain before back when we were in Khmelnytsky around March 21st for our 2nd appointment. So we knew that they had decent pizza and were very reasonable priced. We couldn't decide if we wanted pizza with salami or pizza with "fungh" (mushrooms). So we opted for one of each. It cost about $7 for both. There was no way that Shirley and I could eat both pizzas. Of course that meant plenty of leftovers. Looks like we will be eating my birthday dinner throughout the weekend, or at least through today.

As chaotic as the traffic is in Kiev, it becomes exponentially worse during rush hour which is when we headed home from dinner. The main streets are so clogged; they become essentially parking lots. And don't even try getting out of a side street onto a main street because even when the lights change, there is still traffic blocking the intersection. I simply had to post a couple of pics from Kievian rush hour. When the green "walk" light is lit, it is still neccesary to step around cars blocking the intersection. If you look at the 2nd pic and find the green walk light, just above it you will see a number that I think said 36 (you may have to click on the pic to blow it up). That number is your countdown; you have that many seconds to cross the street. And when that green number gets to zero, you'd better be clear or you may wind up with tire tracks across your feet!

Leave it to my beautiful wife to surprise me with a birthday cake when we got back to the apartment. It was a delicious whipped cream walnut/almond combination - next to ice cream cake anything with nuts reigns supreme! It was a good thing that I had a decent amount of pizza for dinner. Even though I don't have a sweet-tooth, I am a nut for nuts and could have easily eaten the whole dessert by myself. What I loved even more was the price. The cost of the cake was about 8 hrivnas; about $1.60 for the whole thing (less than a cost of a slice of cake at this internet cafe). At first Shirl was embarassed to tell me how much (or should I say, how little) the cake cost but she keeps forgetting that when it comes to money I am a cheapskate's cheapskate. The small cost of that cake made it all the better. Here are a couple of cake pics including the cutter doing a taste-test. And there are cake leftovers too. Guess we don't need to go anywhere else for food this weekend.

Since its the weekend we'll probably take it easy. Not entirely sure what we'll be doing but whatever it is, I'll be posting about it.

As always thanks for the morale support. God bless..

Steve

Friday April 4

2008-04-04T07:59:00.026-04:00

Hello everybody,

Currenty the local time is about 3:30pm and our facilitator has yet to check in. We weren't expecting to hear anything about an appointment for this afternoon although knowing that we'd have something lined up for next week would have been nice. At this moment Shirley is carrying our phone and is elsewhere so its always possible that she's gotten a phone call that I am not aware of. But in all likelihood it looks as though we're going to be starting another week not knowing what direction we're headed.

When we are finally called in for our appointment, our intention is to be courteous but firm with the SDA. We certainly don't want to be rude but on the other hand we've been given a greater than average run around. Having accomplished nothing after being here for an entire month is a little difficult to stomach, especially when none of it is through any fault of our own. We have simply come too far to quit now without at least a fighting chance of taking home a little girl. I know that the SDA has good files and they know that they have good files. I also know that Shirley was meant to be a Mom.

As if playing the SDA guessing game isn't enough hassle, this being without internet is really for the birds. Not only do we use the net for blog and email but also for other personal "business". We're limited to 1-2 hours online per day at a Cafe. Personal business easily takes up most of that.

Well I suppose the cat is out of the bag. Yes today is Steve's birthday. We didn't do any sightseeing or touring today so there are no interesting pictures to post. Shirley wants to take me out for a nice birthday dinner and I opted for....you guessed it....pizza. A slice of ice cream cake would have been nice for afterwards but I've noticed that ice cream in general seems to be a rare commodity here. Maybe it has to do with the fact that these people do enough freezing during their winter. Thats OK. I'll just settle for an extra slice of pizza.

Hope everyone is doing well back home. Shirley and I are hanging in there. We appreciate all of the comments and personal emails. Keep 'em coming - its great for morale.

Steve

Thursday April 3rd

2008-04-03T11:41:00.026-04:00

Greetings from Ukraine,

I apologize for not posting since Monday. Yesterday our internet wireless modem died on us without cause or warning. Our facilitator promised that either yesterday afternoon or today he would have the modem fixed or replaced and returned to us. It is now nearly dinnertime and still no modem, so Shirley and I opted to find an internet café for dinner and while at it, check email and post to the blog. We found this particular one fairly close; it was empty when we got here and now its jammed. At least for right now we have limited internet access until we get our wireless modem back.
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No word yet about a new appointment. Our facilitator said that today the SDA was very busy with meetings. He even said that the SDA employees were spread so thin, he couldn't see how anyone could have had an appointment today. Needless to say he was unfortunately unable to do any of his daily pestering. But as Scarlett O'Hara once said, "tomorrow is another day".

Yesterday we were moved out of our apartment by our facilitator before noon. Our new apartment is fairly close to our last one – maybe a mile or so away - but in a much quieter corner of town. We are actually closer to the Shevchenko park and the “Pok n Pop” (Rock N Roll) café that I wrote about in my last post. We feel that this apartment is in a better spot. We like being in a much smaller, quieter area without having to defy death everytime we cross the street. On the other hand we only need to walk a half block in either direction to get to one of two major thoroughfares. A grocery store is right on the corner and there are restaurants all over the place if we opt to go out. Our apartment itself is fairly spacious and has two beds compared to the one bed that we’ve had in all of our previous apartments. Interestingly, the spare bed is in the kitchen. Now when it comes to interior decorating I’ve always thought of myself as the clueless type; the right side of my brain has never been the dominant half. Yet even to a fashion invalid like me, having a bed in the kitchen seems to be a little off. On the other hand there is a practical side to this. Anyone for breakfast in bed??

Today was a cold, drizzly day which I am told is typical of Ukraine in the Spring. We went to the The Russian Art Museum that we wanted to go to on Monday but found that it was closed. Our guide book described this Art Museum as being full of art from both Russia and Ukraine. In fact we found only a small fraction of the works of art to be from either of those countries. The admission price was a little higher than the guide book said, probably because they have a special Asian art exhibit showing from March 26th through April 27th. Cost of admission was 16 hrivnas – about $3.20. Not exactly bank busting and well worth the afternoon out of the apartment. Fortunately the Museum had handouts in English describing most of the art. The Asian art exhibit seemed to be pretty heavily patrolled by both ushers and security. First of all we were not permitted to wear our overcoats; we had to check them in at the front. Then during our walk through the exhibit we were always being watched by at least one person. Sometimes more. Shirley noticed that security seemed to focus on only us. I don’t know if the Museum people were paranoid about theft but it would have been pretty tough sneaking a huge vase or a huge rug out of there even if I had my overcoat. Once we got to the regular Museum displays, the “patrols” seem to lighten up (or maybe the Museum people realized how harmless we were). There was a lot of Indian and European Renaissance stuff. There was also a huge selection of art from the Islamic parts of the world. For my own reasons I tend to avoid Muslim anything but even I will admit that the paintings, the Turkish pottery and especially the handmade Persian prayer rugs were all very ornate and beautiful.

Within half a block of the Museum is that Rock and Roll Café that I wrote about in Monday’s post. Since I already posted a picture before, no need to do it again. Shirley and I couldn’t resist checking it out and walked over there just for the sake of going in. The moment we stepped into the place, we were assaulted by Rolling Stones music. In fact that was all we heard overhead during our entire 45 minute stay. Now to an old Stones fan like myself, I didn't mind a bit - and anyone else in Kiev who likes the Stones would love it here. The music included some live versions of classic stones as well as some Russian/Ukrainian remakes; I didn't realize it at first until I heard a female singer saying how "dzumping dzack flash" is a gas gas gassss. The Cafe itself was very Applebee’s-like, not bad but somewhat trendy and definitely pricier than your typical Ukrainian places to eat. Two coffees and two plates of French fries cost about $13 including tip; kinda comparable to prices at a restaurant in the States but if you compare it to two full dinners at a Ukrainian Cafeteria-like place for about $9 total, then its obvious that being trendy is a costly hobby here in Ukraine.

We cruised by a University which was pretty active with students crisscrossing between the buildings (if you can figure out the name of the University, let me know). We figured that a place like a University would b a perfect place to look for an internet café so we began keeping our eyes peeled for anything with a WIFI sign in the window or the word “INTERNET” in Russian (at least we can read that word). Surprisingly we never did see an internet café anywhere near the University. However we did spot an interesting looking nightclub called “MEMPHIS” right by the campus. It was complete with Egyptian graphics outside of the building. We were surprised at the good deal of traffic going in and out of MEMPHIS and all of the “traffic” looked like college students, or at least people around the age of 20. I know that college kids will always be college kids; back home we also frequented the Philadelphia hot spots during my college years. Thing is, even we usually didn’t start THIS early (or at least those of us who graduated didn’t). We saved all of that fun stuff for the weekends which usually started on a Thursday night. Here – it was 3pm on a Thursday afternoon – and these kids were already getting cranked up. Who knows, maybe they’re the ones who have their priorities right and it was us college kids back in The States that had our heads screwed on backwards!

We’ll certainly keep everyone posted with our progress with the SDA and referrals. Our last wait for an appointment took a little over two weeks. Looks like that’s about what it will take this time around too.

Thanks again for reading the blog. God bless….

S&S

Tuesday April 1

2008-04-01T13:37:00.046-04:00

Happy Tuesday,

I was going to open this blog with an announcement that we were coming home with a sibling group consisting of dekatuplets. But the wife-boss axed that April Fools joke right away. Oh well...

It was exactly one month ago today that we first arrived in Ukraine to start our adoption odyssey. For those of you who remember this blog's first in-country post, we seemed to land within a tornado of chaos. After that we were hoping that our adoption would become smooth sailing after a rough beginning. Boy were we wrong! While we're still hopeful (although not holding our breath) that we'll come home with our daughter, it is a little depressing to realize that we are no further along in our adoption process today than we were when we first landed in Kiev on March 1st.

It was a brisk day today in Kiev and the lining had to get zipped back into my London Fog overcoat. That and the pullover hat got some good use during our walks. Our facilitator had other obligations and so could not focus on our case as he has been able to during the previous several days. We expected this and so we spent the day relaxing and touring.

We still have the same apartment in this busy corner of Kiev but we will be leaving for a different apartment tomorrow afternoon (we actually got more than an hour of notice to pack…YAYYY!). We were hoping to catch a show at the Operetta before we left; Shirley checked their schedule and found that "Romeo and Juliet" will be playing at the Opera House all week. It would have been perfect; since a ballet is all dance and no dialogue we actually could have gone to something we could understand without needing an interpreter. We were looking forward to a nice night out and I suppose that we can always cab it from another part of the city. I am sure that we'll be in Kiev through the weekend.

Playing "Musical Apartments" like this is definitely getting on our nerves. As is the case with most major cities in the States, apartments are a hot commodity here in Kiev. Especially in a happenin' section of town like where we are now. It’s a pain in the neck to have to keep relocating but some of these apartments have had reservations made months in advance. We’ll do whatever we have to do. So long as we’re in Kiev, this constant shuffle is the way its going to be.

Shirley and I walked around the city this afternoon for some more exploration. We ran into a place that had “Rock and Roll Café” written on it in Cyrillic letters. It also had a graphic of Mick Jaggar’s tongue; the universal symbol of rock and roll. I suppose that this is the Ukrainian version of the Hard Rock Café. Shirley thought it was so cute and laughed her way across the street, the whole time pronouncing the English phonetics "Pok n Pop". In retrospect I am now sorry that we didn’t go into the place just to check it out and have a drink. It would have been worth at least several indoor pictures.

Right next to the "Pok n Pop" Café is the beautiful Shevchenko Park, named after Taras Hryhorovich Shevchenko, a Ukrainian folk hero. The park is roughly the length and width of a city block. To any other families adopting from Ukraine, when you return to Kiev for your final paperwork I'd recommend taking the kids here if your apartment is close enough. As you can see from the pics, Shevchenko park will keep kids occupied for a long time. Not to mention that it will be a nice spring day outing for yourselves. We passed this park several times during the past week and it always seems to be packed with people. Today’s drizzly cold obviously kept a lot of the crowds indoors which is why the park looks deserted in these pictures. I thought it ironic that this park named after a Ukrainian hero like Shevchenko would be within walking distance of a statue of Vladimir Lenin – the symbol of the communists who were among the worst of the Ukrainian oppressors. Shevchenko was a Ukrainian poet and artist but was also known as a Ukrainian Nationalist whose life of captivity under the Russians became a symbol of oppressed Ukrainians in the Russian Empire. Nowadays Shevchenko represents the liberation of the Ukrainian nation.

Want a quick bite to eat or a quick cup of coffee? How about stopping in at “MISTER SNACK”. Yes - just as I'm sure with most of you readers, the first time that we passed this place we thought that it read “Mister chek”. I figured it to be a place having to do with money; either currency exchange or else a place to cash checks, like what we have back home in the States. But we did a double take when we walked past the windows and saw people sitting at booths, shoveling food into their faces. It took a little time but then we finally realized that “CHEK” is Russian phonetics for the English word “snack”. Wow, were we thrown for a loop. Shirley and I may have three college degrees between the two of us but in this country we’re as illiterate as they come.

We'll keep you posted regarding our progress. Thanks for reading, commenting and emailing. I've also begun setting up links to the blogs of other families that are involved in adoptions, so that you can read their stories as well. Seems like every adoption is its own unique odyssey. But I do want to say that if any of these adopting families do NOT want our blog showing a link to their page, fire me off an email and the link will disappear.

God bless...

Steve

Monday March 31

2008-03-31T13:38:00.023-04:00

Greetings from Ukraine,

We didn't hear from our facilitator until late in the afternoon. We had a feeling that since it was so late, that he had nothing new to tell us. When we finally spoke to him, it was apparent that that was the case. As he has been doing for us off and on during this entire month, he was camped outside of the SDA office today hopeful of a development. He is good at being the squeaky wheel. As of yet we still do not have a new appointment date but he is confident that there will be an appointment soon.

I do not know an exact number of families that are waiting for 2nd or 3rd appointments but I did get the impression that the number was a higher than normal. Both our facilitator and our drivers and interpreters have all said that none of them have seen anything like this scenario before in past years. They've never seen so many rejections. Until recently virtually all families selected a referral during their first appointment with only a handful needing a 2nd. Now families like us that are waiting for 2nds and 3rds seem to be the norm. No one seems to know how Ukraine evolved into such a mess.

For an early afternoon activity Shirley and I opted to take a walk to the nearby Russian Art Museum. Our travel guides described the Museum as a combination of beautiful works of art of both Russian and Ukrainian origin (some works are claimed by both Russia and Ukraine). The Museum is fairly close; a little less than an uphill mile. Unfortunately when we got there we found the Museum closed. Then when we looked at the small print of our Ukrainian guide books we saw that the museum was closed on the last Monday of every month. Wow...how's that for taking a hit from Murphy's Law? We're going to try the Museum again tomorrow or some other time during the week. We're still not sure of when we're going to have to leave this apartment.

One thing that strikes me about our neighborhood is the number of casinos that are within walking distance. Although they can't compare to the sprawling Taj Mahal or Tropicana in Atlantic City, this street is nevertheless littered with casinos. We’ve yet to go into one of them although if we keep going through money the way we’ve been, it may be a temptation that I can’t fight anymore. I used to live an hour away from Atlantic City and actually fared fairly well at their Blackjack tables. On the other hand there were days when AC bled me dry in a matter of minutes.

Finally here is a tribute to the dentists in my family, namely my sister in New Jersey and my Aunt in Seattle. How nice it is to be able to find a dentist office without having to be able to read the language, thanks to signs like this. In fact you could probably be a total illiterate and still know where to go to fix a sore tooth!! Here in Ukraine we may be suffering from boredom or otherwise going nuts but at least the family dentists back home can be assured that our teeth will make it even if we don't.

In case you couldn't tell, its been a quiet day with not much going on. But we expect that any day we'll get a phone call that will send us packing and into some kind of action; that seems to be the way things work around here. We're not sure where we'll be sleeping tomorrow night either. We've seen some new names commenting on our posts and some new names sending emails to my inbox. Thanks to everyone for your support and for being in touch.

Sunday March 30th - Spring forward

2008-03-30T12:23:00.029-04:00

Happy Daylight Savings Time,

Early on today we received a telephone call from our facilitator saying that he wanted to meet with us for lunch. We were a little hesitant – because of our dwindling resources we had made a pact with ourselves to eat out less and eat in more - but our facilitator sounded psyched so we went for it anyway. The restaurant that we went to was called “Uncle Sam’s” and as if you couldn’t tell by the name, they also served American food. Nice, thick burgers and homemade onion rings emerged from their kitchen although everything was definitely on the pricey side. It's still "therapeutic" for us to eat American; good morale booster and neurosis retardent. We came back to our apartment in better spirits that we've been in a long time.

You could say that there is quite a bit of action in this part of Kiev; between all of the shops, restaurants, nightclubs, casinos, etc., it is very busy around our apartment. So for the entertainment section of today’s post I thought that I’d upload some pictures of our “neighborhood”. This first pic is of that Italian Restaurant that Shirley and I went to the other day. Their menus were in either Russian or Italian so we chose to give the Italian menus a shot. Because there are so many Italian words that we’ve incorporated into the English language, we were surprised at how easy it was to understand the Italian menu. We did want to order mushroom pizza but weren’t sure how to say “mushrooms” in Italian. There was one menu selection that read something like “pizza con funghi”. That was a little unnerving; did “funghi” mean mushrooms or something scary? We never thought that we'd need an Italian-English dictionary in Ukraine and our waitress could barely speak English so there was no point in even asking her. Rather than take a chance that we'd order pizza cooked with something God-awful, we opted for pepperoni pizza. That brought forward another potential problem; back in Khmelnytsky we learned the hard way that ordering "pepperoni pizza" could get you a pizza topped with something that looked like banana peppers. “Pizza con salami” sounded like a safe bet. So pizza con salami was Thursday night’s dinner. It was pretty tasty too!!

In an earlier post I also told you about the nearby store called “Mega Market”. Its the closest thing that Ukraine has to a Walmart. There is a prepay parking lot that is part of the store property and the store itself takes up most of a city block and has two floors. Floor one is a huge grocery store full of food; the perfect place to go when the cupboard needs to be stocked. Floor two has most everything else that you can find in a Walmart. Shirley and I were in dire need of a few things. Several pairs of our socks had gotten torn apart after all of the walking that we’ve been doing for the past several weeks. We were also tired of drinking coffee and tea in these little tea cups that resembled glorified shot glasses. So HUGE coffee mugs were also on the shopping list. There was also the normal food and water supplies that we’ve been going through a few times a week. It was a nice, fun trip of exploration as well as replenishment. Anyway, here is a pic of the side of the Mega Market at the parking entrance. It was taken right after we raided the place. If you look carefully you can see Shirley hanging out under the rightmost underpass.

There is an opera house less than a 10 minutes by foot from our apartment. Our landlord complained that their ticket prices are outrageous. By “outrageous” he made us think of Opera prices in the States. I believe opera tickets in New York City starts at about $100 (of course it depends on which opera) so we figured that they must be even pricier here. But when Shirley checked out their prices online, she found tickets to be a very doable $5 to $25 each (dependng on the seats). “Outrageous”? Compared to what? A matinee? Anyway, here is a pic of the "Opereta". It is a beautiful building. If possible we would like to see a show although since we may be leaving this apartment around Tuesday or Wednesday, we may not get the chance. And if our next referral is successful, then next month we'll be back to Kiev with a kid(s) in tow. In which case it will be no way Jose to an opera.

Well folks, that's all for today. Thanks again for all of the encouraging comments and emails. I can't say it enough; hearing from people at home means the world to Shirley and I. God bless...

Saturday March 29. Happy Birthday Mom.

2008-03-29T09:49:00.023-04:00

Hi,

First things first, I want to send a Happy Birthday wish to my mother in New Jersey. 39th birthday, isn't it? We won't say which Anniversary of her 39th Birthday though. Regardless, Happy Birthday Mom!!!! Enjoy the dinner that I am sure my sisters are preparing for you. Let me guess - its probably your favorite. Roast Lamb and potatoes.

It was a beautiful day here in Kiev. Warm enough to remove the lining from my London Fog coat and even then I had to keep the coat unzipped during our walks. Since its the weekend Shirley and I knew there would be no news regarding an SDA appointment so we just relaxed today. We cruised up and down our street and checked out the shops. Then for lunch we came back to the apartment and watched "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" over cheese, crackers and kielbasa. Do we lead exciting lives or what!?!?

We met another American couple, Tonya and Joe http://eastmanadoption.blogspot.com/ , for dinner at TGIFs. They are also here on an international adoption odyssey. We met in blog-land and apparently each of our blogs are being followed by the families of the other; I've already enjoyed receiving personal emails from members of their family. I can't stress enough how much the four of us enjoyed American food and how much we enjoyed being able to converse with each other without needing an interpreter. Just hearing English was great; whenever Joe or Tonya said a word with the letter "V" in it, it was nice to hear the letter "V" instead of the letter "W". Most of all it was nice to be able to relate to someone going through the same experience that we're going through. For three hours we swapped stories on all topics ranging from problems at the airports to SDA disinformation through referrals gone bad. We compared notes on accomodations, orphanages, the craziest traffic, the grossest bathrooms, and laughed out loud about turning white while sitting in the passenger seats of cars going around curves at 90mph. Both Shirley and Tonya enjoyed the fact that they felt totally at ease walking down a street in Kiev without having to put on makeup with a paint roller, or to dress in tight shirts, leather pants, mini skirts or stiletto heels. You name it, we covered it. We also talked about our families and how bringing children into our homes is going to change our lives. It was a fun three hours and its too bad that our apartments are across town from each other. We will be leaving our apartment on Tuesday; the same day that Joe and Tonya will be leaving Kiev altogether. We wish them well; they're in our prayers.

I expect tomorrow to also be a quiet day. Not sure how much there will be to post. Hope our dull lives aren't putting you all to sleep.

Thanks for reading. Take care....

Steve

Friday March 28

2008-03-28T10:51:00.019-04:00

Hello everyone,

We received a telephone call early this morning and thought that maybe it could be exciting news regarding an SDA appointment. But it wound up being an eviction order to move to a new apartment. We had less than an hour to pack and be out. Nothing like ample notice, eh? I guess when it is to their advantage, people move fast here in Ukraine. But Shirl and I have become such experts at living on the go, that we were not only packed but sitting around sipping tea when the driver showed up to haul us and our belongings away. What took you so long, Ivan!?!?

Our new apartment is more towards the South but still considered "downtown" Kiev. Anytime we relocate, one of our first priorities has always been to find a grocery store. Here we managed to find something called "Mega Market" that resembles a Walmart. Not only is there an ample grocery supply on the first floor but go to the 2nd floor and we can shop for other neccessities - like replacing our worn out socks. We'll take Mega Market over those little convenience stores that are always running out of stuff or "forgetting" to give you your change (another story for another time).

We are fairly near an opera house and "Republikansky" sports complex. Our street is literally lined with shops. We even have a fresh produce stand sitting right outside of our building; very uplifting since fresh fruit is something the local convenience stores always run out of.

A favorite hobby of Shirley's is window shopping, she always liked the fact that browsing is free. This street has plenty of shops for clothes, purses and shoes; needless to say that this locale will keep her busy.

There is a car dealership that sells Jaguars right here close to our building. Car fanatics would be in 7th heaven right now. Jaguars are beautiful cars but right now I'd settle for our Kia back home.

Within a few hours of moving into our new abode, our facilitator paid us a visit. He has been faithfully going to the SDA every day and camping out in front of their office. Here in Ukraine, the saying "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" is like the Cardinal Rule. Our guy knows how to play the system; he has been doing international adoptions since the 1990s. Unfortunately there is again no news but he continues to be confident that we will have an appointment soon and that the selection of referrals will improve. Shirley is still steamed at being lied to last week by that previous SDA official that sent us on our wild goose chase, then just shrugged her shoulders and smiled when confronted about it. Any government official back home would have been fried after doing what this girl did to us.

Because we were in the mood for pizza we found a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. They offered menus in either Russian or Italian so we took our chances with the Italian. I never thought that reading Italian would seem so easy but after weeks of trying to decipher Russian hieroglyphics, Italian was a snap. We wanted mushroom pizza but that meant guessing that "funghi" was Italian for mushrooms. Our waitress, although perky and pleasant, spoke vitually no English so there was no point in even asking her. Rather than take a chance we just went for pizza with "salami" (asking for "pepperoni" may bring you a pizza full of banana peppers). Salami was pretty fail-safe. I never realized how many Italian words have been assimilated into the English language.

This afternoon we made telephone contact with another family looking to adopt from Ukraine. We've both been following each others' blogs. They came to Ukraine shortly after we did and have been experiencing the same Ukrainian run-around that we have. They just returned to Kiev and will be here until at least Tuesday. We've located our mutual apartments on a map and they are very close to where our last apartment was; too bad we're still not there. Wouldn't it be exciting if we could get together and share war stories!! We've both had cravings for American food and TGIFs is roughly in between us. I guess that figuring out where to meet is a no brainer.
Since its now the weekend there will be no news regarding an SDA appointment. But I'll try to post daily anyway. Hope all is well out there in blog-land.

Steve

Thursday March 27

2008-03-27T13:02:00.021-04:00

Greetings from Ukraine,

Once again there is no additional word regarding our next appointment. As I've said in my posts all week, it would surprise me if we got an appointment this week. While we remain hopeful day by day, my prediction is that a 3rd appointment will occur sometime during the 2nd half of next week. I just hope that the selection of referrals is an improvement.

Shirley is nearly halfway through her book "The Stand" by Stephen King. That is a very thick book. But when people have a lot of time to kill, no book is too thick!

During our daily walk to the St. Michael Church today we got hit with a snow squall. I haven't seen a good snow squall since living in Boston nearly 10 years ago. Snow squalls are pretty interesting; going from sunny to whiteout then back to sunny again in only a matter of minutes. There were groups of kids at the Church on what looked like some type of a field trip. When the squall hit the kids used the snowstorm to "escape" from their teachers and run amok. The teachers had to spend some time after the squall rounding up the escapees. Kids will be kids.

We've been running low on groceries and have yet to find anything resembling a decent grocery store near our new apartment. The closest store is some kind of a liquor store that also sells a limited supply of foodstuffs at an inflated price. Shirley figured that she'd had enough and decided to trek to the grocery store near our former apartment. Trust me, that is one heckuva walk from here. First of all she was sick of the rudeness of these liquor store people and besides, she is going stir crazy and wanting to stretch her legs. It took her some time but she finally returned with a small stock of groceries that should carry us through the weekend.

One "neccessity" that we've been missing out on is cereal. Shirley is a big cereal lover. After some searching, she came across this Russian version of Fruit Loops. Here in Ukraine these kinds of cold cereals are somewhat pricier, at least compared to prices of the other more native foods. This is a small box and is probably good for 4 or 5 bowls of cereal.

Ukrainians eat a lot of oatmeal and this small package to the right is what oatmeal looks like here. This package cost less than $1.20 and God only knows how many bowls of oatmeal we'll get out of it. We have yet to finish our first bag of oatmeal from when we first got to Kiev a few weeks ago. It is so easy to prepare; it takes two minutes to fix a bowl of oatmeal with chopped bananas.

Shirley and I eat a lot of tuna fish at home. We were relieved to see that tuna is plentiful in Ukrainian stores. These are what cans of tuna fish look like here. Shirley bought these some time ago so don't even ask me the price. She did say that it was very reasonable. Just like in English the word "Tuna" begins with the letter "T". But don't ask me to even try pronouncing it.

Thats all for now. As I said, there is nothing new happening her except trying to be domestic and keeping sane. As always, thanks for the comments and the emails.

Steve

Wednesday March 26

2008-03-26T13:22:00.012-04:00

Greetings from Ukraine,

No further news regarding our SDA appointment. Not all that surprising since we just "officially" applied yesterday. Our facilitator did say that he is going to be insistent with the SDA regarding the referrals. If there are no files to be shown other than the usual referrals of sickly invalids, then he wants our appointment postponed. While we're going antsy with waiting for a new appointment, we would rather wait then be sent on another wild goose chase.

We did our morning ritual of going to St. Michael Church, offering a prayer(s), lighting a candle(s), and then giving money to the poor on our way out. We did stop into the gift shop and saw some beautiful, hand painted religious icons. Their price tags reflected their quality and ranged from $100 to $200. There were some smaller ones behind a glass display that prevented me from checking out their price; I would guess their prices at somewhere around the $50 mark. For hand painted icons thats actually not a bad price. They were beautiful but in addition to our promise to cut back on expenditures, we simply don't have the luggage space for more things. Needless to say, Shirl and I did not purchase anything. We bought some of our own icons from home for our apartment and earlier in our trip, we did purchase a small icon during our first stay in Kiev a few weeks ago. But that icon is SMALL. Small enough to fit into my jacket pocket if it can't fit into our suitcases.

For the fun of it, Shirley composed a list of the 10 things that we miss most from home and asked me to put them in the blog. In backwards order, they are...

10. Food variety. If you're cooking for yourselves, then get used to eating the same thing day after day. Grocery stores often run out of one product or another. For several days, no eggs. The next several days, no meat. The next several days, no something else. And so on, and so on...

9. Free bags at the grocery store. All grocery stores have a bring-your-own-bag policy. If you don't have any bags, sure they'll let you use theirs. For a fee.

8. Yukon. We MISS our 70LB pup!! Our house/dog sitter back home says that Yukon spends a lot of hours staring out of the windows at the front of the house. Guess he misses us too. He gets lots of hugs at our homecoming!!

7. Ice Cubes. What is it about this place and ice cubes? They just aren't any anywhere. All drinks at restaurants are served lukewarm. And I don't care who says what, lukewarm diet coke is gross. You can ask for ice in your drink at a restaurant if you don't mind the locals looking at you like YOU are the freak.

6. Peanut Butter. There are plenty of peanuts, but we've yet to see peanut butter anywhere. And we've looked for it at some pretty sizeable supermarkets in downtown Kiev.

5. Cooking shows. I mean real cooking shows where the chefs actually move around in the kitchen and show you what they're cooking and how they're cooking it. Ukrainian cooking shows are more like a group of women sitting around a table, reading off a list of ingredients for a recipe. Doesn't exactly get you psyched for whatever it is they're cooking today.

4. Coffee mugs. Seems like the coffee here is served in these very small tea cups. They more resemble glorified shot glasses than something to drink coffee from. At 8am I want COFFEE!! If I can't have it in a nice size mug then just bring me the whole urn!!

3. Clothes dryers. They don't exist in this country. Ukrainians wash their clothes in washing machines that leave the clothes soaking wet due to a pretty worthless spin cycle. Then they hang the clothes out to dry. At this time of the year there is no point in hanging them outside. We now have a living room full of drying clothes.

2. Soft towels. Towels that are hung to dry after being washed wind up feeling more like cardboard than towels.

and the final thing that we miss is.....(drum roll please)....

1. Toilet paper. I mean real toilet paper. TP here more resembles the newsprint we used to color on in grade school. And if being like newsprint isn't bad enough, you at least have to remember to carry around your own supply of newsprint wherever you go. Whether its a bathroom in a restaurant, a Church, an apartment, etc etc., chances are the bathroom is out of TP.

Personally I was never much of a David Letterman fan. But his format does well to prove the point.

Hope all is well. God bless....

Steve

The wisdom of retail therapy

2008-03-25T09:05:00.028-04:00

It is a rainy Tuesday here in Kiev. As I'd indicated in past posts, at this point there is nothing to do but begin our wait for our third appointment.

Our apartment is located near the center of Kiev. Unlike our last Kiev apartment that was on a quiet side street, this time we are on a VERY busy street. If we need to cross, there is no such thing as waiting for the road to clear before crossing. Its a matter of waiting for traffic to come to a standstill and then squeezing our overfed American bodies in between the cars.

To all of our female readers in blog-land, my wife Dr. Shirley has created an antidote for high anxiety. It is called "Retail Therapy" and certain to combat the kind of suffering that we are experiencing as we speak.

We first thought of this antidote back in Khmelnytsky. When we first got to the orphanage, the first thing that Shirley noticed on one of the orphanage workers was her Dolce and Gabbana handbag. Shirl is pretty good at spotting fakes and this handbag looked like the real McCoy. Naturally that made her think "what kind of money do these people make"? It wasn't long after our visit when the mystery was solved. Shirl came across a shop that sold these Dolce and Gabbanas by the hundreds. Their $30 price tags are missing too many zeros to be genuine D&Gs. But these were by far the best fakes Shirl had ever seen. They looked authentic, right down to their Dolce and Gabbana label and number. Any handbag with a counterfeit label and number like these would be illegal to sell in The States. But they're plentiful here. The point is, for those of you who are in the same boat as us and are sitting in Kiev wondering what to do while waiting for appointments, at least you can buy your friends back home a collection of Dolce and Gabbana handbags. You'll be the most popular girl on the block!!

Other than a brief but gleeful shopping spree, our day was just as eventless as the next several days are bound to be. We paid our homage to the St. Michael Church where we lit candles, offered prayers and gave money to the poor; I still love the fact that their first reaction is to offer Thanks to God. The Church is less than a 5 minute walk from our apartment so in all likelihood we'll be going there every morning. That Church visit was followed by some minor grocery shopping. We also managed to get our high speed internet back. Its a relief to know that we don't have to spend the next several days either jury rigging a phone line or going to a high point in our building to try to pirate someone else's wireless internet.

Shirley started reading a book. "The Stand" by Stephen King. Even the small mass market paperback is well over 2 inches thick. At least that will keep her busy for the next few nights.

We're wishing the best to our friends in blog-land who are either waiting for their next appointments at home or tangled into some kind of situation here in Ukraine. Everyone has their own unique story to tell. And I am afraid to say that it seems as though those of us who are doing our adoptions this month, are not having happy endings.

We would also like to wish those from the Eastern Orthodox Church, a happy March 25th. In the Greek Orthodox Church, March 25th is a very significant day. The commemmoration is twofold. First of all, March 25th is Greek Independance Day. After nearly 400 years of suffering under Muslim rule, March 25, 1821 is the day that the Greeks won their independance from the Ottoman Turks. Greeks were once again free to be Greeks which included worship in their Christian Churches without the Islamics persecuting the "infidels" (sound familiar?). But more important, March 25th is what the Orthodox Church refers to as "The Annunciation". Falling exactly 9 months before Christmas, March 25th is the day that the Virgin Mary was visited by the Archangel Gabriel and given the news that she is to give birth to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Lk 1; 26-38). Our Church in Columbus is named after this event so you could say that today is our Parish's nameday (http://www.greekcathedral.com/). The Greek name for this holiday is "Evangelismos". So we would like to wish a happy nameday for anyone with the baptismal names of Evan, Evangelos, Evangeline and Evelyn. I know that there are many other male and female English variations of Evangelismos but there is no way to list them all here. So bombarding me with "correction" emails isn't neccesary at this time. Regardless, Happy March 25th to everyone!!!

As always, thanks for all blog comments, emails and phone calls. Its always nice to know that we're not alone.

God bless....
Steve

We're back in Kiev

2008-03-24T14:09:00.025-04:00

Hi folks,

Well there have been no developments since our last post. This is just to let you all know that we made it back to Kiev in one piece. Our new apartment is literally within a 2 minute walk of the beautiful St. Michael Church that I've uploaded so many pictures of in previous posts. For sure we'll be there quite often.

There is really nothing new to report about our weekend other than the already obvious news; we rejected the referral for the two sisters. Once we had made our decision there really wasn't a whole lot to do in Khmelnytsky other than wait out the weekend until Monday morning when we could go to the Regional Inspector's office, obtain our neccesary paperwork and then return to Kiev to apply for our 3rd appointment. We did find out an interesting tidbit of info from the Inspector. Now if you remember, the SDA had told us that this referral for the two girls had never been rejected before. According to them we were going to be the first to see them. But according to the Regional Inspector, the two girls had been visited and rejected by families at least 5 times in the past. FIVE. Now I can see if the mistake was by a count of one but five? I smell a rat. In fact, I smell a herd of rats!!

We did have an interesting incident during the ride home today. About halfway to Kiev, our driver apparently got busted for speeding. After being ordered to pull over, a police officer came to the driver side window and showed our driver a radar gun. I think it said something like 146kph. Thats about 90mph. A 20+ minute argument ensued with both police officers looking like they were getting pretty irate with having their authority challenged by some guy who acted like he couldn't care less; our driver actually looked like he was laughing and mocking at the cops which I am sure didnt ease their tempers. Some of the "trialogue" got a little redundant - like when the three men would spend several consecutive seconds yelling "...nyet....Da.. ..nyet....Da.. ..nyet...Da..." - it reminded me of arguments between little kids when they rant "...did not....did to...did not...did to...did not...did to...". At one point they got our driver out of the car and took him to the police car. It looked like he was talking to someone on the phone. But the driver came back, started the car and drove off, acting as if the whole thing was more of a nuisance than anything else. In retrospect I wish that I'd've used my camcorder to record at least part the conversation and then have someone translate it to me. I would have loved to have been able to follow along. Judging from the voice tones, I am sure that at times the "poetry" got quite colorful!!

For the next two days, Shirley and I will actually have a nice apartment close to the center of the city. We have no idea how much this is going to cost us. Our facilitator knows that our resources are dwindling so I don't think he would set us up in a place with the price tag of a penthouse.

For dinner Shirley and I walked to a nearby McDonalds. Normally back home we don't go anywhere near the place. But we are so homesick and tired of being jerked around by this country, that we found McDs to be very "therapeutic".

And thats all there is to tell now. We were supposed to meet with our facilitator after we got back to Kiev but at the time of this writing it is nearly 9pm local time. Past us old folks' bed time. I am sure that all paperwork can be submitted early in the morning. Then we start another wait for another appointment. We were promised that this time the wait should be more like 1 week. I hope so. One way or the other we just want this to end.

To all of our "new" friends out there in blog-land, thank you for introducing yourselves and following our story. We've been following most of yours as well. To all of our family and old friends, thank you for your undying love, prayers and support. We couldn't get through this quagmire without it!!

God bless you all....

Steve

2nd Ukrainian adoption referral has also failed

2008-03-22T09:28:00.024-04:00

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

A new Ukrainian adoption referral

2008-03-20T13:20:00.036-04:00

Greetings from Ukraine,

On this cold, snowy Thursday afternoon we had our 2nd appointment with the State Department (SDA) at 2pm. During our meeting we were shown several files of children available for international adoption. Just like during our 1st appointment on March 3rd, most of the referrals that we reviewed were for very sick kids that could only be classified as "special needs". But there was one particular file that stood out as more promising than the rest, so we decided to pursue it further. This joint file was for a sibling group. Two sisters, ages 4 and 2. According to the file there are some physical issues with both of the two little girls but we want to be able to see them first hand and report to our International Adoption Clinic back home so that they can make their own evaluations. Just from our brief experience here in Ukraine, I know better than to accept all SDA file information verbatim. Not to mention the fact that now we're psyched; since there is some potential here we just want to see these cute, little ones for ourselves.

We will be meeting the two sisters sometime tomorrow (Friday). We secured the neccesary paperwork here at the Kiev end of the red tape maze and will be making the 200 mile trip to the city of Khmelnytsky in Western Ukraine at 8;30am tomorrow. We don't know what our internet access is going to be like in the new city so its possible that there may not be another post for a couple of days. But we'll do our best to keep in touch.

Shirley and I have an overall good feeling about this referral but we are also cautious. We don't want to be disappointed by another letdown. Not to mention, we don't want to jinx ourselves.

In other news, our pizza dinner scheduled for yesterday took place today instead. The restaurant did a good job; homemade pizza crust and all. I took a nice pic of my wife wolfing down a slice and was promised that if I posted that picture to this blog, I would face death by dismemberment. Therefore you people are going to have to settle for a pic of just some pizza. Sorry but it's the only picture that I took today! Or put it this way; the only picture that I am allowed to post.

The weather here has been very Ohio-like. Today we had snow. Tomorrow the temperature will probably be a springlike 60 degrees or so.

We'll keep you all posted.

S&S

Wednesday March 19th - the day before our 2nd appointment

2008-03-19T12:11:00.028-04:00

Hi all,

Today we were not expecting any telephone calls nor to get ready for any hastily prepared meetings. So we opted to relax and walk around our adopted neighborhood. We weren't even sure how much longer we were to be here anyway.

It was surprisingly cold and windy out with snow flurries stinging our faces but we didn't feel like spending another day in our apartment. We took a walk to St. Michael's Square and into the St. Michael Church. We wanted to start the day by offering a prayer and lighting a candle for our 2nd appointment tomorrow (Thursday). There was a Church service going on when we walked in. I wasn't entirely sure what type of service that it was - could have been a "mid day hours" service that I've seen before in Orthodox Monasteries but I wasn't sure. Regardless, we lit our candle, offered a prayer or two (or twenty), then left - stopping briefly to give a little money to a couple of local beggers. I liked the fact that the first thing these two begger women did was to cross themselves and offer thanks to God for their gift. It made me want to go back and give more. If I see them again, I will.

After leaving St. Michael Church we took a walk to the nearby Andrivcsky's Market - the same outdoor market we went to on Saturday when I posted those pictures of all the artwork. There were only a fraction of the displays out on the street today compared to Saturday. I saw some of the same paintings that I'd fallen in love with on Saturday, but that nagging logistics problem still remained; how to transport this stuff back to the States intact. There were some smaller items in other booths that we thought would make nice souvenirs and went on to check them out. The Market had its share of pullover shirts saying "Kiev" or "Ukraine" in a number of different languages. Not very original if you ask me. I'm sure that if I looked hard enough I could probably find someone in Columbus who could make a shirt that says "Kiev" or "Ukraine" in whatever language I chose. Shirley was also on the lookout for some trinkets and especially loved those nested Matrushka dolls; the kind where there is an entire "family" of dolls all layered into one. She wants to buy one for our daughter who will hopefully appreciate it when she gets older and so she was keeping an eye out for them at the market. To be honest, those matrushkas are so cute that Shirley probably oughta keep that fragile, piece of art for herself. Instead give the kid something more indestructable, like a stuffed animal wearing a Buckeyes uniform.

We browsed over to some of the smaller stands. At one point we were greeted by a young merchant who spoke English, although haltingly. He had some cute religious artifacts that caught my eye. He also had what looked like some leftover military attire from another era. They included an old Soviet army hat and an overcoat. There also looked like some military belts. There was a belt buckle and a few other items with a hammer and sickle on it. But then he pointed to a back shelf that had Shirley's beloved matrushkas. You can see them all lined up in the picture to the right. They were of varying quality; right away you could tell the nicer ones from the cheapies. The nicer dolls were handpainted whereas the El cheapoes had decals. The nicer dolls also had each doll layer painted uniquely whereas the cheaper ones all had the same basic design. They came in 5 and 7 layer dolls (NOTE; matrushkas never come in even numbers). There was one matrushka that stood out; an entire "family" of 7 dolls all within one. It was handpainted. Every family member had its own unique design. It was also "signed" by the original artist. Shirley fell head over heels for it and within minutes after we'd gotten to this kid's booth, the matrushka was her's to keep.

Plus I felt sorry for that kid. He was doing his darndest to make a sale in the freezing cold. The least we could do was help his livelihood for that day. Maybe he got to go home after we made our purchase. Who knows...

Tonight we're thinking of having an American dinner. Pizza. If we have a successful appointment tomorrow than we may be leaving Kiev shortly. No sooner do we find that we may be leaving when we discover a small pizza joint less than two blocks from our apartment. Come all the way to Ukraine just to eat pizza? Well we've done worse. Our first week here Shirley and I actually went to a McDonalds.

Meanwhile we wait and hope for good referrals tomorrow (Thursday). The more we read the blogs of other families adopting from Ukraine, the more it seems to us that obtaining a good referral is a matter of timing. Its purely hit or miss. Hopefully by this time tomorrow there will be some good news to tell.

Bye for now.
Steve

P.S. - Check out the pics of the matrushka to the right. Isn't it adorable?

Tuesday March 18

2008-03-18T13:25:00.013-04:00

Greetings all,

After waiting around our apartment for most of the day we finally got a telephone call from our facilitator with some promising news. We do have a 2nd appointment with the State Department (SDA) set for this Thursday afternoon. We don't know what kind of files that we're going to be shown but we're at least hopeful that this time around we're going to be shown more than files of special needs kids.

We've read blogs of other families looking to adopt from Ukraine and it seems that for those people who have had appointments during the past week or so, they've had much better luck than we had the week before. Lets hope that the luck holds through Thursday.

Although we've gotten antsy waiting for our 2nd appointment, I will say that we have become attached to our apartment here in Kiev. Here are a few pics of our "humble abode". As you can see it is actually nothing more than a modest one bedroom apartment. The living area is spacious and there is a small kitchen. Its all that we really need. We also have a bedroom and a balcony that is attached to the rear of the apartment.

Our facilitator will be out of town tomorrow so tomorrow we'll be left to our own devices. We may go back to Andrevsky's market to re-examine some more potential souveniers. Shirley also wants to go back to one of the Churches to light a candle for hope. That sounds like a good idea to me.

Again this is another small post. Count your blessings!!!

Steve

Monday March 17th - Happy St. Patrick's Day

2008-03-17T09:50:00.018-04:00

We met with our facilitator at just before noon today and as we half expected, there is no news for us as far as a new referral. Our facilitator plans to be at the State Department (SDA) office when they open tomorrow (Tuesday) morning in the hopes that something new develops towards potential child referrals. It didn't totally surprise me that there was no news; its still been less than a week since we've requested a 2nd appointment. Plus is the sad fact that referrals for little girls are so much more difficult to come by. On the other hand we've been in this apartment for more than a week now and are ready for something to happen.

It seems as though the SDA is going through an overhaul of sorts. During recent weeks a lot of the top brass had been replaced by a new Administration and the effect is currently trickling down. I know that during the day of our original appointment on March 3rd, there was a new Director interviewing a lot of the SDA staff while we all were waiting for our appointment interviews. At the time we didn't think a whole lot of it. Now we've learned that the actual psychologist that interviewed us a few weeks ago has been relieved of her position by this new Director. I do remember that she was one of the people who was being interviewed by the new Director on the same day that she interviewed us. According to our facilitator, she was pretty uptight about it.

We didn't plan any real touring of the city in the hopes that we'd get positive news from the SDA. About the only activity for today was a grocery store run. Since now we know we'll at least be here for a few more days it only made sense to stock our shelves. The grocery store is at the foot of a hill that leads into St. Michael Square. How could I possibly leave this post without including another picture of the St. Michael Bell Tower.

We also saw a sign that Coke has made headway into this former Soviet Republic as well. I wonder what the local babushkas think of all of these colorful western ads invading their motherland.

We'll keep you posted with tomorrow's word from the SDA. Meanwhile we're here in our Kiev apartment, trying to appreciate our once in a lifetime trip to an Eastern European city.

Be well and God bless....

Steve

Week 3 opener...

2008-03-16T13:42:00.011-04:00

As part of today's post we thought that we'd throw in a few interesting pics taken from around the city. First of all it seems as though the celebration of St. Patrick's Day doesn't go unobserved here in Kiev either. At least thats the impression that we got when we first saw this advertisement for an Irish Pub here in Ukraine.

You have also heard Shirley and I describe the traffic and parking scenarios as very typically Europe. As for me it reminds me of the chaotic streets of Greece. One thing we notice here that we've never seen in the States is the Ukrainian attitude towards parking. If no parking spot is available on the street, the Ukrainians don't think twice about pulling onto the sidewalk and parking a vehicle there. Here is a pic showing cars parked both on the street and on the sidewalk.

Finally this ominous nightshot is of the KGB Headquarters here in Kiev. Reminiscent of the Cold War, the KGB still plays a role in anti-crime scenarios such as against the powerful Russian Mafia. As for taking this picture itself, so far no one has come knocking on our door. ;-P

We are having a late morning meeting with our facilitator tomorrow (Monday). He says that he hopes to have some kind of news for us. We're getting a little antsy here ourselves and are hoping for the same. But we're used to weathing it all here.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

Steve and Shirley

Ushering in the weekend

2008-03-15T14:15:00.026-04:00

It was a nice, sunny day when we got up. And the sun actually decided to stay out for the majority of the day. Its the little things in life that are so pleasing to the eye.

Today we explored the nearby Andrivcsky's Market in Kiev. This market stretches for some blocks and is a street lined on both sides with a variety of art work and craft pieces. Some of the oil paintings were very striking and would have been considered if it wasn't for the logistics nightmare of having to bring this stuff home. There are smaller items that we'll consider buying. Things like those layered Russian matrushka dolls. You know - the nested dolls where you buy several dolls that are all layered into one. There were also religious icons painted on wooden or stone eggshells.

--- ------------------

We also ran into a group of American college girls at the Market, apparently on Spring Break. I was a little surprised to find that college kids would actually prefer coming here rather than doing what we all know as "the norm" for Spring Break. To us college kids back in the 1980s, Spring Break meant a 20 or so hour ride from Philadelphia to a Florida hot spot followed by a week-long frenzy of getting sunburned, getting crazy and doing everything under the sun except getting any sleep (sleep was for the first couple days of classes AFTER getting back from Break). Yet here were a group of students spending their Spring Break here with a cultural experience. I guess there is hope for our future generations . Good thing the future of America never depended on BrainDeath like us!!

Near the Market was the St. Andrew Church. We didn't go into the Church but you can see the typical onion domes of the Orthodox Christian Church. The Church actually looked very picturesque, perched on top of a hill overlooking the Market as if offering protection as an overseer.

Tonight's dinner was chicken kiev and noodles. Not very exciting but it worked well for us. Not to mention that it is very "native". At the time of this writing it is about 9:00pm local time. My wife is getting ready for bed and I am not far behind. Do we lead exciting lives or what??!!!

We'll continue to update the blog as time goes on. Thanks again for keeping in touch with us through SKYPE Instant Messaging and through the emails. We love getting them all. God bless and we'll be in touch.

Steve and Shirley

Touring the city

2008-03-13T08:30:00.022-04:00

Thursday March 13th. It was a beautiful day out today. Not too warm because we still needed our overcoats. But the sun was out - at least for part of the day. Apparently overcast and rain is the norm for the spring season in Kiev. A sunny day means that a city twice the size of Philadelphia - suffering from cabin fever - wants to bust out. And we were right there with them.

When we were told about this apartment last Saturday, they said that we would be in Kiev but not near the center of town. Well maybe not but there are certainly some interesting sights within walking distance of our apartment. A couple sites close to our apartment are the Cathedrals of St. Michael and St. Sophia at St. Michael's Square. I've included pics here of both St. Sophia by itself and the Cathedral from the opposite side of The Square. St. Sophia Cathedral is Kiev's oldest standing Church (built in 1037) and is also the most visible site from the city's center. The original St. Michael Cathedral was built in the 12th Century but was blown to bits by Josef Stalin in the 1930s and the lot was left bare until recently. The St. Michael Cathedral was rebuilt in 2001 and is currently an active Church. Versus St. Sophia which today is more of a monument than an actual Church.

If you want to see Christian persecution first hand, go no further than Kiev. The Ukrainians really suffered, not only under Josef Stalin but during the entire 75 year long Communist Nightmare.

In an earlier post I mentioned The Golden Gate. In medievel times Kiev was a city that was completely surrounded by a wall. There were only two ways in and out of the city. On one end of the city there was a gate for commoners. And on the other side of the city was "The Golden Gate" used by nobility and rich folks. The Golden Gate is fairly close to our apartment and in this post I've included a few pictures. I'd say that The Gate is about 20 or so meters tall; if you can fathom a guess via these pictures then by all means please do so. It is near a few major intersections in Kiev and makes a nice, little park like area with benches. There is a tall statue at the foot of the gate. The statue dwarfs Shirley but then the statue is dwarfed by the Golden Gate itself. At first I had no idea who the statue was. I tried to guess but all I could come up with was that it looked like a cross between Vladimir Lenin and Robin Hood. Later when we returned to the apartment we looked it up. We found the Statue to be of Yaroslav the Wise, protector of Kiev. And that "small" Church that he is carrying is the St. Sophia Cathedral. Apparently Yaroslav is the one who built the St. Sophia Cathedral also pictured on this page. Yaroslav ordered the construction of the Cathedral in 1037 to thank God for protecting the city against the Pecheneg invasion of 1024. Yaroslav modelled and named the Cathedral after the Aghia Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Constantinople. Yea I thought that Cathedral looked familiar.

OK enough history lesson for now. Sorry but in addition to loving to write, I am also a history buff. This city is old - more than 6 times as old as my own country. It is a history buff's Club Med.

We spoke to our facilitator this afternoon. He had nothing new to report which doesn't surprise me. Its only been two days since we officially rejected the little girl's referral and requested another SDA appointment. He did say though that when we get word of another appointment, its going to happen quick so we need to be ready. And we intend to be. A new appointment leads to a child and a child is still our priority for being here.

Stay tuned. More to come later....

Steve

Happy Anniversary

2008-03-12T10:11:00.007-04:00

Today is Wednesday March 12. Thanks for all the cute emails and ecards wishing us a Happy Anniversary. We liked one in particular; the one that wished us a combination of Happy Anniversary and Happy Department Store Day. Since March 12th is the day that John Wanamaker of Philadelphia first opened his department store doors to the public, we also commemorate Department Store Day on March 12. How suitable is it for someone like my wife Shirley to have been married on Department Store Day!!

We knew that we'd be here on our Anniversary. And even though we've wished each other a happy one, it still doesn't quite feel like an actual Anniversary to Shirley and I. But thats OK. It is still a special holiday for us. It'll just be a quieter celebration this year. If anything it will give more meaning to the day.

Thanks to everyone who has been instant messaging us via SKYPE. Its kind of fun to get those instant pop up windows while online. Sort of like having people walking past the desk and starting a conversation out of the blue.

There is nothing new to report on the Adoption front, other than our facilitator did not see it taking more than a week for the State Department to come through with a 2nd appointment for us. In fact he is helping another family today who accepted a referral to visit. He has to get their paperwork together and get them off onto a train tonight, just like he did with us last week. Once that is completed, we will have his undivided attention.

Thats all for now. This post is a small one. Count your blessings!! ;-P

Steve

Back on the working schedule

2008-03-11T07:43:00.014-04:00

It is now Tuesday March 11th. As he said he would, our facilitator showed up promptly this morning to take our paperwork into the State Department (SDA) to both officially decline the referral of the little girl in DP and also to request a new appointment date. That poor guy looked as bad as I did on Sunday. We were both strickened with the same bug that I imported from DP and neither of us got virtually anything done while being bedridden. Just as well that this was a 3 day weekend. Had yesterday been a business day things would probably have either not gotten done or gotten done sloppily.

Our facilitator did get our hopes up and discussed some of his contacts and leads as well as ideas. But in his current state of health, what he can actually get done today remains to be seen. We'll contact him tomorrow; he should be better by then.

Otherwise today has been another quiet day. Shirl and I did managed a short walk to a local grocery store to stock up on a few essentials that were running low. Unfortunately when we can't even figure out the local alphabet, a lot of our shopping is guesswork. Shirley thought she was buying milk - it turned out to be buttermilk. Buttermilk tastes more like liquid, unsweetened yogurt than milk. I didn't fare much better. I thought that I was buying Orange Juice but instead it turned out to be some knd of an orange drink. It tasted like pure sugar with only a hint of orange taste. That container is staying here when its time for us to leave. Meanwhile - better luck next time.

This story reminded me of stories that my Greek immigrant family used to tell us when describing their first days in America. My favorite was when they went shopping for one night's dinner. My Great Aunt - then a teenager - and her mother walked to the grocery store to buy spaghetti. At that time neither could speak or read a word of English. When the grocery clerk asked them what they wanted, they pointed to what they thought was a box of spaghetti. It wasn't until they had gotten home when they realized that for dinner they had bought a box of straws.

I first heard that story when I was a little kid, probably in the late 1960s. That would have made the actual incident nearly 50 years previous to it being told to me. Yet despite it being that long ago, it still drew belly laughs from my elderly Greek family.

This afternoon while I napped (again) Shirley took a walk to a site that the Ukrainians call "The Golden Gate". As I mentioned before, Kiev is 1,500 years old. At one time centuries ago Kiev was completely surrounded by a wall and the only two ways in and out of the city were through two different gates at opposite ends of the city. A gate for commoners and the "Golden Gate" for rich folks. The Golden Gate is fairly close to our apartment and Shirley took pictures. Unfortunately they're not digital and we don't have a scanner here so I can't post them yet. A few days ago I did see the Gate from the street and it is very impressive.

We did manage to find a TV station in English. Actually we managed to find two. One was the BBC world news and the other was CNN. I'd just as soon say that we found one station since I'd rather watch a Russian soap opera than the Clinton News Network.

We are loaded with DVDs and books from home so there is plenty for us to do here.

Just curious - do any of you have skype? You can go to http://www.skype.com/ and download it for free. Its an easy way for us to communicate and I've been Instant Messaging friends and family from all over the world. Now we didn't bring any webcams or webmikes so we can't do any fancy Star Trek style of communication. But you can IM us if you're interested. "Steve.Zimnes" is my skype id. Anyway, it was just a thought.

Hope all is well back home. How much snow is left in Ohio?

Be well and God bless.....

Steve

3 day weekend in Kiev

2008-03-10T08:47:00.008-04:00

Well it looks as though I brought back a flu from DP. Yesterday I was pretty sick. Totally bedridden, unable to do a whole lot of anything except sleep. And drink water to keep from getting dehydrated. Plus it was rainy out - typical spring weather here in Kiev. Poor Shirley was going stir crazy. Nothing like sharing an apartment with a sick husband who sleeps all day. At least she did manage a few walks outside during breaks in the rain. Not to mention playing just about every computer game on our laptop to death. I felt sorry for her.

Today is Monday and as I indicated in a previous post, it is a holiday. All offices are closed so we won't be able to do anything with the State Department until tomorrow (Tuesday). That is when we officially apply for a new appointment date. Lets just hope and pray that we get a new SDA appointment quick.

I must say that our facilitator hooked us up with a nice apartment in Kiev. We are within walking distance to a lot of things. And this time it is an actual apartment, not a hotel room. We have our own kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, laundary room and balcony. We already hit a grocery store and now have a stocked cupboard and full fridge. This Russian kitchen is actually kind of funny. We couldn't find a lighter that worked (to light the stove or burners) and there wasn't a can opener anywhere but in case we want to booze up, there are plenty of corkscrews, bottle openers and shot glasses. I guess its all in the priorities.

Once we get the SDA paperwork out of the way, Shirley and I will begin spending some time sightseeing. We've already seen the beautiful Churches of St. Michael and St. Sophia. There are other sites to be seen here in the city. Kiev is 1,500 years old. There is a lot of history here.

We got word from home - Ohio was hit with 20" of snow. Its always surprising when that happens in March. In Ohio it could very well have been 70 degrees the day before and the day after the storm. We hear that our Siberian Husky is loving every minute of it. The snow is up to his belly.

Well thats all for now. Thanks for all the emails and comments. Hearing from people at home is always encouraging.

Returning to Kiev to restart our Ukraine adoption

2008-03-07T08:02:00.025-05:00

Hi all,

Well it looks as though our trip to Dneprpepetrosk (sp?) didn't quite turn out the way we were hoping. After taking an overnight train ride to this city on Tuesday night, we saw a little girl on Wednesday who could only be described as adorable. Blue eyes with curly blonde hair. Shirley said that if she were to show pictures of herself at that age, you would think that they were sisters. The little girl did have a physical issue with her hips but we were assured by specialists at home that this would not be a problem to correct. It would take some initial work, patience and physical therapy but for the most part she would be running and playing with her classmates by Kindergarten.

Unfortunately there were other issues with the little girl that weren't revealed in her file at the State Department. We worked closely with our International Adoption Clinic and after a careful analysis by them, it was determined that these particular "other issues" would NOT be correctable over time. We agonized over this decision for quite awhile. Finally, as difficult as it was, Shirley and I simply had to refuse the referral. It tore us up but in the long run its for the best.

We will be leaving Dneprpepetrosk tonight on an overnight train back to Kiev. Our Kiev facilitator has already lined us up an apartment (with internet access...he promises) on the outskirts of the city. Once in Kiev we begin the waiting game for our 2nd appointment. How long will we wait? We have no idea; it could be as quick as a week or as long as 3 weeks. After we're given a new appointment date, we review additional profiles of children and can only hope that this time around we have better luck.

Some interesting tidbits of our trip. I had borscht (sp?) today for the first time. Its a Ukrainian soup (although the Russians also claim it) made of beets, beef, potatoes, plus some other unidentified floatables. It was actually pretty good. Even my finicky wife liked it.

Also, there will be a major holiday occuring in Ukraine tomorrow. On March 8th everyone celebrates "WOMEN'S DAY". Similar to Mother's Day but much, much larger in scale. It honors all women and the entire country shuts down. This year it happens to fall on a Saturday but everybody still gets the day off from work on Monday. Everywhere you look there are women carrying flowers. People that we've never seen before are telling Shirley the Russian equivelant of "congratulations" - the typical thing to say to a woman on women's day. Pretty cool, eh??

So to all of our female readers....

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Steve

In Dnepepetrosk

2008-03-06T05:31:00.004-05:00

Hi Everyone,

I want to apologize for the lack of postings during the past few days. Currently we are in the city of Dnepepetrosk - a city about 300 miles East of Kiev and about 100 miles from the Russian border. Unfortunately at the hotels and apartments, internet does not seem to be available in this city as was in Kiev. So my internet access has been limited.

We are here because we are checking out a little girl as a prospect. We are in close communication with the International Adoption Clinic in Columbus, emailing pictures of the little girl as well as her x-rays and taking measurements.

We will know within a few days whether or not we will accept this referral.

As always, thanks for all of your support.

Steve

A day of rest

2008-03-03T00:22:00.008-05:00

After yesterday’s turbulence what we needed was a day of rest for Sunday. That’s what the Doctor ordered so that’s what we did.

Despite the jet lag we forced ourselves out of bed at around 7am. We decided to do a little exploration of our new neighborhood near Independence Square in downtown Kiev.

I found that communicating with the natives wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. I will say that relative to other countries there is little English spoken here. Nevertheless communication is possible although it is a skill that must be learned. I am not talking about enrolling in language courses, I am saying that first you must at least learn the basic, simple native words from phrase books. Also be prepared to use body language. Lots of gestures and pointing. If you are going to speak English, you must use SIMPLE English and only one or two words at a time. If you are going to rattle off a paragraph of college-level English then don’t get impatient or arrogant when these people look at you like you’re from Mars. Not only will you look like an idiot but you’ll be giving all of us Americans a bad name.

We found a cafeteria near our apartment and sampled the local cuisine. We had no idea what we were ordering, just pointed to a few different things for the cafeteria people to put onto plates. Most everything that they had laid out for breakfast looked like various strudels. Some were meat-filled, some cheese-filled. Shirley hit the jackpot when she pointed at something that turned out to be a Ukrainian version of apple strudel. Delicious. She also pointed to a tray of what she thought (and hoped) were potatoes. Turned out that was exactly what they were. And they were also good. I saw what looked like eggs being cooked and I love eggs for breakfast but I’d left our Ukrainian Phrase Book back in the room and didn’t have a clue how to say the word “egg”. So I had to do without. The coffee resembled Turkish coffee. You know - the kind where the coffee grinds are cooked right into the coffee and all of it is consumed together. Strong stuff – anyone whose eyes weren’t opened after a mug of Ukrainian java is either comatose or dead. Overall it was a good meal.

Kiev is a major city and with that comes many thousands of international visitors (like us) into the city every year. I will say that compared to other cities in the world, Kiev is very friendly towards it’s foreign visitors. Of course those airport post office types can be found anywhere in the world. But in general I found the people here to be welcoming and always trying to help. Any American that complains about Ukrainians as overall rude people has never been to a place like Paris or Athens? You want rude? Look no further!!

Traffic-wise, Kiev is the same as most any other major city. What would I compare Kiev traffic to? I’d say that the traffic here is like a cross between Philadelphia and Athens Greece. The speed and aggression definitely reminds me of my Alma Mater - that dear old City of Brotherly Love. Multi lane traffic converging at warp speed from several directions into two lanes without anyone either slowing down or getting killed is definitely Philly-like. But having thousands of cars thrown into a giant mixing bowl of chaos reminds me of Athens. If a driver can’t find a way there, he simply makes a way there. Drivers who cannot find parking places simply make one of their own. Cars are often parked with one side of it’s wheels up over the curve. These cars are sitting at 10-15 degree angles. When Shirley asked our facilitator if that damages the cars’ tires or suspension he just shrugged and said “who cares”. Another time during heavy traffic Shirley was walking back to our apartment and nearly jumped out of her skin when a car whipped by her on the walkway. Usually the traffic at Independence Square is pretty thick and this one particular NASCAR-like daredevil decided to do an end run around the traffic by driving ONTO THE SIDEWALK.

I did have an incident here in our apartment when I went to take a shower this morning. Just like most of us in The States, anytime I go to take a shower I’ll run the hot water for several seconds and then adjust both spigots to get a comfy water temp. Here I went to do the same thing; turned the spigot marked HOT and let it run. Thing is, the water wasn’t getting any warmer. In fact it stayed downright freezing. Now on the bathroom wall there is a sign that reads “IF THERE IS NO HOT WATER, DO NOT TURN THE BOILER ON BY YOURSELF BUT CALL THE ADMINISTRATOR – HE WILL HELP YOU”. All I could figure out was that this must happen fairly often. So after a few minutes I go to the guy at the front desk and try to explain that there is no hot water. He follows me into the room where I show him the freezing water. He reaches past me to turn off the spigot marked HOT, then turns on the spigot marked COLD and in no time at all the water is steaming hot. I felt bad about calling the guy into the room just for this but he just smiled, said “OK” and left.

Imagine that – here I am with two college degrees under my belt and I couldn’t even figure out that to get hot water for my shower I needed to turn the knob marked COLD. Sometimes I make a total idiot of myself!!!

Our facilitator met with us for dinner at….you guessed it….TGIFs. It was nice to see a menu in English and to know what our meal was made out of BEFORE taking a bite. Most of all we needed to discuss options and strategies for tomorrow’s court appointment. If all goes well we could be leaving Kiev as early as Monday night or sometime Tuesday for whatever region the orphanage that we select is located. Let’s just hope that all goes well; not that I dislike Kiev – in fact it’s a great city and I’d love to see more of it. But we’re here on a mission and our top priority is to stay focused. Besides we’ll be back for our final 2-3 days of paperwork, hopefully with a little girl in tow.

As for today its been a nice, quiet Sunday. After yesterday's experience we needed the down time. More important - tomorrow is going to be a big day and we need to be fresh.

Some of you have emailed me with suggestions on writing a book. I say – why reinvent the wheel? By the end of this whole ordeal I’ll have a HUGE book right here!! ;-)

Talk soon. Bye for now……SCZ

A very interesting first day

2008-03-02T11:23:00.016-05:00

Do you remember my first post when I promised not to write any more mammoth blog entries? Well guess what….I lied. This one is probably going to be bigger than the first one. To all of you non-readers, I apologize. But whereas other people like to jabberjaw in person or on the telephone, I am a jabberjaw of the keyboard.

Feel free to fast forward through any parts that are too dull or verbose for you to read.

This is how the first day of our Ukrainian odyssey unfolded. Initially everything went as smooth as clockwork. We were promptly dropped off at the airport by “Mom and Dad's Taxi Service" and checked our bags in at the DELTA terminal. We did get held up a bit when one of our bags exceeded the 50LB weight limit by 5 LBS. I was ready to just pay the $80 penalty but Shirley would have none of it; there are better things to do with $80. She pulled out a book and several magazines and the bag’s weight dropped to 50LBS on the nose. I really can’t figure out how that made the airplane any “lighter” since the extra 5LBS of stuff just got carried on board with us as opposed to getting checked in. Regardless, we cleared that hurtle and proceeded to the next one - bag check security.

While snowplowing our suitcases through the check-in line, a guy behind us thought he’d get cute and made a wisecrack like “how long y’all gonna be gone for… a whole month?”. Then he laughs out loud. I just turned around and say “No…8 weeks”. His reaction was kind of funny. While still looking like he was laughing, he suddenly just froze without making a sound - as if I had a TV remote pointed right at him and pressd the PAUSE button. Nothing like making an idiot out of yourself while trying to make fun of someone else, right? I actually would have been happy to chat with the guy and give him our story but then our number came up and we had to move forward and get checked through security.

The flight to Kiev itself was uneventful but long. I hadn’t flown internationally in well over 25 years. In those days overseas flights were made in those huge 747s that more resembled flying ocean liners than airplanes. This 767 was not nearly that big but is still referred to as a “Jumbo Jet”. For good reason; it seats a ton of people. It was a smooth, quiet ride done mostly at night. The service was good; seemed like every few hours there was food or a drink dropped onto our tray tables. All announcements were bilingual - English and Ukrainian. Looks like DELTA wants to compete with AEROSVIT (Ukrainian National Airline) for this travel route. And there were a lot of Ukrainian nationals on board so DELTA must be doing something right.

Our good fortune seemed to end upon our arrival in Ukraine. Before we left The States we were instructed to look for a person holding a sign saying "ZIMNES". After we landed and deplaned in Kiev, we proceeded to passport control and saw no sign with our name on it. We continued forward anyway, got our passports stamped, got our bags from Baggage Claim, got checked out by Customs and finally we made it into the main area of the airport. During that whole time we saw dozens of signs with names on them but sure enough, none were ours. Needless to say the anxiety level is now rising to a feverish pitch. Good thing for this one Good Samaritan of a security guard. While patrolling customs he couldn’t help but noticed me as I was constantly leaving Shirley in line and wandering all around the security area. It was apparent that I was looking for someone. The Guard was obviously someone of authority. He was taller than my 6’1”, middle aged and of an imposing yet kind demeanor. When he wasn’t watching people he was constantly either giving instructions or getting information from other guards. When he approached us and asked if there was a problem, we told him our situation and he did his best to help us out. When we pulled out our Ukrainian contact list of telephone numbers, he was nice enough to get his cell phone and begin calling. As luck would have it, almost half of the numbers on our contact list were no longer in service and the ones still in service were not being answered. Now feeling totally helpless and ready to blow a fuse, we couldn’t think of anything else to do but phone home. The only place in the airport able to make international calls was at the airport's post office. But the post office was “manned” by a pit bull of a postal worker. This lady obviously did not like foreigners. When Shirley politely approached her and asked to make a telephone call the lady barked out something nasty in Ukrainian and shooed her away. This drove my poor wife over the edge and she burst into tears. A Ukrainian civilian watching the scenario from a distance now charged at the mean lady and tore into her, letting her have it with both barrels. At the same time the Good Samaritan Security Guard also showed up to check on Shirley’s progress and began giving instructions to the postal worker. Between the two of them coming at her, that lady’s mannerism took about a second to make a complete about face; going from mean tyrant to practically standing at attention. It would not have surprised me to see her start snapping salutes to both Shirley and the two men. As far as the phone call itself, it didn’t much matter anyway. Despite the fact that at this point we’d been in this jam for almost three hours it was still 4:30am at home and only a voice mail message could be left.

Persistence paid off and the officer finally got through to one of the phone numbers on our list. Once that happened things began to move in the right direction, and fast. To make a long story short it was a simple error in scheduling. Our facilitator and staff were expecting us to arrive in Kiev on Sunday rather than Saturday. Such an error could have been made by anyone and once realizing the simple mistake, Shirley and I found ourselves not at all angry; if anything we were just relieved that it was over. When our facilitator/translator showed up 20 minutes later he felt terrible and couldn’t apologize enough. Meanwhile, he packed us into his car and we were off to Kiev to get settled in.

Before we left the airport I made it a point to look for that security guard so that I could thank him for all of his help. But in the meantime more flights had arrived and he’d resumed his patrol behind the secured doors of Customs. There was no way to get to him or even get a message to him. I hadn’t even gotten his name!

After settling in our apartment in downtown Kiev, our facilitator wanted to take us to dinner. He kept insisting on going to TGIFridays and there is a TGIFs very close to where we are staying. But by the time we had gotten to our apartment and settled in Shirley and I were totally exhausted. There is a small grocery store three doors away from our apartment so we bought water, OJ, bread, sausages, pork and oranges to take back to our room. The “pork” here is similar to what we would call "ham" back home only it is a lot less salty but VERY smoky. The sausages are like Slim Jims only about 4 times as thick. And of course Shirley bought a few chocolate bars needed to satisfy her sweet tooth. I knew better than to even look at them.

Before going to bed I decided to check email and saw that there had been a lot of recent activity. Back home word of our scheduling fiasco had gotten out and my HOTMAIL inbox was suddenly flooded with inbounds. Diligent as ever I answered them all. And as always, thanks to everyone for caring.

So that sums up the first day of our odyssey. If it seems like a lot to read but trust me, it was a lot longer to experience; a memorable 20 hour day to say the least. Regardless, we are here, settled in and getting ready for our Monday Court Appointment.

If anyone wants to leave a comment for this post, please click on the “COMMENTS” link at the bottom of this posting rather than at the bottom of this page. If you click the "COMMENTS" link at the bottom then your comment will be attached to our original post from last week rather than to this post. We may not ever see it.

Thanks again for reading. God bless you all.

Ukraine we're coming to start our adoption...

2008-02-29T01:43:00.003-05:00

Virtually everyone who has past experiences with international adoptions has always stressed the need for a good night's sleep before leaving. Easier said than done...trust me!!!

Here it is - the day of our departure. We thought that this day would never get here. Yet here it is. At the time of this writing, our plane will be leaving the Airport in about 11 hours. Next stop - New York. Then on to Kiev.

Thanks to all of the well wishers at the various farewell gatherings during the past week. Thanks again for everyone's prayers, love and support. Regardless of the outcome, your good deeds and tidings will never be forgotten.

Most of all, thanks to my beautiful wife who has put her heart and soul into this adoption. Se agapo, Honey!!!

Our next "report" will be from Ukraine. Stay tuned....

Our Ukrainian adoption blog starts....

2008-02-21T12:06:00.002-05:00

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.