She is Babbling!

Another family pic and Momma is glowing!


Having a ball!


Angelina's new found passion!



She is practicing her orderliness, which she is a master!



Should I take a break and have a sip?

Yesterday Angelina started babbling more than we had heard her since we met. In our afternoon visit she broke out in a multitude of discussions. Some we understood and some we did'nt, but it was great we could'nt believe it! She also likes to point out the window at the orphanage watch dog and say oooff! oooff! oooff! This was a big day as she has not said much in the 2 weeks we have been with her.


I noticed on the hit locations we are getting some interesting locations around the world. I recognize most except for New Zealand, South America and a couple in Western Europe. The one exception is Pam's family in Italy. Hello Angelo, Marina & Mossimo. Please feel free to leave a comment in the comments section - just click on the "comments" hyperlink under each new post and leave your name and location, even if it is just to say hello.

Tomorrow is the big day! Our court time is @ 1pm, Warchol's is @ 2pm and Kissack's is @ either 3 or 4pm. One more big milestone will be achieved and behind us. Sveta arrives on the train tomorrow morning at 6am so we are glad she is coming back to Mykolaiv. I think we may consider getting a larger apartment than we have at the Orphanage. It has been convenient, but after 2 weeks it is pretty cramped quarters and we really need access to a LAN line which we do not have at the Orphanage and we could use a little more space. We will discuss with Sveta tomorrow after she arrives.

Court In Session!

Yesterday we received word that our court will be held on Thursday @ 1pm. Excellent news and with a successful court proceeding the clock will immediately start on the mandatory 10 day waiting / appeal period. During this 10 days it will be more of the same that we have experienced over the last week or so - wait, wait, wait and wait some more. At the end of the 10 days Angelina officially is our daughter! Also at the end of the 10 days we can proceed with passport (in Odessa), revised birth certificate (in her hometown) then head to Kyiv to finish the final US Embassy activities and obtain a 1 day German Visa for Angelina because our flights have us staying over one night in Munich, Germany. US citizens do not require Visa's in Germany, but Ukrainian citizens do and Angelina will not be a US citizen until she is processed through Customs on US soil. She will officially become a US citizen when we land at O'Hare in Chicago.

• Preliminary Schedule Plan: The critical path schedule for this adoption is figured out now, it runs through the passport activity and securing her German visa. We should be able to manage some overlap between these two activities by running them in parallel. To do this we will need to leverage Sveta's POA (power of attorney) in Kyiv for the German Visa so we get that activity underway before we depart Mykolaiv & maybe even Odessa - this should save us a couple of days time. In addition this should allow us to maintain our DDFD (sorry only a few will know that acronym!) departure on 12/17 from Kyiv to Munich - to change our flights would be $200 per ticket and we are getting close to Christmas at that point and flights will be full. I don't want to pay more and risk getting stuck here or somewhere between here & home. The workaround plan if the German Visa does not happen timely will be to stay the night IN the Munich Airport. Of course Sveta will need to review and validate this overall schedule plan, but this is what the customer would like to see. Can you tell I miss work?

Also yesterday we spent the afternoon with the other 2 US couples from the Orphanage - the Warchol (Michigan) and Kissack (Georgia) families. I had our 2 drivers - Oleg & Oleg - pick us up at noon and we went to eat at a restaurant we had tried when we first got into Mykolaiv. Great food - just like grandma's cooking, but again another one of these places that operates as a restaurant until 5pm and a strip club until 5am. Irregardless, the food was great and I could tell by the clean plates that everyone else agreed - also their menu has English descriptions on it. Most of us ordered the Beef Medallions with Potatoes and it was the best red meat I have had since we left Oregon. Also dirt cheap - equivalent of a $20 per plate meal back home, it cost us $6 each. Lunch (dinner) took all of 2 hours then we went bowling - yes they have a modern bowling alley in the bottom of one of their malls here in Mykolaiv. Pam, Jason & Landon all did real well and maintained our reputation. I should have been on the sidelines, I think I broke 100 once - pathetic. It was good time and we all needed one after a couple weeks of semi-isolation. Might just have to plan this as a 1x or 2x week event.

This morning I got up at 2am (Ukraine time) and called into a work meeting in China. We do not have a LAN line in our apartment so I had to make a cell call which I am sure was a small fortune, but I needed to call in to this meeting. Actually as good as my BlackBerry is it does have its limits and the lack of connectivity here is driving me nuts - my laptop is useless other than watching DVD's because the internet cafe's will not let you connect to their lines with a foreign notebook so I cannot access work's intranet for key information, cannot use Skype to make phone calls and cannot get files attached to emails. No wonder foreign investment is lagging here! Where is WiMAX when you need it! I am running out of things to write about and I am sure most of you are rolling your eyes by now about my work connectivity woes, but we are truly getting bored and homesick. My two girls are doing great and beautiful as ever......hopefully more tomorrow or after court on Thursday.

Pics!

Pam and I decided to burn the afternoon here at the internet cafes. Here is a collection of some additonal pics over the time that we have been with Angelina. You can see the spectrum of her personality in these pics. I also added some new features to the right, including some additional blog links to other families going through the Ukrainian adoption experience.

Yesterday was more progress, we had Angelina running between us and each time we would pick her up and toss her in the air. She giggled the entire time and throughly enjoyed it. She is beginning to talk more also - some of it recognizable, some not, some Russian and even some simple english.

I think we figured out the culprit to our cold.....behind the bed in our room we found what looks like black mold, so we swapped rooms with the one that Sveta was using since she is back in Kyiv. Sorry Sveta! When she gets back we can buy some bleach and give it dosing. It looks just like the black mold that grows on interior walls in Oregon and probably just as bad. We do feel much better this morning so that was likely the cause.

Weekend #2.....

Sorry, no new pics today - just letters.

I finally plowed through and finished reading Borderland by Anna Reid yesterday which is a comprehensive and vivid book about the last 1,000 years of Ukrainian history. It tells about how Kyiv was the birthplace of Slavic society for all of Eastern Europe, including Russia. The history of Urkaine is purported to be the bloodiest history of any country in the world. After reading this book I believe it. Just in the 20th century alone there were millions of deaths first led by Stalin's "purges" and Great Famine in the '30's followed by the Holocaust and WWII. The book explains that the Great Famine killed more people (~8-10 million) than the entire Holocaust over all of Europe. The booked closed with the more recent disaster at Chernobyl (60 miles north of Kyiv) and the Independece it gained after the failed Moscow / Gorbachev coup in the early '90's. Interesting and depressing at the same time, but a necessary read if I was going to understand the country that our daughter is from. The summary above does not do the book justice and I recommend it for anyone who loves to read. I picked it up from Powell's before we left Portland for $17 and Sveta asked me if I would send her a copy. I will just leave it with her and get another copy when I get home - this will save me $50 in mailing a copy!

Last night and today was laundry day. After day dreaming about our large washer and dryer back home and dreading that we would have to wash our jeans / sweaters in the bathroom sink I realized that those large rubbermaids would serve a purpose. So Pam and I washed our clothes in them and they worked pefect - although when filled with water, soap and wet clothes they are quite heavy so there was not "just tossing" the water out when we were done. Drying clothes is not as easy - wring'em out and hope they dry in 24 hours. You learn quickly that other than underwear you wear jeans / sweaters multiple days. Another minor thing that we miss about home. I won't complain to loud as my grandparents would not have it and consider me whining - in fact it is whining, I'll get over it until we have to do laundry again.

Still feeling under the weather, the food has treated us well - but we both have cold symptoms and are trying to sleep it off. At least we have over the counter meds from back home to try and knock it out. We have been sleeping alot so hopefully we get over this - if not soon I might have to conquer it with Russian clear medicine - vodka. Still have not tried it yet. We spoke to Sveta last night and it sounds like the paperwork she took to Kyiv has been completed and she will be back to Mykolaiv on Wed morning. She is also hopeful that we might have court on Wed - that would be a day or two earlier than our previous forecast. The sooner the better.

We learned some new techniques with Angelina that seem to be gaining some traction - as she still will not let me hold her or hold her hand when we are walking with her. One of them is using crackers and hiding them in my closed hand. She will pry my fingers open and take the cracker. I have put together a couple of variations of this and sometimes there is a cracker and sometime there is not. Either way it is promoting her getting used to touching my hand - each time she grins, chews and smiles. I decided to read Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Grey (or Gray) front to back vs. a chapter here and there, this book gives plenty of examples including one similar to the one I mentioned above with the crackers - interestingly enough I developed our technique then read about the suggestion in the book so our instincts must be on track. Slow process, but each day there is something new that we discover about each other.

Pam asked me to post the item below from her journal, as she did not come to the internet cafe with me this afternoon. Don't worry it won't be long and she will be the author on the blog and I won't have to keep paying our ghost writer outrageous wages to keep this updated!

Brian, Pamela & Angelina

• If there is one thing I have learned during our time spent here at the Orphanage, it's that love knows no boundaries. We have only known Angelina for a short time, we don't speak the same language, life as an orphan is all she has ever known and yet when we walk into her classroom she smiles and runs to us. Without having to say a word she clearly expresses herself. She is falling in love with us and we are completely in love with her - Pamela

Happy Thanksgiving America!!

Yesterday the internet cafe was open, but all of their computers were down or turned off, just could not get a straight answer in English! So my intentions of picture posting were postponed until today. We both fell asleep last night around 8pm and slept until about 8am. I started feeling under the weather yesterday so the rest did us good. This was the first morning that we did not visit Angelina, but will see her this afternoon from 4pm-7pm. The changes in her are becoming evident with each new day. Over the last few days she has shown us everything from opening up and trusting to full blown tantrums that end with her looking up under her eyebrows with a wild little grin! We are in trouble folks! This little darling definitely knows how cute she is and knows how to really play it up. I have included some pics above that should show some of the progress with her opening up. The first photo in this post was our first photo together last week. The following photos were all taken over the last two days. Quite a change from pouty to smiling when I hold her.

Also, yesterday was our first day without Sveta who is in Kyiv moving necessary paperwork. We already are missing the luxury of having her to get around and help us communicate. Even with her in Kyiv we have another translator (Vitaly) that we can contact if we need anything and our driver Oleg who only speaks Russian. Also we have the other US families that are adopting from the same orphanage so we will be fine. As I had stated in a previous post I think this is the first time in all of our travels that we have felt a little handicapped focused entirely on the communication barrier. Our driver Oleg (1 of 2 Oleg's) drove us around yesterday afternoon to the grocery store, bookstore and went with us for an early supper (yes they call dinner supper here - just like home in Iowa). After visiting two different bookstores I finally found a Russian to English phrasebook that has the Cyrillic spelling and the pinion (pronunciation) spelling so we can try to get ahead of our handicap. We decided to have supper at a placed called Dixie Barbecue that had several confederate flags posted under their sign and doubles as a strip club after 10pm - no kidding! We figured we might be able to read their menu and sure enough they had one in English. Pam had "barbecue" chicken which is nothing more than chicken Parmesan without the cheese and I had a Kyiv Cutlet which is a wrapped chicken breast with spinach and butter on the inside and of course potatoes - Ukrainians definitely give the Irish a run for their money on potato consumption. Over our supper Pam and I spent sometime practicing our pronunciations with Oleg. It was fun, but reinforced the challenge we have. You see Oleg only knows a couple of English words: Hello and Thank you very much, so you can imagine what it was like when I asked him to drive us back to the Orphanage. After failing at a couple of attempts and him trying desperately to respond in Russian I showed him Angelina's picture on my BlackBerry, made a motion of a steering wheel and pointed in the general direction of the Orphanage. Who says you can't communicate with pictures and a few charades?!

So Sveta left on the train Tuesday night and will return sometime next week. She met with the judge briefly on Tuesday and it looks like we may have a court date by Thursday of next week - nothing for sure but that is the current forecast. Once we have court there is a mandatory 10 day waiting period that makes the adoption official and we can return to Kyiv to finalize everything through the US Embassy. The only other activities before we can return to Kyiv is to obtain a new birth certificate in Angelina's hometown and finalize her passport in Odessa. Still investigating if we can complete those activities within the 10 day period or if we have to wait until after the 10 day period. Historically you have to wait until after, but we received some information this week that we may be able to complete it during the 10 days. We are hoping our flight out of Kyiv on December 17th will hold as scheduled - we'll see.

We sure are missing our favorite holiday and all of our family and friends that we traditionally spend it with, actually only after 10 days here we are getting a little homesick. We had our own kind of Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon that Pam whipped up in our makeshift kitchen. The kitchen is a electric hot plate and electric hot pot situated in the hallway between the two bedrooms in our apartment. Our meal consisted of two pre-smoked chicken leg and thighs that we heated in a fry pan on the hot plate, sauteed mushrooms and onions with canned pineapple for dessert. Tasty, but not the turkey, stuffing, mashed taters and pie that we have had at each Thanksgiving year prior to this one. I had the duty of washing dishes and washed them in our bathroom sink as this is the only sink in the apartment. It is moments like this that we realize how much we have to be thankful for back home. I have spent alot of time on this trip thinking about my grandparents and realizing that they probably know better than anybody how much we have stepped back in time on this trip. I vividly remember each of them recounting the challenges they faced in their early lives and how very little they were able to get by on - so there point was always be thankful for what you have today, what you experienced yesterday and what the future holds.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Love,

Brian, Pamela & Angelina

Settling In......

We promised to post something related to the process now that we are beyond our SDA appt and the selection, but it is absolutely too confusing and seems to change daily. So rather than post something that maybe inaccurate we will just post as we go. Yesterday we went to have our petition to adopt translated and notarized here in Mykolaiv. Today we should get all of the pertinent paperwork back from the Regional Inspector and hopefully get a court date - maybe by early next week? We also discovered we will be travelling to her hometown at some point to finalize / redo the birth certificate - it is located approx 90km from Mykolaiv. Also travel to Odessa will be necessary which should be fun. Odessa is located right on the Black Sea (see map in earlier post). Sounds like Sveta will be leaving us tonight to return to Kyiv to handle additional paperwork with the SDA. She has our POA so that will allow us to stay in Mykolaiv. Fortunately there are 3 US families here and our local translator has agreed to help us while she is away. I added one of the families blogs to the right: the kissack family.

We selected her full name yesterday: Angelina Grace White - Sveta needed this for the paperwork and our pending court date. We decided to keep her birth name as her first name because that is what she responds to and it would be too difficult to try and transition to a new first name. The transition to the US will likely be a challenge anyway - let alone a new first name! Also, Angelina is a beautiful name that does not deserve changing. Each day a little more progress occurs for both Pamela and I, but this is more challenging than I ever imagined. I still cannot hold her yet, but she will give me all of the kisses I ask for. It means alot and makes up for not being able to hold her right now. Pam had read something about bubbles being a great ice breaker so we had purchased some from the local outdoor market this past weekend and they worked! Above are a few pics of her giving it a try, it was hilarious watching her pucker and try to blow through the bubble ring! This morning we had another break through with her or maybe it was just me. I realized that if I am going to make progress it will have to be through her language, so I learned to say 3 things: "Take my hand," "Don't be afraid" and "It is OK" - all of which she clearly understands. The 3 of us walked outside as we have done every morning since we arrived, she loves it outdoors and is quite the little walker so she has many things in common with Mommy & Daddy.

Again many thanks to the many family and friends that have left messages and emails for us. Your words of encouragement for the 3 of us means alot as we move through the process. Fortunately due to this technology we can feel much closer to home and provide information almost daily. Were working on a family photo, I am just having too much fun photographing my favorite girls!

Pamela, Angelina & Brian

Catching Up!

Day 4 cont'd: Our 11 hour train ride started on Thursday night @ 7pm. If our 2 bags and 2 large rubbermaid containers did not make us stand out among the thousands waiting at the Kyiv train station I'm not sure what else would have. Many pointed and chuckled - only if they knew that those 2 rubbermaids contained gifts and clothes for their country's orphaned children. I almost laughed at myself wondering why I would even think of dragging this much around with the history of my "old man" back, so we hired a guy with a cart to get us on the train. Dr. Yuri met Sveta and us on the train and spent about 2 hours showing us previous cases he had handled and pictures of children that were healthy and others with various disabilities and disease. This was a good exercise to prepare us for our first meeting, but still very sad. Dr. Yuri is the head of Internal Medicine at one of Kyiv's large hospitals and has even been to Portland twice! We slept maybe 5 hours on the train and it was comfortable, but the cars rocked more than other European trains I had been on - nothing a little Ambien could'nt handle.

Day 5: We arrived in Mykolaiv at 5:55am and met 2 gentlemen that Sveta knew from an adoptions she facilitated 5 years ago - both were named Oleg. Of course there were no carts like in Kyiv so we had the challenge of getting our "stuff" from the platform to the taxi(s). Again everyone has the look like are you crazy travelling with all of that? After about a 1/2 hour the "stuff" and us were packed in 2 vehicles and headed towards the orphanage. The sun was just starting to rise so we were able to see some of the city during the drive.

• Mykolaiv during the cold war was the primary ship building port for the Soviet Union and was completely closed to foreigners. After Ukraine gained its independence in the early 90's and after the fall of the Soviet Union - Mykolaiv's primary industry died - ship building. Some ship building still occurs, but this city is clearly very poor as is most of Ukraine due to excessive inflation, delay in foreign investment and corruption.

We arrived at the orphanage and dropped our luggage in the lobby area then left to find something to eat and wait for the Regional Inspectors office to open. The only thing open at this time of morning was good ole McDonald's - drive thru only. I bought everyone breakfast - kind of - you see they do not have the McD's breakfast that we know in the US. So it was fish sandwiches, a big'n tasty, cheesburgers and fries. It sucked - I am not a fan of McDonalds anyway, but it worked as a fix for our hungry stomachs. It was interesting watching this city wake up and the people make their way through the streets as we had our pseudo breakfast - I was beginning to get a different impression from my pre dawn perspective of the poorer areas we saw. As we drove towards the Regional Inspectors building the core of this city continued to show its character - still not Kyiv, but still a city with much beauty.

After an hour of waiting we got our referral signed and stamped by the Regional Inspector and Mayor - finally everything to meet Angelina. Before going back to the orphanage we stopped and bought flowers from this block long flower market (you would have thought we were in Portland!) for the Orphanage Director - this is customary. Back at the orphanage we met with the Director and Dr. Yuri for about an hour going over her medical background, social history and other pertinent facts. Then she said in Russian "you want to meet the girl?" I thought, well what do you think - we just travelled 7,000 miles and waited 26 months to review paperwork again?!

The first picture in the brief post below this one is our first view/pic/meeting with Angelina. As I came through the door I was asking "is this the one, is this the one?!" We could not believe how beautiful she is. Extremely shy though and I am probably 1 of maybe 3 or 4 males she has ever seen in her life......of course being bald, spectacled and goateed does not help in this matter! The evaluation with Dr. Yuri went very well and he was overly impressed with her intellect, attention span and physical disposition - I got the whole evaluation on video and it is priceless. Angelina was tentative with both of us on the first day, really not sure who or why we were there although the caregivers continued to tell her "your mama, your papa." Da da does not work here - it means uncle, but she seems to use that alot in my direction when she cries.

Day 6: The apartment at the orphanage is very comfortable, we went grocery shopping and what would have cost us $200USD was only about $50USD, also noticed that gas is less than $1.50USD. Should have enough basics to last us the 3 weeks while here. We met Angelina again in the morning at 9am and I dressed her to go outside - it is in the 30's here. She let me dress her with no fuss and took my hand as we walked down 2 flights of stairs with no problem. I then walked her around the complex hand in hand - still no fuss. After our walk we went back to her area and played with the entire group, I would consider this morning a step foward for her and I. There is probably 12-15 children in her group with varying degrees of health and ability and of course this has been her family prior to meeting us and she is obviously well grounded with her friends and caregivers. Because she is so shy and sensitive the transition when we leave will likely be difficult. The afternoon was a different story for her and I......I don't think she was ready to see me and when I went to pick her up she had a meltdown, crying and stiff as a branch. I realized at this point it will be slow and challenging, but her bonding with Pam appears to be right on track. She points to Pam when the caregivers say "mama" and she definitely is comfortable in Pam's arms - this is good and positive. She is very curious of me and is constantly looking over her shoulder and probably wondering what all of this means. Again I am glad that I began reading the books ahead of time it has prepared me for this - I am glad that we have +3 weeks with her in her environment before we travel. I anticipate now that it will be terrifying to pull her out of the only environment that she has ever known. Pam and I are both thankful that this is a very good orphanage with a loving and healthy environment - these caregivers are amazing. Last night (Saturday night) we were able to see/video her eating and watched them give her a bath. She loves both activities and is good at each. She fed herself with a large serving spoon and ate everything in her bowl, including a little of her tablemates! It was hysterical and was able to get it all on video. I think she has earned the nickname "plow girl!"

Day 7: I went up to her area in the Orphanage ahead of Pam this morning. She recognized me straightaway, but is still keeping her distance - curious but shy. When the caregivers said "your papa" she opened her arms and said "mama" looking around for Pam, for just our second full day she is clearly beginning to understand. Pam arrived shortly after that and we took her down for a walk outside and around the Orphanage for about an hour. I fed her a banana and we gave her a sippy cup with water and vitamin drops that Pam put together. Another family arrived from Georgia today and have also selected a little girl. So now there are 3 families from the US in Mykolaiv to adopt from the same Orphanage and group. The internet cafe is about a 20 minute walk from the Orphanage and I should be able to get here everyother day if not everyday. The computers are setup a little different than in Kyiv, but I am figuring them out. I can type in English, but all of the menus and programs are in cyrillic so it is still a challenge. My only real complaint about this cafe is the B.O., but after 2 hours of being here I cannot notice it so I appear to adapting. Well enough for now, getting late in the afternoon and this is not a place you want to walk after dark.......by the way I posted some additonal photos of Kyiv below.

Brian & Pamela

So Perfect......

Day 5 Brief: This is going to be a short one as it is late and we are very tired. Later I will outline the 11 hour train ride and the details of today. Much better to post pics now so you can see our little Angelina! Yes her birth name is Angelina. She is so beautiful, healthy and full of life. She is shy now, but she began to warm up to us by the end of the day and gave Pam one of the sweetest hugs when we left this evening. Fortunately we are staying right in the Orphanage and will be able to see her from 8:30am-11:30am and 3:30pm-6:00pm everyday. She has the best caregivers they are wonderful people. So much for learning Ukrainian, they speak Russian in this province of the Ukraine. We expect to be in Mykolaiv for at least 3 weeks while the process with court and paperwork run their course. We could not be happier.......

Pamela & Brian

Headed South to Mykolaiv.......

Day 4: Finally I made it to the Internet cafe and after an hour of being on one computer and not getting into the blog I switched to one that I used the other day.....and bingo I am on and posting. Sorry for the delay in this post we were spent after yesterday - I did get a couple of emails out to summarize our appt.

Click on the title above for info about Mykolaiv

Day 3: Our appointment yesterday went very well and lasted a little over 1 hour. We arrived at the SDARC (State Department on Adoption and Children's Rights) 45 minutes ahead of time and waited in the lobby area of the Ministry of Ukraine for Family, Youth and Sports for our appt time. We were very nervous and the waiting just made the nerves that much worse. During our wait we met a family from the Seattle area (yes close neighbors!) who had adopted a young boy during the days of the NAC's control over adoption and they were back to adopt another son. A little before 10am a young lady who would be our translator (Tatiana aka Tonya) greeted us and led us back to meet the psychologist (Zyrena) who would conduct our interview. There was a couple minute exchange of pleasantries with Zyrena through our interpretator -I learned while in China that you need to face and speak to the intended receipient and not lose eye contact (thanks for the example in Dalian Jon!) all the while speaking your intended words. We started the interview reinforcing our intention to adopt a young, healthy girl under the age of 2 at which time they reinforced that they cannot guarantee complete health because of the age and delayed development from living in the orphanage. We acknowledged that we understood. Zyrena read 5-6 profiles to us with Tonya interpreting each word back and forth. The first profile was a little girl about 22 months old with a good medical background. We then went through several others with various age ranges up to 4 yo and some minor medical issues, none of which apperared to be to serious - this is the problem though you cannot be 100% sure until you meet the child and have your own hired doctor perform an evaluation. After reviewing the profiles we asked Zyrena if there were any siblings within age range of 4-5 oldest and under 2 available - any mix boy or girl - and she said no these options were not available at this time in the SDA database. With that information we now understood our little angel was the first profile we had reviewed. At that moment the phone started ringing continuously, so Zyrena got up and answered it. It was the SDA officials - we had went over our hour and the appointment was now over. I had a few questions before we left and there was information that Sveta needed regarding the orphanage and we were shuttled out. I wanted to take pictures of the paperwork and profile photo and was told NO. We were told to return between 5-6pm on 11/16 to receive our referral for the orphanage visit and we could gather more information then. Because I did get the region name and there is only (1) 0-4 yo orphanage there Sveta was able to make contact with the Director. When she contacted the director she asked "is this good baby" and the director responded "yes this is good baby." So our ever resourceful facilitator is working her contacts and multiple resources- you go girl. She also secured train tickets for us and we leave today (11/16) @ 7pm for a ~10-12 hour train ride through the night.

After our appointment we were able to meet Jeff & Michelle who had posted on our blog last week about their same day appointment. They were immediately after us so we only had a few moments to talk, but did exchange business cards - we will be in contact! Then Pam and I went outside to debrief with Sveta. Sveta left to get train tickets and we headed to find something to eat. It was 11:45 by this time and we had not eaten since 2pm the previous day - we were starving. We walked down the cobblestone street past St. Andrew's and found a small Italian joint that took credit cards - went in and what do we hear "Hello Portland!" It was the family from Seattle so we sat and had a glass of wine with them and met their son Cooper - thanks for the wine Ingrid we owe you a bottle - (the waitress took the card that had your contact info on it please email us). Pam and I finished with a very good lunch then went on a walk around Kyiv. This is an absolutely beautiful city and there was some sun breaks during our time out.

We cannot wait to meet our little angel which is hopefully Friday - if not it will be Monday then the next steps come into play: meet this little beauty, evaluation with Dr, obtain court date, wait 10 days........there is still much in front of us including some uncertainty until we get to the orphanage. I will try to map the timeline and post once we secure our court date. We cannot express our gratitude and joy for our many, many family and friends that are thinking and praying for us. We love reading your posts and emails everday, nothing like your words to keep us positive and smiling.

Love,
Pamela & Brian

Kyiv Culture Shock

Day 2: For two people who thought we had traveled to many places, we finally found our challenge here in the Ukraine! I thought China would be a culture shock, WRONG! The simple things like figuring out how to get on the net while I sit in the Internet Cafe took all of 15 minutes and getting coffee this morning was a trip too - everything is in Ukrainian and neither of us know the cyrillic language enough to navigate the written version which seems to be as complex as Mandarin. We both understand it is just the start of our navigation over the next month - can't beat ourselves up to much for being newbies we've only been here 24 hours. The city is beautiful and reminds me alot of Prague, Czech Republic.

I have started reading the books that Pam read over the last 2 years regarding post adoption experiences and am kicking myself for not reading these sooner. The good thing is I am a fast reader and the books are very informative - you dont have to read them front to back to understand the challenges we will have over the coming months. I just cannot believe we are finally here - nothing has ever combined all of the emotions we are starting to realize.

Before we left home we arranged with our agent to have a VIP escort through customs that would save us 2 hours of standing in line. So yesterday when we arrived at the Kyiv airport we were greeted by a gentleman that was holding a sign "White" - we flagged him and he said "yes I knew it was you" - he probably recognized us Americans from 100 paces! He then quickly discussed the prior arrangement we had and said "do not pay me here, pay later and don't forget my tips - now come with me quick please!" and shuttled us straight to the front of the +100 people in line. He took our passports, handed them to the entry officials and then shuttled us to the baggage carousel where we filled out our declaration form listing the thousands in cash we brought in country (it is not comfortable toting this around by the way) - then left us again. The whole time I am wondering if it was a good idea to let him hand our passports off, but I went with it. He was back in 5 minutes passports in hand and stamped. He then helped us with our luggage and through the customs line where they questioned the big Rubbermaids we had and wanted to know the value. At first they were going to open them and go through them but our escort convinced them otherwise and the stamped our declaration form. We were through in all of about 10 minutes! Sveta (our facilitator), her husband and a friend were there to meet us and they had 3 roses for Pam. After greeting Sveta I went into a back office (with no lights on except for hallway light through a window) to pay our fee - including tips. Let me say that this was the setup all for the low price of $100. Sveta took us to our flat and then we walked around the corner to the SDA office and were able to see our appointment posted for Wed @ 10am.

The area of the city we are in is very comfortable and beautiful - I will post pics later. It reminds us alot of Portland, but that will change as the temperature drops and the snow starts. Enough for now, sorry for being long winded.

Brian & Pamela

Wireless Technology.....

Well hello from 39,000 feet - just a quick note because I could and because I could, I did! Lufthansa has the Connexion by Boeing and it happens to be free on this flight - not sure that is always free?. No airport worries this morning, luggage not opened by security (which is good because the 2 large Rubbermaids were duct taped and strapped), flight on time and a couple of outlets to charge my dead phone......
And a very, very nice Lufthansa service agent named Irena (maybe Russian or Ukrainian?) we had to meet before we got our tickets. It seems she had to collect $50 dollars for Pam's overweight bag and asked us why we were going to Kiev - this was before she took our money and handed us our tickets. When we told her she said "You two go now and don't worry about another thing," handed us the tickets and told us to "go and finish our good thing." The $50 was not a big deal, but this lady made our day and started our trip with an act of kindness. Perfect start - more on Wednesday after our appointment.

Brian and Pamela

One more day......

Well it is almost here and I think we are both ready, emotionally and physically. Lots of last minute "do we have this & do we have that & what did we forget?!" Yesterday was a little upside down - met my Physician & notary to update all of my medical (expires on 12/9) then drove to Salem to have the State Apostille the documents. Turns out this weekend is Veterans Day and yesterday was a holiday for state employees. This is what happens when have'nt spent much time in the US over the last couple of months - you forget little things like this. Anyway, no choice but to trust Fed Ex and the State that they will get everything right and we will have the documents sometime next week in the Ukraine. We have had issues in the past with the State not formatting the documents correctly for the Ukraine - so we will see. Good thing is that this document does not expire for about 3 weeks.

I was shocked to see that another adopting parent will have an appointment on the same date as us and posted a comment this morning! We absolutely have to meet while we are in the Ukraine, to share a similar experience during the same timeframe will be amazing. So Michelle if you happen to get back to this blog before you leave please email us at pmfwhite@hotmail.com. Cheri (ADS International) called yesterday and told us that our appointment will be at 10am on Wednesday (midnight PST). I am including a map of the Ukraine so everyone has a sense for the country / city layout so when we know the orphanage we will inform of the city location.

Thanks to all that have posted comments, we both enjoy reading your encouragement knowing we have many thinking about us and supporting us on our trip.

Dyakuyu (Thank you),

Brian & Pamela

The time is nearing......

Welcome to our space and thanks for visiting. After years of considering doing a website I have finally taken the first step in doing something close to it - its not the fancy HTML version that I envisioned, but it will do for now and serve its purpose in sharing. Many of you visiting here are our beloved family and friends that have unconditionally supported us through our adoption journey. Over the next couple of months Pamela and I will begin to fill these pages with our new life experiences and our awaiting child(ren). Our adoption experience to date has been unnerving, frustrating, tiring, complicated and frought with a sense that there would never be closure. Well now we are one big step towards closure and on Sunday, November 12th we will leave Portland for Kiev, Ukraine and begin the first step in bringing little ones home. Our appointment at the SDA (adoption authority) in Kiev on November 15th. Stay tuned!

Brian