SDA Appointment

This morning we started our day with breakfast at a Ukranian buffet. We had no idea what we are getting so we took our best guess and started pointing. Here's what we ended up with:

The things at the bottom are kind of like pancakes with a syrup/icing type topping. The top left is hashbrown potatoes with sour cream on top, and the top right is what I thought would be like a quiche but is more like a lasagna!

We were picked up at 9:30 for our 10am SDA appointment. We went to the SDA building and waited outside until our names were called. Our translator, Nadya, went in with us. The woman asked for a brief description of our family and why we wanted to adopt a child with special needs. After that she pulled out Oksana's file and showed us 2 pictures of her. The first one was taken maybe a year or two ago and the second one was a baby picture! It was so cute! She told us we could have them after the adoption is over. She then went on to read from her file telling us that Oksana was abandoned at the hospital and that she was a preemie. On Wednesday we will ask about her birth weight but from the information we were given we think it may have been around 3lbs. Her medical information was no surprise to us....CP, microcephaly, and a developmental delay. That was about it. The whole think took no more than 5 minutes. We will pick up our referral allowing us to meet her tomorrow at 4 and we will meet her Wednesday. After our appointment Nadya took us to buy Matroyshka dolls for Oksana...and for us :).
This is the sign at the SDA building. It says "State Department of Adoptions and Protection of the Rights of the Child" or something like that!

Here is the church next to the SDA building.

Matroyshka dolls!

Our purchases:
This one is a family including dad, mom, 5 children, a dog, a chicken, and a chick. 4 of them are carrying traditional Ukranian instruments.


In this one each piece has some representation of summertime in Ukraine. There are people in traditional dress, a windmill, and a sunflower.

This one is for Christmas:

When you open it up these ornaments are inside:

After a quiet afternoon in our apartment we had dinner with the Claxtons. Mark and Jill are with FamilyLife and have been living in Kiev for 3 years establishing FamilyLife in Ukraine. It was so great to meet them! We ate at a wonderful restaurant (for those of you who have been here it was the Itallian restaurant next to TGI Fridays) and then they walked us all around showing us a few more things that would be helpful to us. This weekend we will be going to a BBQ with them and some other Americans living in Ukraine. We laughed on the way home that we had spent more time with Americans than with Ukranians since we arrived! Now we are relaxing in our room and watching National Geographic becuase it is one of the only English stations we have! Until tomorrow......

Welcome to Kiev!

We made it! Our flight was uneventful and on time but boy was I tired of sitting in that chair by the end of it! I tried every which way to get some sleep and managed just a tiny bit but not enough to make a difference. When we arrived, Oleg and Nadia were there waiting. I have to tell you that these two are like celebrities to me :). They have been talked about so much since we started this journey that it was wonderful to finally meet them. They got us all set up in our apartment, exchanged some money for us, gave us a cell phone, and chatted with us about Oksana. Oleg says there is another boy in her orphanage with CP who had the same surgery that she did at the same time. He said that he is very smart and talkative but that Oksana may have a delay because she is not as verbal. He did mention to us that he believes this delay is caused in large part by the fact that she is raised with young children, many of whom, are non verbal and the orphanage workers don't interact with her much. He said when she was with the little boy he saw a difference in how much she was talking. She will thrive at home! Oleg told us that our SDA appointment is at 10 am tomorrow so we have to be waiting outside for him at 9:30. More about that tomorrow, but he says we will likely pick up our referral allowing us to go to the orphanage and meet Oksana on Tuesday and will head to the orphanage on Wednesday.

After Oleg and Nadia left we crashed! We were so tired! Here are some pictures of our apartment:





And the view from our apartment:


After getting settled in and sleeping we met up with all of the Reece's Rainbow families who are in Kiev right now. What a wonderful group of people! 2 of the ladies are here on a mission trip (I mentioned them in this post, 3 of us are in the early stages of our adoptions, and one family is leaving on Tuesday with their precious Sofia who you can see enjoying dinner with us. She is absolutely precious!

That's all for today. We're headed to bed!

Getting Ready to Go

We're down to the wire. One last visit with our new niece, a couple more pictures for Oksana's photo book, a bit of laundry, packing...again, and we'll be ready to go. We will be up bright and early tomorrow to get to the airport for our 9am flight. We will fly to New York and then to Kiev. We will arrive in Kiev at about 9am Sunday morning. They are 8 hours ahead of Central time so it will be like 1 am for us. I'm so nervous and so excited.

Today while I was visiting with my mom I got to meet another Reece's Rainbow mama! Julie and her husband Allan are adopting this precious doll from Ukraine:

On Reece's Rainbow's web site each family provides a small bio. When I saw that Julie was from St. Charles I emailed her and after some correspondence we learned that not only does she live in my mom's neighborhood, but her husband knows Larry and his family through the automotive business! Talk about a small world! I loved getting to know Julie and meeting her kids. I've been amazed by the wonderful people I've met through Reece's Rainbow! Here are the mama's :):

And the mama's joined by Julie's precious little Jack who absolutely cracked me up!


Well I guess next time I blog I will be in Kiev! See you on the other side :)

A Little More Oksana

The day we made a commitment to adopt Oksana we received a video of her taken by our friend Ellen. I've held onto this video and very few people have ever seen it because she wasn't supposed to be taking it. When Ellen met Oksana she knew she would do whatever it took to find her a family and she knew that video would help. We are so thankful for this glimpse into our daughter and now that we are private we feel more comfortable sharing it with you!



I also wanted to share an email that I got the other day. It came from Sandie who is an Early Intervention Specialist. Sandie was at Oksana's orphanage (which is called Vorzel because it is in Vorzel, Ukraine which is about 45 minutes outside of Kiev) last year helping her friend, JoAnn, bring home 3 children! During that time she had the chance to meet many of the special needs children at the orphanage and had this to say about Oksana:

Oksana is a wonderful little girl who lights up a room. She was so compassionate to the other children and shared the few toys they had readily. She seemed so ready for 'stimulation'! I'm so happy she has you!

That email made my week! Sandie and JoAnn are returning to the orphanage for a mission trip and are flying on the same flight as us to Kiev and staying in the same apartment building! I am excited to meet them. You can follow Sandie's journey to Vorzel on her blog www.ServingSpecialOrphans.blogspot.com

We're Private!

I'm sure almost all of you know by now where we are going, but since this is finally private I just want to say....UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE!!!!

That's all for now, we're off for more cleaning and packing!

Trying to go Private

Well, as of right now we are still public. I have tried and tried to go private and had problem after problem. Last night and this morning blogger had some kind of problem and wouldn't even let me in. Now I can finally get in and it only lets me invite about 60 people before it gives me a warning that only 100 people can be invited and then it won't let me add any more. Some of you may have gotten invites. I will try to figure this out otherwise it just isn't worth it and I'll stay public.

Just as a quick update we are heading out in 2 days to take the boys to grandmas. We will spend a couple of days visiting with family and meeting our new neice before flying out on Saturday. As you can imagine, things are absolutely crazy here right now! We are very excited but right now I just can't wait to get through tomorrow so I will be finished packing and cleaning and can look forward to the trip!

Going Private

Before we leave we will be making this blog private. It allows us to be honest about where we are and what we are experiencing. If you would like me to send an invite so that you can have access to our blog send me your email address by leaving a comment or sending it to fourloraines@yahoo.com. We'll get invites out in a week or so. It won't be long and we'll be face to face with this little princess!