A Long and Scatterd Post!

Today was crazy, draining, tiring, exhausting….but at the end of the long day we got to see our sunshine girl! The morning started by packing up our bags in hopes of finding a better place to stay. Let me tell you a little about where we are now. It is about a 5 minute walk from the orphanage which is priceless! We visit twice a day from 10-12 and 4-6 so we would have to find a driver if we weren’t here and that would be very expensive. The orphanage is in a remote part of the area…the city, where there are hotels, is a 40 minute drive away. That would be four 40 minute taxi rides per day and not being able to cook for ourselves, having to eat out, which would also be expensive…plus we don’t know what the heck we are ordering anyway because we can’t read Russian! So we ran around trying to find somewhere else, no luck…so we came back here. Usually families who adopt from this region stay at a different, nicer, house, but it is occupied right now. We had no hot water, it was freezing cold in here, kinda smelly (various degrees of smell depending on which room you are in! LOL), and the woman who lives here (she moved across the street with her daughter so she could make some money from us renting this place out) pops up to visit and talk to us in Russian all the time. She knows we can’t understand her and thinks if she talks louder in Russian maybe we will get what she is saying! She seems very kind and seems to be in need of the $50/night that we are paying her. She fixed the hot water (for now), and turned the heat up a little, and I just keep spraying air freshener! This entire journey has taught us a lot about sacrifice and I would sleep outside if they told me that’s the only way I could take this angel home! We are trying to make the best of it and trying to keep some humor. Did you know (we can’t find salt here) that in place of salt…you can use crunched up onion potato chips and sprinkle them on your buttered spaghetti without sauce? HAHA.


So back to where I started, we drove around all day with all of our luggage in the car, squeezed into the back seat of a teeny car with not an inch to move our feet. Our amazing facilitator ran from one office to another trying to get our documents prepared to be submitted for court. We mostly sat in the car...probably sat for about 5 hours in a car today.  She has told us that this region we are in is the most difficult region to adopt from in all of Ukraine. We didn’t know that before we came (or we might have chosen a different child if we knew this…thank God we didn’t know because this girl is OURS!) Our facilitator said that when some people come to Ukraine for a blind referral (don’t know which child they will choose) and are going through files, the officials will say things like “That child no good” just because they are in this region and they know how difficult the process is! There is a family here now adopting. They are from Italy. They have had court 3 times now! The usual court is only one time for an hour or a few hours. Yesterday was their 3rd court date (lasting 4 hours!!) with this judge and they still didn’t pass it. He keeps requesting all these documents, some of which might not even exist! It is possible we will get this judge…there is a 1 in 3 chance so we need to pray that we get one of the other 2! Since we are in this difficult region, we already have had to do a lot more paperwork. Marina keeps saying, “It will be hard now but when it’s all over you will not remember how difficult it was.” I keep reminding myself of that. We are here for one reason…..and that is to get this precious babe and bring her home where she belongs. There are two types of officials here…those that care and want to help, and those that could care less about our adoption and our child’s life. The part that bugs me is these people who don’t care…I know we can’t change them, but they sure can make things difficult. Our facilitator says this region is so unpredictable in how things will go, how long the process will take, what court will be like, what documents they will ask for....and all based on the mood they are in on any given day. Please pray for this process and four our endurance through the bumps in the road that are ahead. Even though Zoya is our daughter in our hearts, she is not legally ours until after the court date.

We found out today that Zoya’s birth mom is actually a lot younger than we thought. She was only 16 or 17 when she gave birth to Zoya. We did get to visit today with Zoya for about an hour only (because the rest of the day we were doing tons of paperwork). She had to get blood work done this morning and our facilitator said Zoya cried and cried (we chose not to be there for that part…Zoya doesn’t trust us enough yet and we don’t want her to associate us with any pain). I felt so sad when I imagined her there going through pain without her moma and daddy. When we saw her tonight she had on the same dress she wore yesterday. I spiced it up with a white bow today! She wore little red shoes with the number 10 written on them. That was a reminder that this child has nothing of her own, all the way from material things, to her own family…..until NOW! I wasn’t sure at first if she remembered us, but shortly into our visit I knew she did. I think she is confused as to why we keep coming back to see her and then leave her there. Tonight she had no interest in playing much. She just kept reaching up toward me and getting a sad look on her face until I picked her up! All she wanted to do was snuggle and stare at me! I’ve never seen a child this age just start into someone’s eyes for so long and with such a serious look. She was so desperate for snuggles and hugs. I wish I knew what she was thinking. She is so calm and laid back, but definitely has a mischievious streak that I could see being brought out by her Daddy ;)  I know she knows she is happy when she is with us and enjoys having her emotional needs met. It is so hard to hear the other kids crying while we are there. So many of these kids need families. Yes, their basic physical needs seem to be being met for the most part…but any child without the love of a family is a sad sight.

Just staring at Moma!

This is sorta how she would look at me when I tried to make her play instead of picking her up!

Giving kisses to the lion from Grandma and Grandpa!