Day Twenty Six - Home Again

I don’t know what was more exciting for us - to be back on US soil in NY (Sherri said she was going to kiss the customs’ officer) or to be back at home, but I don’t think we’ve ever been happier to get home. We had missed Max terribly, and despite the excellent care he was getting from Aunt Lori and Lydia, it was clear that he was really missing us too.

There is so much to get done while Sherri is here this week - finalizing day care plans for Peter, getting his room set up, thanking friends and family who have gone way above the call of duty in helping with Max in our absence - we could go on, but won’t. Sherri flies back to Kyiv on Sunday morning to complete the adoption for us. We’re hopeful that the rest of the process will go smoothly and she and Peter will be home by mid-October. Given all of the other things she will be lugging back to Kyiv, she won’t be taking the computer, so our blog, unfortunately, will be less frequently updated.

We want to thank all of our friends and family for the amazing encouragement and support each of you have provided through our journey. The saying that the best things in life are those that you have to wait for seems so true these days. We feel very blessed to have found Peter and look forward to bringing him home to complete our family!

Day Twenty Five - Our Day In Court

Friday the 19th was our day to be in court to petition to adopt Peter. Our court appointment wasn’t until 3:30 pm, so the morning was spent running errands to the notary (our new best friend) and saying a temporary goodbye to Peter. If all at court went well, as we expected it to, we would have a mandatory 10 day waiting period before the court’s decision would be final and we could move forward with the adoption paperwork. We had decided that despite the cost, we both were eager to come home, even if it was for just a few days to see Max.

So the question we were left with was how would we explain to Peter that we were going home to get things ready for him, and that I (Sherri) would be back in just a few days to get him. Ten days is a long time for a 3 year old! So we decided to appeal to his sugar tooth and organized a plan with his caregivers that they would carve out some one on one time each day while we were gone to let him look through the family picture book that we had created for him. We asked them to seal the conversation with a piece of candy reminding him that Mama would be back for him in a few days. Hopefully our plan will work. When Viktoria, our facilitator, sat down with us to try to explain the situation to Peter it was clear he had some level of understanding. His playful smile became serious and quite. Although it was hard to watch at the moment, his response was another good sign - a sign that he wasn’t ready for us to leave him.

Court was brief - only 30 minutes, with 10 of that being translation. The judge left us with a comment of “love him and educate him” - something that sounds so understood in our society, but is not always a given in life. We hopped the 4 ½ hour van ride from Rivne to Kyiv late in the afternoon, and on Saturday morning we caught our flight back to Nashville. Our travel time was about 24 hours from Kyiv to Nashville!

Day Twenty Three – Go Viktoria!

Well, last night Viktoria provided good news about our paperwork – with one exception. The Rivne administrative offices are so unaccustomed to dealing with adoptions by foreign parents that they were insisting that we both return after the 10 day waiting period following our court appearance. In most parts of Ukraine, only one parent is required to be present after the court day. We put the pressure on Viktoria to work her magic today and convince the administrative checkpoints that having only one parent here after our court date would be OK.

It worked! The 'gifts' required to make it happen were substantial, but we're pleased. There are still more ways than we understand (and there are many ways that we do understand) for the plan to be fouled, but we're aiming to come home during the 10 day waiting period after our court appointment on the 19th. Then, depending on the progress of the paperwork in Kyiv and Rivne, either Todd or Sherri (but not both – woo-hoo!) will return to Ukraine on or about the 29^th and continue the process which should take about another two weeks. Any volunteers who are willing to exchange free airfare for help on the plane ride home, please email us.

Today's visit to Peter's orphanage as a real wake-up call. There are a number of new children in his class and a couple of them are particularly heart-breaking. One new child repeatedly cried over and over – for two hours – 'papa', trying to get Todd's attention. When Todd took the child to the window (the objective of all the pleading), all he said was 'mama' while pointing out the window. Clearly his mother had dropped him off at the orphanage over the past couple of days—heartbreaking to us as this child will now not be adoptable for another 1 ½ years at the earliest—and that is only if the mother has given up her rights.

A second child was delivered to the class while we were there this afternoon by his mother, complete with a small bag of special belongings. That child cried most of the afternoon as well - and understandably. It was heartbreaking to imagine what those children will go through over the next few weeks as they try to adjust to their new life. The caregivers in Peter's class are good, but their goal is to incorporate these children in the daily group schedule as quickly as possible, so there was no consoling beyond giving the child a piece of candy and a stuffed animal. Needless to say, Sherri did her best to provide some mothering comfort by holding them and trying to play with them a bit. Quite an emotional day. Sadly, the more senior members of the class like Peter treated the situation as normalcy, and largely ignored the children. It's a real reminder about why these children have such a difficult time truly attaching to people—despite the best efforts of their caregivers they are taught to be survivors.

When we arrived this afternoon, one of Peter's caregiver (Elissa) mentioned that Peter had asked when 'mama and papa' were coming. Peter's interest in us is very heartwarming, but we worry a bit about how he will perceive our 10-day absence. We will leave behind a picture book that he seems to love filled with pictures of us and immediate family. Peter loves to look through the pictures and has started to identify family members. It seems a treat for all of the children to see themselves in pictures! That will be a small gift that we are planning to leave them with—pictures that are at their level and probably laminated so the caregivers will allow them to examine them whenever they want. Given the little bit of history most of these children can touch and see, it seems a simple, but meaningful thing to leave them with.

As you can probably tell, our affection for Peter's classmates is growing each day—good thing our dossier limits how many little ones we can bring home—we see potential in each of them.

Day Twenty Two - Olympics 2020, Here We Come!

Another 'regular' day. Peter demonstrated his gymnastic skills again - today we saw him on the parallel bars! His caregivers continue to reinforce that he's meant to be gymnast. This doesn't bode well for some of our childproofing plans at home.

Since it's raining again, we were inside and visited a new (to us) room full of giant exercise balls, trikes and other energy-burning tools. But Peter also surprised us with his interest and patience in assembling a toy car with one of his caregivers. We're starting to see more clear signs of his personality—he likes order and organization, he is a picky eater, he has a stubborn streak and if he is interested in something like putting the car together he can be incredibly patient—sounds a bit like his big brother, Max.

After play time, we were back in Peter's room and one of the caregivers came by with a plate full of snacks for the kids. It looked like peeled apples, but turned out to be raw onion. And believe it or not, most of the kids liked it and had seconds! As Todd and I prepared to leave Peter at lunch time, we received our gift of the day from him. We told him goodbye to which he responded “no bye bye.” That was the first time he made it verbally clear that he didn't want us to go, so maybe the attachment is beginning—a big step forward for us.

Viktoria is due back in Rivne at 20.30 tonight and we'll have some paperwork to do once she arrives. Until then, I (Todd) am working on a grant application and Sherri is saving her energy for the activities later this week that, we hope, will conclude with a successful court visit on Friday.

Day Twenty One – In The Ukrainian Groove

A quiet day – we visited Peter in the morning and arrived just as he was leaving by car with his 'groupa' for activities unknown. We let them go and stayed long enough for them to return. We took a short walk together and left before lunch.

The afternoon was disrupted because Todd participated in a conference call (by Skype!) and Sherri visited with Peter for a second time today. She discovered two new things about riding the bus—first, you must have small bills to pay your fare or it can be a problem, and second, it is perfectly acceptable for your bus driver to stop for a Kbas (an alcoholic drink made from fermented bread) if he gets thirsty. We finished the day with new dining experiences, some positive (Todd's herring) and most neutral (Todd's rice and Sherri's mushroom soup and grilled veggies).

We have been wondering about the adoptability of some of Peter's classmates – most seem quite attractive in terms of both health and social activities. Well, we learned today that the only girl in Peter's class - who is just a delightful child – has a eighteen year old mother. The mother visits just twice a year, but says she intends to recover her daughter at a future point when she is capable of providing full time care. We are pleased to learn that at least one of these children seem likely to be reunited with their birth mothers.

We have developed some names for Peter's classmates. Ivan is 'the boss' – he is very engaging and manipulative. He understands the adoption process and continues to attempt to win our attention But, he's a tyrant when he doesn't get what he wants – just like a bad boss. Another classmate is 'the singer'. He was recently one half of a duo, but his singing partner was adopted last week by a Ukrainian family. Sherri reports that, during music class today, 'the singer' performed solo without his adopted partner.

We are planning tomorrow to buy the orphanage a lawnmower as a gift – something the overgrown, mosquito-filled location can really use. It was their request, not our recommendation, but we're happy to provide something of real value to everyone at the orphanage.

Our Ukrainian pantomime is getting better – this morning, Todd was able to convince the hotel 'floor mother' to wash our clothes today. She said that they would not be ready until tomorrow, but when we came home from dinner, we returned to quite the animated discussion. The clothes were ready! Clean, but still damp – a huge bag (about a week's worth of dirty clothes for two people) for 20 UAH (that's about $4) – what a deal!

Day Twenty — More Pictures

Not much to report from here. We visited Peter and had fun this morning. We also navigated the time difference and the internet cafe to have a video chat with Max (Thanks, Anita and Duco!) - we were all missing the 'face-to-face' talk since we lost our ability to connect to the internet from our hotel when we moved to Rivne.

So, a couple of new pictures of Peter. These were both taken a couple of days ago during his 'falling leaves' music class.

Day Nineteen – Canadians, Foot Races And Flying Solo

We now feel like grizzled veterans in Rivne when four Canadian couples showed up at the hotel cafe for breakfast. We were able to give them some dining advice and let them borrow our food-in-pictures cheat sheet. They were attempting to reconnect with family unseen for many years and were very appreciative of the point-to-order strategy.

Our trip to visit Peter was quite interesting. Normally, this is a 30 minute taxibus ride without an exchange – super easy. But today, there was a foot race and the main road was closed. The multiple detours – as our driver tried to find a way around – led us to see some new parts of Rivne. The back roads were clogged with taxibuses and it took more than an hour to get there. All this disruption for a race that appeared to have five runners.

But our time with Peter today was great and we stayed long enough (since we arrived late) to see the start of lunch – chicken soup just like my (Todd's) grandmother used to make every Sunday. There were two new additions to Peter's class today taking the spots of the two little boys who were adopted by Ukrainian families. More boys—I (Sherri) was hoping that at least one of the new children would be a little girl to provide some companionship for the solitary girl currently in the class. Today we saw the first of the orphanage's winter wear. To say the outfits they put on the boys would challenge most men's manlihood is putting it lightly. When we arrived they were all running around indoors in little girl's winter tights. Peter's were bright purple and decorated with flowers. As he did his gymnastics bouts across the room, it was all he could do to keep them on.

Fortunately, the foot race was over when we returned to the center of Rivne and traffic was flowing at its normally chaotic pace. We hit the internet after lunch to get some work done and then to the market to pick up a few snacks. We haven't said too much about the interesting things you find here at their grocery stores and on their menus, so maybe I'll share a few popular items to give you a sneak peak into Ukrainian cuisine. First of all, they are meat lovers! Everything comes with meat—they even have ham flavored potato chips. Salo, aka pork fat, is a favorite snack and adorns many of their meals. How does hen stomach sound? Or maybe some good old boiled tongue. Who knows, maybe I'm missing out, but I'll pass for now. Todd is doing his best to embrace the local fare—he actually really enjoyed the crab flavored potato chips and black sea shrimp!

Today was cold – about 10C/50F, overcast and spitting drizzle. The forecast is the same for the next few days – the cold helps minimize laundry, but we're barely prepared for this type of weather.

Tomorrow's plan is the same as today's – Peter in the morning and internet in the afternoon. Viktoria is in Kyiv until Tuesday evening, so we're flying solo in Rivne until then.

Day Eighteen - Kyiv And Back In A Day

We are both exhausted. Late yesterday, it became clear that to ensure I (Sherri) could stay alone to complete the adoption of Peter, Todd and I needed to travel to Kiev to sign some paperwork at the US Embassy. So, today, we woke up at 4:30am for a 5:00am drive from Rivne to Kyiv. We were pulled over by the speeding police only once (!) on the way during the 3.5 hour drive to the US Consulate. The Consulate personnel were incredible – very helpful and complete. The highlight of our day was lunch at McDonald's. I know, it's shameful, but we'll fill you in on some of local dining options in a future blog entry. Let me just mention boiled tongue—enough, right?

So a successful day on the paperwork, but our poor driver ended up being stopped by the police for speeding on the way home, too. Luckily, in Ukraine the police are happy to help you with your personal scheduling needs by taking fines at the road side—I'm sure you get the point.

Tonight we're headed to bed early and will look forward to seeing Peter tomorrow morning.

Day Fifteen – Peter Good, Bureaucracy No So Good

Viktoria made great progress for us yesterday and most of the local paperwork is completed. We need the Rivne city council to approve our plans and Viktoria worked on this all day without success. The city council leadership authorized to sign our documents have proven to be elusive. Once this step is complete, the document package travels by bus to Kyiv and to Galena (we don't need to go). The SDA in Kyiv then takes six days to review our paperwork and, we hope, approve our application. The document package comes back to us in Rivne by bus and we are then ready to make a court appointment here. We'll be here a while!

On the other hand, our time with Peter today was great. When he initially refused the opportunity to give us a kiss, one of his classmates came over and kissed us instead. Well, Peter was paying attention to that turn of events, pushing the other children away and saying 'my Mama, my Papa'. We're his now, I guess! We sat on the floor and read some books, mostly identifying the objects and colors that we all know the words for. Peter's caregivers have been wonderful, really facilitating our interactions with him. It will be a very different story once we're home.

More good news on the home front – Peter is confirmed for child care in Nashville, so one more hurdle overcome.

Day Fourteen – Has It Really Been Two Weeks?

Not too much to tell today. Our facilitator did great work in finding the one notary in Rivna who would notarize our documents without Todd and I having the appropriate tax ID number. Who would have guessed that he would have been the head of the Rivna notary association! I guess rules can be bent when you're the one in charge. So that saved us a trip back to Kyiv, thankfully.

Our visit with Peter this afternoon was trying for all of us. It was our first visit without Viktoria who typically translates for us. To say Peter was frustrated about the communication issues would be putting it lightly.

After visiting Peter we went to the city center for dinner where we had been told we could find french fries. I know it sounds pathetic, but the options for vegetarians here make french fries look like a food fantasy! The french fries were only available if you ordered a meat filled main dish, so we had another meal of pizza.

As we left the restaurant a rain storm had begun, so we decided to take a cab back to the hotel. Well, the cabbie decided to drive us all around downtown before finally taking us to our destination. Our facilitator said he got what he deserved for trying to scam us for extra money when a police car backed into him in the hotel parking lot. There was lots of yelling and waving of arms between the cabbie and police—we decided to throw some money at him and make a run for it. Our facilitator, who thinks herself our parent while we're here, thought we were crazy and suggested we stay at home in the hotel more. I doubt we'll take her advice.

Day Thirteen – First Pictures!

We've been taking some candid pictures of Peter and his group. I've cropped two of these and posted them below. First pictures of Peter!

We're taking the afternoon off from the orphanage to catch up on work, email and grocery shopping. Every errand and activity requires so much more time and energy here – we are taking cabs and buses (and walking) everywhere, for example. Finding a place to eat has been a real challenge, despite our picture 'cheat sheet' – a laminated card with cartoons of different foods. We can go to a pizza place and point to the toppings we want. Pathetic, I know – but effective. Since Sherri has been sick twice already, we're opting for the 'better safe than sorry' in knowing what we're eating.

Tomorrow is sounding like a busy day of bureaucracy. We first have to find a notary to generate a new power of attorney for our facilitator so she can get work done on our behalf. There's only one catch—apparently anyone who uses the notary is supposed to have a government number, which, of course, we don't. In other regions, there are notaries who ignore this requirement, but since foreigners adopting is not common here, we may have to take a 6 hour bus ride back to Kiev to get things done. The fun begins!

We were pleased to hear that two of Peter's classmates are also in the process of being adopted—both by Ukrainian families. The first little boy leaves on Monday. We were told today that we are the first foreigners to adopt from this orphanage in 5 years!!

We hope to be able to post again by mid week.

Day Twelve – Good News From Dr. Yuri

Before the details, here's the bottom line – Dr. Yuri was very positive about Peter's health and we're starting the adoption paperwork!

Dr. Yuri's visit was initially complicated – his 'patient' (Peter) was on a walk when we arrived and no one knew when they might return. He put the time to good use in reviewing Peter's medical records with the doctor at the orphanage. It wasn't long before Peter and his group arrived and Dr. Yuri started his evaluation.

After getting past the obligatory offering of sweets, Dr. Yuri moved right into having Peter building a stack of blocks and and identifying colors. The next round was matching different block shapes with the corresponding hole. I was amazed at some of the things Peter could do at Dr. Yuri's request, but was especially thrilled with Peter's real interest in books. Dr. Yuri got Peter to identify items pictured in books and to correctly find 'the biggest' in a group or 'what item doesn't belong', among other age-appropriate tasks. Without the ability to speak Ukrainian, we had no way to really do similar things with Peter ourselves. Peter was able to assemble a couple of easy puzzles and, when the 'tests' were over, he continued to look in Dr. Yuri's bag and pulled out more books. After a final round comprised of some physical checks, Dr. Yuri gave Peter a clean bill of health. He's small for his age and has some delay in speaking (pretty normal for kids in orphanages), but appears to be otherwise normal for a 3.5 year old. We're thrilled (but not surprised – we thought he seemed quite normal even before Dr. Yuri's confirmation).

So, now the administrative efforts really begin – well, not until Monday. We have some immediate legal paperwork to complete before finalizing the document package required to get a local court appointment. Even if these next steps happen early in the week, there will be a 10 day waiting period after the court appearance before much else can happen. Unless something completely unexpected happens in the next few days, the Giorgio family will grow to four!

Day Eleven - Surprise, We're Back!

So we thought it would be entertaining to add into our blog some of our dining experiences since coming to Rivna. One would think that Ukrainian food is Ukrainian food, but we've seen all sorts of new options here in Rivna. How does boiled tongue sound? Or maybe hen's stomach or dried squid as a snack with your beer? Yummy!!! Suffice it to say, we're hungry (or at least Sherri is hungry). Thank goodness we brought some Special K bars to carry us through the meals that just don't quite work out. Ukrainians are meat eaters to the max—no vegetarian pizza and you better double check your pastry too. So eat a good meal or two for us back in the US.

Today was day 2 with Peter and although he was still a bit uncertain of us, there were no tears when we took him from his group this afternoon. Our typical day for the next couple of weeks will be spending time with Peter from 10:00 to 11:30 each morning and then again from 4:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon. Our mid day is full trying to find lunch and searching for somewhere to try to get our email. I must say the teenage boys here at the internet cafes are great! Yesterday was our first day trying to see how to get email and update the blog and to say we were the center of attention at the first internet site would have been a huge understatement. We couldn't connect there, but the boys were so eager to use their English that they offered to walk us to another nearby site that they thought might work. It was one of those moments where we were so impressed by our Ukrainian hosts!

Peter clearly started warming up to us today. It was very cute how his 10 classmates all called for him to tell him that his mama and papa were here again when we arrived this morning. We had brought bubbles which were a huge hit! Like all 3 years olds he wanted to do it himself which meant a bit of a mess, but a lot of laughs. We took the bubbles in a Winne the Pooh lunch box, so he now knows two English words - Winnie the Pooh and boom, which Sherri repeated as he burst the bubbles. Surprisingly at the end of our afternoon visit he wasn't as eager to run back to his group – we take this as a good sign. Tomorrow, Dr. Yuri will come from Kyiv to evaluate Peter. He has done this for years for other international families adopting here in Ukraine, and has a very good track record. If the report goes as we expect - which is to say that Peter is a very normal little 3 year old boy - then we will formally start the adoption process on Monday. We're optimistic for a great report from Dr. Yuri and the rocky road of paperwork here will begin on Monday. That will be the most difficult part of the process. Wish us well! We'll update again as soon as possible. Again, a reminder that internet access is challenging, so be patient with us. We'll plan to tell Max more about Peter on Saturday if all with Dr. Yuri goes well.

Day Ten - Meeting Peter

8:30am came early this morning—Sherri hadn't slept well given the yelping dogs in our hotel's front yard. We started our day by going to meet the city adoption administrator who was responsible for preparing the document stating we were OK to see Peter. Our facilitator must have dazzled her as what had started as a half day of paperwork to be completed before we could see Peter turned into just 30 minutes in the park.

We both had visions in our minds about what the orphanage would look like and what kind of care Peter would have been receiving there. I must say that we couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised—the place looked better than some of Nashville's preschools that we have toured. The SDA officials in Kiev had warned us that the director of the orphanage was rather difficult and didn't seem to have an interest in seeing the children adopted, so we were somewhat relieved to hear that he is on holiday and that we would be meeting with his interim who also acts as the orphanage psychologist. He was a wonderful surprise full of encouragement and eager to make things with Peter work out for us. We met with the lawyer and the physician and heard what we already knew from his medical record, and then finally had the opportunity to meet Peter.

He was very shy and unsure of us, but that was understandable given that he had been visited by others previously who from his perspective were probably very full of promises and then never returned. We played trains (all little boys love trains) and with some hand puppets before heading out to their playground where this tiny little child shocked us with his gymnastic abilities—he could do chin ups on his own! We got quite a laugh out of that which of course caused him to repeat it. Very funny!

It was time for his lunch and nap so we left for a few hours and returned again this afternoon. I think he was a bit surprised to see us again. We got to join Peter's class of 11 in their music lesson which was about 20 minutes of pure joy for us. A man taught their class playing Ukrainian folk songs on his accordion while they danced and sang along. the kids were very funny—a few of them offering to sing songs on their own for the group and all joining in on silly group dances. For a moment in time i thought maybe we could take more than one—then I snapped back to reality. We spent the afternoon with him playing in their playground sand box and having a few brief moments of coloring. It seems to us that he is a very normal healthy 3 year old boy who will only blossom more with a home and more love and attention.

Tomorrow we will return to spend a couple of hours with him in the morning and again in the afternoon, and on Saturday morning we have a specialized physician coming to visit him to ensure his heath is in good order. It's been a busy but happy day here. We're looking forward to tomorrow.

Evening addendum...After a pizza dinner downtown, we visited three internet cafes – none had WiFi and only one was brave enough to disconnect a computer and let us try to connect via ethernet. Unfortunately, despite heroic efforts, the static ethernet connection settings didn't work. We did, however, develop a posse of 11th graders who spoke good English and led us to one of the internet spots. They earned 20 UAH – enough for a couple of hours of gaming without asking Mom for more money, I figure. Not bad for 5 minutes work. A final effort at a restaurant reported to have WiFi turned out to be false. So, we are without a direct connection to the outside world using our computer. Thus, we're on webmail (presumably, we haven't tried yet) and blog updates will be irregular.

Day Nine - On The Way to Rivne

We started the day with the first case of 'Kyiv belly' (Sherri) and I (Todd) ran around town looking for the Imodium that we foolishly forgot to pack. She was feeling better about the time we went for a visit to the lawyer's office to produce a power-of-attorney for Viktoria to do our business in Rivne. After a long walk with Viktoria around Kyiv to the office of a specific hotapic (notary), we learned that the translation of our passports was not included in the rather thick package of official forms, so no documents could be generated.

We packed and left with Galena to finish the paperwork at the SDA, then on to meet Viktoria for the ride to Rivne. Our private jet (a high mileage, propane-burning Kia) as flying right up until the time we were pulled over by the police for speeding. The fine? $5, plus a 15 minute delay and an embarrassed driver. He was shocked to learn that an equivalent speeding ticket in the US would likely have been $100!

We still arrived at the Hotel Tourist more quickly than anticipated. Vikoria informed us that it was a good hotel – how could it not be – look at all the guards! They kindly extended the hot water availability by 30 minutes (to 10:30 pm) for us to wash up before bed. Each floor has a 'house mother' and she provided the key – and probably cracks down on the noisy and unruly. A Soviet hotel experience, for certain.

Day Eight – Second Appointment to Review Dossiers

Today we had our second appointment at the SDA. Thankfully, it was much more successful than our appointment last week.

We accepted a referral to visit a 3.5 year old boy named Peter in western Ukraine (Rivne). From what we know, he appears healthy and is very cute with a head full of blonde hair. We have learned from his dossier that he is shy and that the director of the orphanage is very protective of him.

We leave Kyiv on Wednesday by car for the four hour drive to Rivne with Viktoria. We hope to meet Peter and have some time to play with him on Thursday.

Rivne is an uncommon location for our facilitator, so we are all scrambling to prepare. In our case, that means doing laundry, hitting the banking machine and taking what is likely to be the last hot shower for awhile. We may not have internet access much, if at all, in Rivne, so any lack of updates may be no big deal.