Plans are Made

We received the following e-mail from Luba the other day:

"My congratulations to you: you are LEGAL parents of Juliana Alexandra.
I've got yesterday the Court Decree!
...I came for one minute to the group and had asked how is Juliana doing? She is OK, just waiting for her mama and papa....
She is healthy.
I did not meet her personally, I did not want to confuse her, they show her your album,
don't worry, just a little bit and you will pick up your daughter."

It was so great to read those words - we are now legally her parents. And just hearing that she's doing well and that the caregivers are showing her the photo album we left and talking about us really encouraged us. We're missing her so much and cannot wait to go back for her. Luba's e-mail also outlined a couple of snags she's encountered in getting the new birth certificate issued; nothing major, but a holdup of another couple of days. Again, it just confirmed that we made the right decision in planning to return after their holiday season in January. Just that one delay would have prevented us from being able to bring her home before the end of the year and we would have been stranded in Ukraine for an extra week or two; not a scenario we find attractive (or affordable!).

Our travel plans have been finalized. We will be flying out of Boston on Saturday, 1/19, and returning home on Friday, 1/25. It will certainly be a whirlwind of a trip. We'll land in Kiev Sunday afternoon, catch the train to Mikolayiv that evening, pick Juliana up on Monday, take the train back Monday night, and then have Tuesday, Wednesday and part of Thursday to wrap things up with the US Embassy for her visa. We'll be flying out on Thursday evening and landing back in Boston on Friday morning. Whew. Those are the plans, and the time can't pass quickly enough.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you all!

We're Home

So, so sorry that we haven't posted since last week. As most of you know, we arrived home safely on Wednesday evening, 12/12. We just realized that we haven't posted since we got home and there may be a few out there who are wondering what's happened to us. Our flight was delayed in Amsterdam for a couple of hours, but other than that our journey home was uneventful. Thankfully we weren't scheduled to come home the next day, as we likely would have been stranded somewhere due to a snowstorm. We had a wonderful reunion with our boys and have now settled back into the daily grind for the time being. My (Steve's) mother was able to return home to her husband (thanks again, Bob!) after almost a month away. She is an absolute saint to have made such a sacrifice for us. My sisters had also come out to join her the last week. They were all forced to spend an extra day with us (we welcomed the opportunity to visit) as their flights out on Thursday were canceled. The all flew out early Friday morning.

Shame on us for complaining about the Ukrainian weather. It was about 2 degrees (that's Farenheit, for you Canadians!) this morning. We've already gotten about a foot and a half of snow since we got home, in addition to the snow that fell a few weeks ago - there's got to be at least 2 feet on the ground. Such a contrast to last year when we got no snow until January. Looks like we're going to have a good old fashioned New England white Christmas.

We are really beginning to miss our little girl and are anxious to bring her home. We haven't firmed up our travel plans as of yet, but it looks like we'll be flying out the 2nd or 3rd week of January. It will be a much, much shorter trip (should be less than a week). We'll update the blog once our plans are finalized, and will, of course, post a good deal more when we return to Ukraine, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, Merry Christmas to everyone as we spend time with our families and celebrate our Savior's birth!

SHE'S OURS!!!

Real quick post, as we need to leave shortly to catch the train back to Kiev (yes, that train).

Court went perfectly. We met in the judge's office, along with his secretary, the orphanage director, and the inspector. The judge asked us all questions, with Luba interpreting for the two of us. He asked about our family, why we want to adopt, our income, our home, etc. He then asked the orphanage director and inspector specifics about Juliana. The whole hearing lasted all of about 20 minutes. In the end, he congratulated us and stated that the court approved our petition. Oksana Alexandrovna Avadenya is now officially Juliana Alexandra Cohn. We really weren't expecting any problems, but it's a relief to have it over and done. We have a daughter!

If only we could just take her home now; but, there's that pesky 10-day waiting period before the court decree is officially released and Luba can get the new birth certificate and apply for the passport. The birth certificate will list us as her parents and will show her new name. The judge actually asked us if we also wanted to change her date and place of birth. ??? We weren't aware that was an option but really can't imagine a circumstance in which we'd want that. Of course, it would seem somewhat strange to have a birth certificate listing New Hampshire as her place of birth, issued by the Ukrainian government. :-) No, we're good with just listing the new parents and new name.

We spent time with her this morning and were able to take some pictures of her group room and the other children in her group (had to get special permission to do that - they're a little touchy about allowing pictures of other orphans due to Ukrainian regulations, but the director let us, as long as we promised not to publish them). Tough saying goodbye (for us, not for her!). But, we'll be back next month to pick her up, and then the real adventure begins!

We doubt we'll have any opportunity to post again before we get home. Looking forward to seeing you all and kissing the blessed American soil!

Almost There!

Well, here we are two days before court, four days before going home. Thanks for hanging in with us and praying for us through all of this. We’ll be seeing Juliana just two more days, then that’s it for a month. Tough to think about, but it’s been even tougher being away from Justin & Jonathan the past few weeks. We’re counting the hours until we land at Logan at 5:05 Wednesday evening.

No new video today. We went downtown to go to the internet place but there were no computers available, and there were several people waiting. So, we figured we’d update the blog from the apartment. The dial-up does fine with just text, and handles pictures just barely.

We had lunch yesterday with Laurel Boylan, the American women we met a few days ago in the market who is finishing up the process of adopting two boys. We actually ate at a different restaurant, called “Sit-and-Eat” (in Ukrainian). Lots of food choices served buffet style, and Laurel was able to tell us what most things were, so we were able to try some authentic Ukrainian food. Julie didn’t really care for any of it, though (those that know Julie well know how picky she can be). She says she’s just craving a normal salad, with greens in it, something that seems hard to come by here. I could take or leave most of it, but it was nice to eat something besides pizza and McDonalds for a change. Laurel has been here for 6 weeks, electing to stay after court straight through to the end. She was just waiting for the passports for the boys to be issued by the Ukrainian passport office here, and while we were having lunch she got the call that the passports were finally ready. We were so happy for her. Her husband had left to go home after court three weeks ago, so she’s been on her own with the two boys and her daughter that came with her (ages 4, 6 & 7). She left within 2 hours for Kiev and will be home in California by Thursday. The passports had been promised to her several days ago, but she hit one snag after another. This has just reassured us that we have made the right decision to come back in January. If we tried to finish it up before 12/31, and hit just one delay like Laurel did, we’d be stuck here until after their holidays (1/1 – 1/7). Luba will be taking care of the new birth certificate and passport in our absence and we’ll return once it’s all set.

Things we’re looking forward to: our own bed with a real bottom sheet (ask us about it sometime), a bathroom with the toilet and sink in the same room, being able to talk to Lori every day (this one’s from Julie, of course), being able to walk out of our home without smelling garbage and dodging stray dogs & cats everywhere (though Julie does like to feed them – she’s named one of the dogs “ravioli” and a cat “stinky”), public restrooms with toilet seats (again, ask us sometime), television and radio we can understand, American & Chinese food, having more to read than the five or six books we brought and the two that Luba sent us, high speed internet, and most of all being able to hug and kiss our kids. That’s the short list. ;-)

A few prayer requests for those prayer warriors out there: please pray that everything goes smoothly in court on Monday (we don’t anticipate any problems, but one never knows here), of course pray that Juliana will be safe in our absence, and pray that we’ll be able to get a good deal on our airfare for our return in January and that everything will go smoothly then, as well, and that that trip will be as short as possible (we’re expecting 5-6 days).

Thank you so much, again, for your prayers, posts & support. It has made our time here much more bearable. Thanks again, Mom, for sacrificing so much to stay with our kids all this time. And thanks Steph & Lisa for coming out to help Mom; we knew the boys would wear her down (just kidding). Love & miss you all. We’ll post again after court.

Wanted for Shoplifting

OK, so we suppose the title begs for an explanation. The crime was committed last night, and I (Steve) just wanted to add to my Ukrainian experience by seeing what it would be like to go to jail. Just kidding - it never got that far. However, we were guilty of shoplifting, accidentally. Here's how the dirty deed went down: We went into a small market last night to pick up some juice. There's something we haven't told you about most of the stores around here, and that is the fact that you often need to pay for each item right in the section where you picked it up. In other words, you have to pay for the milk in one place, the bread in another place, the soda somewhere else... you get the picture. So, last night we picked up four cartons of juice and took it to the nearest cashier we saw. She spoke no english, but we were able to discern that she was asking us if we wanted a bag. We said yes, put the juice in the bag, and paid her. I couldn't understand how much she was looking for, but she made it clear that she needed coins, so I held out the pocket change I had and she took some of it. After Julie and I left the store, I said that it just didn't seem like she took enough. I don't think she took more than 50 kopecs or so, which is the equivalent of about a dime. Now, some things are inexpensive here, but not that inexpensive. Julie then asked "do you think that she thought you just wanted a bag, and had already paid for the juice?" Then it all made sense. That's another market quirk here - you have to pay for a bag if you want one. That's all we had paid for. We had bought a bag, loaded it up with stolen merchandise, and left the store. We immediately went back in, pocketed the bag, and found the right place to pay for the juice, standing in line like nothing had happened. Thank God no one had noticed - I can't even imagine what a nightmare it would have been trying to explain the whole situation to the police. So that's our crime of the week; we'll try to keep our noses clean the rest of the time we're here.

We've been dying for Chinese food lately. How twisted is that - Americans in Ukraine craving Chinese takeout? Our food options are somewhat limited and we're getting tired of the same things. The only restaurants we're comfortable going into are a pizza place we found and McDonalds (and Julie doesn't even like McDonalds). The others all have menus in Russian and we could accidentally order chicken liver wrapped in sheep stomach for all we know. We did just find a store around the corner where they sell some prepared foods we recognized (rice & vegetables, things like that), so we'll pick up something there for supper tonight. Oh yeah, not only do they charge for bags at the stores, but they charge for ketchup at McDonalds. Not cheap either - 2 grivna (about 40 cents) for a small packet. Other menu items are actually a little less than in the States, so go figure.

The weather has actually been better here than at home, so you won't hear us complaining about it any more. It's been a little warmer the last few days - high 30's-low 40's - and no snow on the ground.

5 more days to court. We just got a call from Luba and she said that we just got the required approval from the SDA, so court is definitely on. Juliana continues to charm us and bond with us - we've both fallen in love with her and are just so anxious for the whole process to wrap up. Hope you like the new video. Thanks again for your prayers and posts - we look forward to coming home next week.

We Heard Someone Speaking English!

We met a woman in the marketplace today from the States!! It was so refreshing to talk to someone who actually spoke English! She was there finishing up the adoption of two brothers (age 6 & 7) who lived at separate orphanages in this area. She said the living conditions at the older brother’s orphanage were pretty horrible. Outdoor bathrooms, no hot water even for showers, etc. As they move out of the baby home they live in until age four, things go downhill from there. We had heard that was the case – her experience confirms it. This is her second time adopting here in Ukraine. She has two other children she adopted here about a year and a half ago.

Today we gave Juliana a pair of sunglasses to play with. I don’t think that she ever saw any before, because she squealed and laughed every time she put them on. It was adorable. There are so many things she has never seen that we can’t wait to show her. Even just little things that maybe we take for granted, she is just delighted with! It’s fun to see her reactions to new things. Wonder how she’ll do on the plane ride home?!! She’s beginning to get used to her name (we think). Every time we say “Oksana Juliana” she replies “nah nah” in a singsong voice. It’s so cute. Wish we could get it on video (see below). She’s also mastered “bye bye”. We can’t wait for the boys to meet her and to settle her into our family.

We are having serious technological problems and can’t upload any more video for the time being. The software we use to transfer videos from our camera to the PC keeps freezing up on us. Not sure what’s going on there, but we’ll work on it and will hopefully be able to get it straightened out this week. Can’t exactly call customer service from here. :-(

Seven days to court and counting!!! We have come to the decision that we will be coming back for Juliana in January. Although there appears to be a chance that everything (birth certificate, passport, visa) could be done just in time for us to bring her home by 12/31, just one delay in one step of the process would leave us stranded here for an extra 10 days or so due to the holidays (offices here all but close down 12/31 – 1/7 for the new year and orthodox Christmas). It’s going to be really difficult to leave her for almost a month (we’re leaving 12/12 and will probably come back 1/8 or so), but she’ll be fine and happy at the orphanage since that’s all she’s ever known. It will be tough on us, but not really on her. We’ll miss her terribly, but we truly feel, and Luba agrees, that this is the best decision. She said that this is not at all uncommon and it would be her recommendation. In a way, it’s a relief just to have the decision made. We can’t afford for Steve to be out of work any longer than absolutely necessary.

Thank you all, once again, for your comments, e-mails, and especially prayers. We’ve said it already, but we have truly felt God’s direction throughout this process and we are so, so grateful. Another month and we’ll have our daughter home for good. Can’t wait for you all to meet her – she’s really something.