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!