Our Flight Leaves in 24 Hours

The past few weeks have been tense and suspenseful, to say the least. We made flight reservations for 1/19, thinking that that would provide plenty of time for Juliana's new birth certificate and passport to be issued with time to spare. You remember - the passport that we thought might, possibly, have an outside chance of having been ready before 12/31? Well, up until this morning there was a very solid possibility that we were going to have to delay our plans another week or two. As of a few days ago, the passport office was telling Luba that Juliana's passport may not be ready until sometime next week (that could mean sometime in March with the Ukrainian government involved). Well, today was the cutoff - if they couldn't guarantee her passport would be ready by Monday (the day we are arriving in Mikolayiv to pick her up), we would have postponed. A lot of people were praying for us - thank you all. Even if they had said it would be ready Monday, it would have been a step of faith for us to get on that plane. We got the word from Luba this morning - THE PASSPORT IS READY! One more answered prayer. Oh - changing our flights would have incurred a $600 penalty, so this is no small blessing.

The next few days will be absolutely crazy. We fly out of Boston tomorrow night, arrive in Kiev at 4:30 Sunday afternoon, get on the train to Mikolayiv around 7:00 Sunday evening, arrive in Mikolayiv Monday morning, pick up Juliana and get back on the train Monday evening to arrive back in Kiev on Tuesday morning. Considering our fondness for Ukrainian trains, we just can't wait to bask in the experience once (make that twice) again. ;-) Once in Kiev, we'll have about two and a half days to get her medical exam and visa through the U.S. Embassy - a process that, by all accounts, is relatively smooth.

The 11 hour train ride and 10 hour flight may be very tough on a little girl who has barely experienced riding in a car. We're praying that she takes it in stride (oh, wait - she's 2). For the sake of the other passengers, we hope she handles it all well. We realize that this whole transition will be very tough on her and expect that she may very well hate us for a few weeks as we yank her out of her comfort zone and away from everything and everyone she's ever known. She hasn't seen us for a month (though we know she hasn't forgotten us and she's been talking about us - Luba saw her a couple of weeks ago), and now we're going to show up and take her away the same day. She bonded so well with us when we were with her (especially with Julie), so hopefully she'll settle in quickly.

We're going to do our best to get online and update the blog a couple of times to keep you all in the loop, at least once we get back to Kiev on Tuesday. God willing, we'll be back on the plane to Amsterdam on Thursday evening and arriving in Boston Friday morning (10:25).

We're coming down the homestretch, and this time we're bringing home the prize!