We spent Tuesday afternoon and evening running a few errands
and hanging out with the kids. Each time
we visit the staff is more comfortable with us and we get to explore and see
new areas of the orphanage while we spend time with the kids. The kids all are truly blessed to have such a
dedicated and loving staff.
Wednesday – the day the court waiting period was over, the
day the kids are officially ours, the day we have been waiting for since September!
– was actually a little anti-climactic.
The excitement got lost in translation and in the rush. The day started out at the local court house
where we got the official court decree granting us guardianship of sweet Anya
and Sasha. There was a minor delay, but
nothing our feisty adoption coordinator couldn’t get fixed in about 90 minutes. She is truly blessed with the gift of being
detail-oriented and not being afraid to ruffle some feathers to get this work
done. As soon as the court decision was
given to her she put it in her bag and we ran for the car. No time for pomp and circumstance!
Three hours later we arrive in Zaporozhe at the birth certificate
office. We did the paper work to get
their new birth certificates issued.
Their names are now officially Anna Lynn Stinson and Sasha Thomas
Stinson, and we are listed on their official birth certificate as their
parents. But once again, the papers went
directly into the folder and into the bag.
No time for pomp and circumstances!
From the birth certificate office, we went to the tax ID
office where they assign the kids ID number to their new name. This will be needed for the passport
process. Our coordinator completed this
with her usual swiftness. Then we found
a notary and got a passport petition made for Anya and Sasha. The papers with the new ID numbers and the
passport petition went directly into the bag.
No time for pomp and circumstance!
By then it was 4:00 and we hadn’t even had time to eat
anything all day, much less see the kids. We made the long drive back to Berdyans’k to
see them for a few minutes before bed. It
had been a busy day for them too. Sasha
went to the doctor to get a follow-up check and X-ray done while we were gone. The children had been taken for passport
photos. But by the time we got back to
the orphanage, it was too late to take the birth certificates and ID numbers to
the appropriate offices so that we could officially get them out of the
orphanage. It was not how we imagined
our first official day as their legal Mama & Papa would go. We only had a few minutes with them , and we
were hot and sticky and drained from our day of running around in the heat. No time OR energy for pomp and circumstance.
On Thursday morning, our coordinator spent the morning running
around delivering official copies of the court decree and birth certificates to
everyone who needed them. She also went
to pick up the passport photos, and then promptly picked up the children to
take them to have new photos taken. The
kids were washed and scrubbed by their caregivers. They gathered up their few belongings, all of
which were things that we have given them, and they were very casually delivered
to us. Still no pomp and
circumstance! We had them change into
clothes and shoes that we brought for them so that they could leave the
orphanage’s clothes and shoes. We had
them leave a couple big toys we had brought for their friends, trying to
explain that they would be too big to carry on the train or plane. They did this with no arguments at all. We got to the car to leave and – FINALLY – a
little pomp and circumstance: Hugs for
the director, and some pictures.
We (the 4 of us, plus our coordinator and the driver) squeezed into
the small car and drove the 3 hours back to Zaporozhe. We applied for their new passports, but
one of the ID numbers wasn’t set-up in the system correctly, so Alla had to run
back to the ID office and get this fixed before we could finish the passport
application.
And now we wait for the passports to be printed before we
can do anything with the US embassy. But
we got some disappointing news about that… there are some delays with printing
passports right now and we can’t predict exactly when they will be ready. We are waiting until next Tuesday (the next
business day because there is a 4-day holiday weekend right now) to hopefully
get an update about this. We are praying
that everything will be resolved by then and there will be no delays!
We had our first dinner together, at a cafeteria where they
could choose what they wanted to eat.
They both picked tomato & cucumber salad (It’s summer… Cucumbers are
the new cabbage!), potatoes and kielbasa, and strawberry pierogies. And unfortunately we forgot to take
pictures. After dinner, we went to the train station to
wait for our overnight train to Kiev, where we would unfortunately spend our
first night together split up in two different train compartments. As we waited though, we finally remembered
to take a few pictures of the kids as we gave them each a gift for our "Gotcha Day"!
The past several days have been so lacking in that “pomp and
circumstance” that we’re not really expecting it now! We just transitioned very casually into a
family. I don’t know what we were
expecting. Something grand and
ceremonial ? When you have a new baby,
there are so many little milestones and statistics that you pause to savor and
document… time of birth, weight, footprints, pictures of every family member
holding the baby, that moment when you leave the hospital as a family, the
homecoming, first bath, baptism… I could go on and on, because I was one of
those sentimental moms that photographed and mentally catalogued
EVERYTHING! We’ve missed all of this
with Anya and Sasha. As I watched Sasha
sleep (for the first time) on the train, I cried at everything that we have
missed. Over nine years’ worth of
memories and milestones that I will never have and never be able to share with
them. Not one picture or story. It will overwhelm me with sorrow if I let it,
and I have to repeatedly remind myself not to let that happen. We have RIGHT NOW, and we’re ready to live it
and love it. 
