Grieving, Praising, and Moving Forward in Faith

We had our appointment with the SDA today, the appointment we have been waiting for since September, the day when we would get a referral to meet our children.  We have read about it, imagined it, prayed about it, and talked about it many times.  We were moved into action by two little girls named Tatiana and Margarita - they stole our hearts and we thought of them as our daughters.   

Our prayers have always included that, if we were not meant to be their parents, that they would quickly find the loving home that God has planned for them.  That's the prayer that seems to have been answered.  The SDA did not have record of Tatiana and Margarita.  Either they were adopted by a Ukrainian family, or other guardians - perhaps family - were found for them.  So today we are grieving the loss of these two girls who we considered our daughters, but praising God that they are hopefully taken care of.  They will continue to be in our prayers for a long time to come. 

We have prayed many times for God to use us in the process, that he would continue to form us from miry clay for his purpose and glory (Psalm 40:2).  It is hard right now to be reformed after 7 months of preparing our hearts, home, and family for 2 specific girls.  But it's time for us to move forward and close this chapter and re-open our hearts to His reasons for bringing us here.  We owe that to the children we are about to meet.  Please pray with us that through His will, guidance, and care that this is possible, not just for us but for our entire family.  We are grieving - hard - today, and I can imagine that Sophia and Claire will be grieving in their own ways too, when they get this update. 

We spent an obsenely short amount of time at the SDA, considering our reason for being there.  We spend more time at the grocery store choosing which food to buy.  We were quickly presented with about 5 sibling groups, and then 3 individual girls, before we just ran out of time and we had to decide who we would go visit.  The kids were presented very fast with a description of their mental and physical conditian, age, gender, and any additional special notes if available.  We narrowed it down to 2 sibling groups, but how do you quickly choose which one to go visit?  We did so almost randomly, and we are trying hard to trust God that He knows what we are doing here, because today, we don't feel like we know what we are doing here. 

We chose a brother & sister in southern Ukraine, and were warned that the orphanage director is tough on foreigners.  A few hours later, Konstantin called us to say that he was stopping by our apartment to give us an update.  He told us that it was more complicated than just a "tough director" and that adoption of these two kids would be almost impossible.  Of the few children we learned about today, more than half of them had "complicated" circumstances that would make it difficult for us to adopt them.  Konstantin informed us that his families usually have better options to choose from, that our appointment was unusual.... Lucky us. 

So within hours of our SDA appointment, we were already moving on to Plan B.  (We were warned many times to be flexible, and they weren't kidding!)  We are instead going to visit a different brother/sister sibling group in Chernihiv, on Friday.

We move forward from here in faith that God will give us direction and continue to help us find the kids that he has already planned for our family.

Stay Calm and Kiev On...



 Today is our second day in Kiev, and it's probably the only day of our whole trip that our schedule doesn't revolve around the adoption.  Today was our "buffer" day, just in case there were flight delays, and to give us a day to adjust to the time change and get our game face on!

We wanted to relax today because our emotions are all over the place right now.  We're feeling excited and overwhelmed by being here.  We're nervous about what will happen at the SDA appointment tomorrow, and we're anxious to know which direction the ball will roll from there.  We miss Sophia & Claire, and I (for one) am a little homesick.  And we're intimidated by this city!!!  We've traveled in Europe several times before, but never have we felt so disoriented and uncertain.  All my efforts to become familiar with the Ukrainian language have been completely useless to me here. 

Luckily, Konstantin was able to recommend an English-speaking tour guide, so we enjoyed our one free day by taking in some of the city of Kiev.  It is a beautiful European city.  One might mistake some sights, like the square in front of St. Sophia church, for another European city, like Italy.  Unlike other areas of Europe, however, you won't find many original buildings.  Most of what you see, even of the "historic" sights, are replicated because the originals were destroyed.  Our guide gave us a crash course in Ukraine's ever-changing and sometimes turbulant history.  Also unlike other cities in Europe, you will not see many tourists, and you especially won't hear anyone else speaking English.  I felt like I was walking around with a giant American flag painted on my face. 

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs building - we were told that there were supposed to be many more buildings like this one built by Stalin, framing Kiev's very own version of the Red Square.  St. Michael's church is next door to this building, creating quite a contrast.  St. Michael's was torn down to make room for more buildings like this one, and was just rebuilt after Ukraine regained independence. 

 

The People's Friendship Arch built in 1982 to represent

the unification of Russia and Ukraine

 

 

Майдан Незалежності - Independence Square, our "home base"

and point of reference for finding our way back to our apartment! 

 

 

Recreation of the "Golden Gate" which was one of three entrances to the city of Kiev almost 1000 years ago, with a statue of Yaroslav the Wise holding St. Sophia Cathedral

 

 

The bell tower of St. Michael's

 



 

 

 

 

Preparing for Take-Off

We're sitting in a Starbucks in Amsterdam, waiting over 3 hours for our connection to Kiev.  It's 6 a.m. on Monday morning here, but our bodies are telling us that it is midnight.  We're exhausted, but we still have hours and hours to go before we're settled in Kiev. 

A week ago we were busy celebrating our risen Christ with our family in Pennsylvania, and waiting patiently to hear from the SDA about our upcoming appointment.  Based on others’ experiences and counseling from our adoption agency we knew the time would soon be coming, and then we would have a couple weeks to prepare to be on our way.  Well… instead it has been an exhilarating rush to get ready since Monday.  We were given one week to be in Ukraine.  We will have our SDA appointment on 04/10/2013 at 9:00am.

We got our official invite Monday (04/01/2013) via e-mail.  Well, Michelle got the e-mail.  I got the news by way of shrieks, and frantic shaking of hand held technology.  She didn’t let me down with her reaction.  I am so blessed to have been there for it.  God’s timing is perfect because on a usual Monday I would have long been at work when Olga’s e-mail came in.  The joy, excitement, and panic that was seen on Michelle’s face within seconds was priceless as she cycled through the same response over and over for about 10 minutes before it caught up with her that we would have to start traveling in less than a week.

The van was converted into Michelle’s mobile office and off we went Monday morning.  In the first three hours after receiving the e-mail she booked our travel, made countless other phone calls and contacts, and created the master list of to dos.  I got off easy and just kept the wheels between the ditches. 

Throughout the week Michelle prepared the house, girls, and made countless arrangements.  I made arrangements at work and prepared everything I could to be gone for a few weeks.  Friday and Saturday we spent time with Sophie and Claire, packed, repacked, and packed again, lamenting over what to take for us, the orphanage, director, others who help us along the way, and most importantly for Tatiana and Rita. 

We wished Sophie and Claire good bye about 13 hours ago, and they seem a world away right now.  We can't wait to be able to call them soon with some news! 

While We're Waiting...

The song While I'm Waiting by John Waller is constantly going through my head.  Six months is not a long time at all, for adoption.  But it feels like a very long time, knowing that our children are out there, out of our reach for now.  It's sometimes heartbreaking, and often it takes all the strength I have to leave them in God's hands.  We were channeling all that energy into preparing our home study and dossier up until now.  But now that the dossier is in the hands of the State Department of Adoptions in Ukraine, I can't do anything for our daughters except pray, and ask others to pray for them too.   

 

We've been praying for our girls for years, actually.  I remember when Claire was a baby, more than 6 years ago, I was telling someone about our hope to adopt someday.  It dawned on me suddenly, like lightning and thunder right there in the middle of a bookstore, that I might already have a child somewhere in the world!  At that very moment, our child or children could already have been born into a family that, for whatever reason, wouldn't or couldn't take care of them. 

 

Only God knew who, and where, and when, and what they would have to endure on their journey to get to our family.  I've spent the last 6 years since then asking God to take care of our kids, if they were already in this world. 

 

It turns out that I was right.  At that moment 6 years ago, Tatiana was already 2 years old.  We don't know if she was happy, or healthy, or already diagnosed with diabetes at that time.  We don't know who took care of her, or how well they took care of her.  We may never know exactly what we missed.  We just have to trust that they were in God's hands, and that His timing was, and is, perfect. 

 

So we've been waiting to find them for a long time, and they've been waiting for us for a long time... And God's been waiting for us to finally be obedient to Him for a really long time. 

 

So compared to all of that, these next few weeks of waiting REALLY aren't that long after all. 

 

While I'm Waiting - John Waller

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7TSGptd3Y

Whac-A-Mole for Dummies

I had an epiphany today, while I was sobbing and driving home from yet another waste of time errand... I am stuck in one giant game of Whac-A-Mole.  Every time I think I have everything with the adoption process under control, something unexpected pops up.  I'm in the middle of whacking that mole at the upper left corner, and I'm thinking that the one in the middle should pop up next.  But out of the corner of my eye, I see the one in the lower right pop up unexpectedly, and I can't get to it in time.  And I think the game should have been over by now, but more moles keep popping up!  That is precisely what this feels like. 


It's very hard to find the right words to describe what these last few months of preparing our home study and dossier have been like.  There was an exciting sense of community at the beginning, but now it's a little isolating because it feels like there is exactly ONE other person in the world who understands how complicated, frustrating, and unpredictable this can be.  My friend (who is also adopting from Ukraine) and I have agreed that there should be better step-by-step instructions on how to go through this process, and joked that maybe I should write a book.  If I ever do, I'm going to title it Whac-A-Mole for Dummies.   

A Tribute to the 171H...

Our long-awaited 171H letter has arrived from the Dept. of Homeland Security!  It was so beautiful, it made me tear up a little.  It was a little like looking at your baby on an ultrasound for the first time... an affirmation that this really is happening and you're making progress towards meeting your child! 

This is a "guard-it-with-your-life" piece of paper, and since you probably don't know what a 171H is all about or what we went through to get it, I shall honor it with a biography....

If you want to adopt internationally, you first have to deal with the Department of Homeland Security and the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services).  You have to submit an application called I-600A, to declare a foreign orphan as an immediate relative.  Ukraine requires us to have this preapproval before we can even submit our completed dossier to the Ukrainian State Department of Adoption, and the preapproval is the first step in getting an immigrant visa for each child at the US embassy in Kiev. 

Just getting to submit the I-600A application was a long process.  We hit the ground running with the adoption on September 24, 2012.  First we had to complete all our applications, request documents (like birth & marriage certificates), have background checks, write essay questions, and get reference letters... all this was just to get our feet inside the door at the adoption agency and home study agency!!!  It took us about a month to do all of this.  Then we completed more paperwork to get the home study started, which we began on October 29th.  The completed home study arrived in our hands after Thanksgiving.  This was all unbelievably fast. 

Once we had the home study, we were able to submit a copy of it with the I-600A application, along with more copies of birth certificates and our marriage certificate.  After about 5 weeks, we had our appointment with the USCIS office in Durham for fingerprinting.  It was a humbling experience to walk into the Citizenship & Immigration office, the center of activity for all who want the privilege of becoming an American citizen, a privilege that I was born with and often take for granted.
 
I guess they decided we're good people, because our 171H approval letter arrived a very short 11 days later. 

So what's next?

This 171H approval letter becomes an important part of our dossier - a dossier is the package of documents that you submit to the country - but there are a lot of other components to the dossier that we have been busy preparing!  Thankfully, our adoption agency helped us to prepare many of these documents, because they have to be flawless.  They included our petition to adopt, affidavits, letters of commitment, various powers of attorney, income statements, home ownership documents, medical documents, (more) criminal clearances, etc.  All of these things have to be court-issued or notarized.  Then we have to send them to the Secretary of State's office to be authenticated, which means that the state is verifying that our notary and the court officials are authorized to notarize or issue our documents.

It's been a little over 4 months since we began this journey, and it seems like a long time to spend on "just paperwork."  It's hard to make the average person who's never adopted understand just how much was involved, but when I think about it, I can hardly believe we've come so far so fast!  God has truly blessed us and we know without a doubt that His hand is in this!   

"FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS"

Here are some of the questions we have been frequently asked in the past three months...

Does the Russian ban on American adoptions affect your adoption?

No, so far we have no reason to think that the actions that have been taken in Russia (stopping Americans from adopting Russian orphans) will have any impact on our adoption.  The only way we can think of that we might be affected would be if those families who would have adopted from Russia in the near future might instead submit their dossiers to Ukraine.  If the Ukrainian SDA is being inundated with more American dossiers than usual, it might slow down the usual timeline. 

WHY adopt from Ukraine?  Why not adopt a child in the United States?  (a VERY frequently asked question!)

Very simply... because our daughters are there! 
We have been talking about adoption since we got married, but it's overwhelming and we struggled for years with knowing when, how, where, etc.  We explored both international and US adoption, but the more we learned about orphans worldwide, the more we felt led towards international adoption. 

We learned about hosting programs that bring orphans from Ukraine & other Eastern European countries to the United States for 4-5 weeks during the summer and over Christmas each year.  The purpose of these programs is for these kids to experience family life, make connections in the United States, and hopefully even find their "forever family."  We were making plans to host a sibling group during the summer of 2013, when we received an e-mail from the adoption agency with a listing of special needs orphans.  And then we saw Tetyana's listing, and the plans changed!  We knew without a doubt that God has been leading us to them.

Do Tetyana and Margarita know that you are trying to adopt them?

They do!  We wrote a letter and sent it with a package of small gifts in the beginning of October, about 1 week after we started the adoption process.  They received it in the end of November, and we were told that they were excited to receive it and liked their gifts.  We sent a second package in December but they haven't gotten it yet.

Have you seen any pictures of the girls?

We have one picture of Tetyana (who is 8-years-old), greeting us on the refrigerator door every day and going everywhere with me in my purse!  Unfortunately we are not allowed to share the picture electronically, so I can't post it on Facebook or here on this blog. 
We have not been able to see a picture of Margarita (who is 4-years-old)... the only thing we know about her appearance is that she has red hair! 

How long will it take to complete the adoption?

About 9 months is the average for Ukraine, and that is significantly less time than most other foreign countries, where it can sometimes take a year or two to get a referral.  That's even less time than most domestic adoptions in the United States, because foster parents often have to wait a long time for parental rights to be terminated.  Right now we are on track to complete our adoption this spring.  We are almost ready to submit our dossier to Ukraine, and then we just have to wait for them to give us an appointment with the SDA (State Department of Adoption).

Will you both have to travel to Ukraine?  How long will you be there?

Yes, we will both have to travel to Ukraine to officially "select" our children at a meeting with the SDA, travel to the region to meet the children, appear in court, wait for the adoption to be approved, take care of business at the US Embassy, etc.  The entire trip could take 30-45 days.  We may be able to travel home during a 10-day waiting period after the adoption is approved by the court, but otherwise we will have to remain in Ukraine.

Will Sophia and Claire travel to Ukraine too?

No.  They would miss weeks of school, and have to endure a lot of "adult" tasks, like court hearings and lengthy traveling... But most importantly we feel that this is our time with Tetyana and Margarita.  This is their time to get to know us, and our time to get to know them and experience their environment and culture.  There will be plenty of time to get to know their sisters when they get home! 

How do Sophia and Claire feel about having new siblings? 

They are excited, and we're using this time to prepare Sophia and Claire in every way we can think of!  We talk about their sisters every day.  Claire is especially excited about being a BIG sister, after 6 1/2 years of being the little sister!
It hasn't been all perfect.  Sophia has asked why we can't just have another baby, and she has also expressed some pretty mature concerns about bringing children into our family that we've never even met!  But we've been talking about adoption for so many years that it's a natural part of who our family is and what we're meant to do.  Sophia believes that and accepts that more than we could have ever hoped she would, and therefore she has been very open to talking over her concerns with us!