Ukraine Adoption Stories

Wrighttrip

August 18, 2004 High 70s No Rain
Niguil is a good thing. This definitely helped Debbie sleep last night. Eric on the other hand, had a yappy dog keep him awake. He said he was dreaming for a shiscadog. We are so hungry we are coming up with some scary ideas. This morning for breakfast we ate one of Ella's instant breakfast cereals. It wasn't too bad. We headed to the orphanage to feed and play as usual. Debbie was feeling especially bad. We figured it wouldn't hurt that she went since colds are pretty frequent at the orphanage. We came back and ate the last of the trail mix and prayed we would be able to get a taxi. We did, today it only took about 5 minutes. We already had a better feeling about our venture. We arrived safely. Ironically the driver had gone a different way and we saw the Golden Arches. We both had said that we did not want to see McDonald's for a very long time but we were very excited to see McDonald's today. A Big Mac and Chicken McNuggest meal never tasted so good. We enjoyed lunch, headed to the internet cafe. Hopefully today pictures of Ella went through. We felt better that we wer able to update the journals. We also received awesome news that friends of ours Joe and Pat Davidson had received their appointment. Their appointment is September 13th, less than one month.

After the internet cafe, we found bread, cheese, and other items in the underground market. We then were off to pick up some special Christmas presents. We caught a taxi and were off to go back. We had a very productive afternoon. Debbie's medicine had started working and she felt much better. Things were looking up. We made it back and headed to the orphanage with bananas for the kids. Ella was ready for us and we played and she ate well. While we were feeding her we received a call from Sveta. This time the news was good news. They had signed the documents and we had our court date set for Thursday morning. We pray now the judge will waive the 30 day wait. Mommy was so excited she was crying and squeezed Ella a little to hard and most of her dinner came up that we had just worked so hard to get down. Fortunately the bib caught most of it. Bibs are a good thing. This had been a great day! We know that God has this planned out and we just need to be patient. We came back happy that we might not have to walk those hills again. Tonight we had salami/cheese sandwich with ice cream. We were so excited about tomorrow. We prepared her diaper bag and tried to get ourselves organized for tomorrow. Did we mention their is no hot water. So we have to boil the water everytime we need hot water. It makes the process of getting ready a little longer. Eric was so sweet he gave Debbie a silver necklace to wear to the court hearing. It was a silohette of a mom, dad, and a baby. It was very special. We relaxed watched video of Ella and went to bed.

August 19, 2004

Today we had more of Ella's instant breakfast and milk. We woke up extra early to get ready to go to court. We are supposed to meet Sveta and Victor at 8:00 a.m. out front. 8:15 came, 8:30 came and Sveta called and said they would be hear in 5 minutes. We told her that we would walk to the end of the street to meet her. We were very concerned when 8:55 a.m. came and we did not see them. They finally arrived minutes later. The reason they were late is because they had started that evening to Kharkiv in their van. However, the van broke down and the had to taxi all the way back to Kiev to get their car. They fortunately had called ahead to let the judge and lawyer know we were going to be late. We made it and our lawyer, Sveta, a lady from the orphanage and a lady from the education department met with the judge. The whole proceeding took about thirty minutes. The judge asked questions like... What we did for a living, our birthdays, where we lived, why we wanted to adopt and why did we want to adopt this little girl. We then petitioned that he waive the thirty day wait. Everyone their had agreed, but we were not sure about the judge. In the end he ruled that we could adopt her immediately. We hugged and cried. Yesterday that seemed so far away. Sveta stayed to do paperwork and Victor took us back to the orphanage to visit for 30 minutes. We played and feed her some animal crackers until nap time. She just had gone down when Sveta and Victor pulled in. They advised us that we could take her immediately. We thought that we would have to sign more forms, but we got her right away. We also thought that we would have time to shop for some items (bib, blanket, outfits) but we had many papers to sign and we were on our way once again. We also wanted to buy stuff for the orphanage but that will have to wait. We changed her into an outfit the Sveta had bought and we were on our way and she was ours. We were then off to the notary followed by a passport photo. We hoped to get her new birth certificate that day and leave for Kiev in the morning. We were making good progress but one of our last stops was closed. So hopefully tomorrow we will be able to finish up our paperwork in Kharkiv. In the mean time Ella was getting a little fussy, she missed her nap and was hungry. Luckily mommy had a banana and some rice cereal. That helped but after being in the car all day she was really fussy. We headed back ot the room. We fed her chicken for the first time. She seemed to like it. She had applesauce and more carrot juice. We played for an hour or so. She was fussy and we did not know if it was because she was sleepy, still hungry, or a little scared. We tried to givbe her formula with no success. Although we did finally get her to go to sleep and we were so thankful. We then ate ourselves. This was the first time we had eaten all day. Eric went out to try to get some supplies. While he was out, he showed the pregnant ladys the pictures. They really liked the photos and were very happy to hear about the adoption. Did we mention that we are staying with 50 pregnant women and Eric and Victor or the only guys their. Eric took the formula bottle down to have them translate. We found out that we were a little off on our calculation. Maybe that is why she did not like it. We relaxed, wrote in the journal and wondered what would happen when we try to get in bed with her.

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