Friday the 13th of August - the day we meet the boys!!!

Okay, here we go!! 7:30am pickup by Vadim for the four hour drive to Kirovograd, 400km southeast of Kiev to the orphanage. On our way out of Kiev we stop at the airport to pick up our travelling coordinator, Natasha, who works for Lesya and will be translating for us and helping us with everything during our time in the other regions. Natasha is a young Ukrainian ex-teacher, married with a 4 year old son and seems quite sweet and much calmer than Lesya, probably a good thing at this point! We pick her up at the airport bus stop and start our 4 hour journey across the center of the agricultural region of Ukraine. As we leave the outskirts of Kiev, all you can see are miles and miles of rolling hills covered in nothing but sunflowers, with huge fields of corn interspersed among the yellow flowers. Our driver Vadim steers us at a high rate of speed (80-85mph) over fairly run down two lane roads. Natasha isn't as talkative as Lesya and only speaks when we ask questions, I think she is fairly new at this but has an air of confidence about her. So we just lean back and enjoy the ride through fields of yellow sunflowers all turned towards the rising sun.

Hard to imagine that in a few hours we could be meeting our future sons. Last night before we went to bed we went to the large department store near our flat to buy presents for each of them, along with cookies and candy. Can't show up empty handed! We bought each of the little boys a fancy toy car, one a red BMW convertible, the other a silver sports car, plus a couple of jigsaw puzzles with farm animals and a map of Ukraine, we also picked out a nice sports watch for the older boy Ivan and a couple of stuffed animals for Maxim and Dennis.
As we approach the region where the orphanage is, it appears we have no idea where we are going. Vadim and Natasha start the usual 'Ukrainian banter', looking at maps and pointing at signs. Meanwhile we sit in the back seat thinking about what is to come, enjoying the scenery as we follow the main river that feeds this agricultural powerhouse - a region that the USSR used to feed most of its people.
Getting lost in the Ukraine appears to be a national past-time. The roads are old and not very well marked. We know we are getting close but when we ask one man for directions he gives us different directions from the woman we just asked, and so on...
We finally reach the town about 12:30pm and Natasha explains that before we go to the orphanage we will meet our lawyer, also named Natasha, to make copies of our forms and speak to her about the process. But first we must find her office! Asking people on the street we find a nice man in a Mercedes and he tells us to follow him.

 

Natasha the lawyer, is a very nice middle aged woman who appears quite formidable. Her office is very 'lawyer-ish' with dark wood trim and a large dark mahogany desk. A very impressive office, and as we will see in a few minutes a very powerful woman in the region. Emma and I joke that this country appears to be run by women, at least this part of the industry.

Next stop before the orphanage is a visit to the social worker for this region. We are taken into an old Soviet looking building with old wooden floors and wooden theatre seats lined up outside the long corridor of dingy offices. Natasha #1 leads us merrily into the office of the head social worker, a sour dumpy looking woman, about 4ft tall, 250lbs of old misery who obviously hates her job and probably her life. She shares her tiny hot office with two younger miserable women, with a fan rotating in the corner with stacks of paper piled high. We great her in Ukrainian, to which she grumbles back, takes our papers and immediately gets on the phone. She has her desk phone in one hand and her mobile in the other while ranting about something in Ukrainian (possibly Russian). Natasha attempts to calm her down and then escorts us out to sit in the hallway in one of those old Russian theatre benches while she calls Natasha the lawyer. This ought to be fun - the cranky old social worker versus the powerful lawyer. My odds are on the social worker, however we are optimistic that Natasha will prevail. Within minutes Natasha comes storming down the hallway in her black dress and high heels and turns into the social workers office. The sounds of two women arguing at full voice resonate down the hallways while the three of us sit and listen and laugh. Apparently the cause of all this commotion is the fact that we are caught in this small administrative dilemma, whereby the older boy is not officially adoptable yet and they won't split the boys up, so how could we even be allowed to meet the two young boys until the paperwork has started on Ivan? In the local social worker's mind, all three are hands off, but Kiev is all-powerful and our lawyer finally convinces her to get out of the way, stamp the damn forms and let's go.

 

We all pile in to two cars, one car holding the two women who were just screaming at each other, and we take the ten minute drive to the orphanage. By this time it's about 2:30 and the kids are napping, except for two special little boys who have been told that they might be meeting their new Mama and Papa. As we drive up, Emma and I go, 'OMG, this is the place', our hearts start to pound as we gather our presents and our composure. The orphanage is quite nice- not at all what we pictured. Apparently, it is one of the better ones. We are escorted upstairs to a large playroom, where we are surrounded by women - our two Natashas, the grumpy social worker, two Doctors, and the Deputy Orphanage Director. We are given all of the medical history of the two boys and told of their behavior, what they like to do, and the story of their short one year stay at this orphanage. As we sit there in these tiny chairs absorbing all of the info, they bring in these two little boys, all dressed up in their best play clothes, each holding a plastic car. They are immediately directed towards us and they quickly walk over to us, presenting their cars and these huge adorable eyes. The next few minutes are truly a blur as we try to interact with them and make them feel comfortable. We are now on the floor at their level, babbling and acting like school kids. I reach into the bag to give them their really cool heavy metal sports cars from the big city, still in their boxes, fastened in so tight that we can't even get them out of the box without a screwdriver. Good planning Dave!

Plan B - biscuits and cookies which they devour and enjoy while I try to free the cars from their boxes. It is so hot and humid and I am dripping with sweat mostly from the excitement of the moment. Ukrainian and English words are spoken back and forth, mainly between Emma and some other folks that have joined the room. As things start to calm down, we are given time to be alone with them.

OMG these kids are so sweet. They are active and happy and loving and funny. Max will be three tomorrow and Dennis just turned four on June 1st. Max takes to Emma while Dennis (the Menace) takes to me, with his huge brown eyes and that 'cool smile' I spoke about earlier. We have no way to communicate, but you can feel something going on. Natasha #1 comes back to help translate as we show them pictures on the laptop, sing songs as I play piano and they beat drums and play the tambourine.
Hours pass by like minutes, very hard to describe (or remember even!). We pull out the jigsaw puzzle with the farm animals and sound off the noises made by cows, pigs, cats and dogs. We point to the cow and Dennis goes, 'Moo', I say it is a cow and he corrects me with the Ukrainian word for cow. He is quite good at putting the puzzle back together but relies on me a lot - handing me a piece and saying 'Papa' with each request for help. They both start calling me Papa as if I am truly their Papa! Wow, I really wasn't expecting that.

 

Emma has already fallen in love with Max, as we continue to play with both of them. Emma teaches them a game of ready-set-go and they understand exactly what is going on. They are very bright and wonderful little boys, they are amazed by the digital camera and video camera and enjoy watching themselves on the video. Their sugar buzz kicks in as they run circles around us, as our heads are going around in circles with them. The staff come back in and somebody asks 'so you will adopt, you like these boys?' of course we do, everybody is happy and the boys probably don't have a clue, but deep down I think they do. It is time for them to go take their nap, so we say goodbye. Emma picks up Max and holds him in her arms as we kiss them goodbye, they walk out hand in hand and wave as they leave the room. Emma starts crying and throws her arms around me, we stand there in a strong embrace as Natasha watches by the door. Wow, what an amazing experience. It went by so fast with so many things happening at once. Afterwards, Emma and I were sharing thoughts and memories of the time we were with Max and Dennis, while I was working on freeing the cars from their tombs and keeping the boys entertained, apparently there were two or three other women that paraded through to provide other information. Emma was particularly impressed with the details they provided and how rigorously they provided them. All ladies in white coats, very professional. First the Head Doctor and the Pediatrician, who seemed a very gentle and kind woman who quietly told her about the children's medical history. Then another lady with gold front teeth, who was their teacher, told us all about their academic abilities. Max loves to dress up and Dennis loves to do puzzles. When they are naughty, they are made to sit on the table. Finally we saw the Orphanage social worker who told us about their short and rather sad family history, how they had been neglected and had to spend time in hospital when they were removed from their mother. All the women were clearly proud of what they had done for these boys, how clever they were, how tall they had grown, how much they now weighed, and how they were well behaved. It was like Max and Dennis had a room full of mothers all watching us to see if we stood up to their own expectations.

We left the orphanage about 5 or 6pm, said goodbye to our driver Vadim, as he wanted to get back to Kiev (who could blame him?). Another driver, Nikolai, took us back to Natasha's law office to discuss what would happen next. She offers us some very nice Cognac to settle our nerves, to which of course we oblige. Lesya calls from Kiev and is so excited for us, crying about how well everything went. Of course it all depends on what happens tomorrow when we meet Ivan, the older brother. If he turns out to be 'Ivan the Terrible' we start over!

 

The two Natasha's describe what will happen tomorrow - Ivan is in his third week of a four week summer camp with his Orphanage mates, down on the coast near Odessa. It is about a six hour drive, plus his social worker and counsellor from the Orphanage are a further 100km in the other direction. So we discuss options of how we will all get there with one goal in mind, for us to meet Ivan and decide on the fate of these three young boys. We decide to hire two cars and we will all meet near Odessa and head to the camp, but we must get up at 4am to leave as early as possible! So Natasha #1 takes us to our new flat across the street from the lawyer's office where all three of us will stay in a small 1 bedroom flat. We grab a quick Ukrainian dinner in a cool little restaurant and call it a day. Tomorrow will be less stressful but much more important in determining what happens next. Our bellies full, Natasha sleeps on the couch and we fall asleep with a sort of calmness in our hearts, Good Night Max and Dennis.