Friday October 15, 2010 - Approval from Kirovograd City Board



Today is the day (at 11am) we go in front of the Kirovograd City Council and all of the social workers to get their approval to adopt all three boys. This approval will kick off the process of establishing our court date next week. I get up about 7am and quietly head downstairs to make coffee, eat some cereal and work on my blog. Emma is still feeling pretty bad, and in fact was up all night until she finally took a sleeping pill about 2am, so I plan on letting her sleep as late as possible. At about 10am, Natasha comes down with some great news. She just got a call from Vanya's counselor Alexei who has business in Kirovograd today and has decided to bring Vanya along so that we can all go see Max and DJ together! Vanya hasn't seen his brothers since February so I bet he's quite excited to see them. And this will be the first time that all five of us will be together in the same room - sounds like a great photo opportunity!

Natasha asks me how Emma is feeling. I tell her she had a pretty rough night and is finally getting some sleep. "But its time to go soon! Our appointment is at 11 and the driver is picking us up in 30 minutes!" Oh shit - I lost track of time...better get Emma up quick so we can both get ready. I bring her a huge mug of coffee (which eventually falls into the bathroom sink into a pile of broken glass - nice job Dave), and tell her the good news and the bad news. We get to see Vanya today and the driver will be here in 20 minutes!! We quickly get ready and at 10:40 we pile into the taxi and head to the city government building where we met the crabby social worker last August. We are told to go upstairs to wait for our little hearing. While we wait, we meet a couple from Tel Aviv who we saw at the baby orphanage yesterday. They are adopting an 18 month old baby girl and are pretty much at the same stage as we are, altho they are still awaiting final blood work on the baby. We start chatting with them about where we're from, etc. and exchange phone numbers to possibly meet up this weekend.



 

A little after 11am we are called into this large room where ten women and one man are sitting at the end of the room in a large semi-circle table facing out towards us as if it was some sort of a criminal inquisition. We are invited to sit before them and the woman at the head of the bench says they only have one question. Through Natasha our translator, she asks what appears to be a simple question which spirals into a whirlwind of panic and confusion. Our response triggers a series of comments and arguments between the panel, and more follow-up questions are thrown our way that don't seem to settle them down very much. As the heated Ukrainian discussion continues to escalate, we are getting quite worried that things are going horribly wrong and we begin to wonder why our lawyer isn't here with us. Questions about why we have decided to have Emma adopt all three when I could be adopting Vanya...blah blah blah. I won't get into the details of Ukrainian law and how the age differences factor in to the process - suffice it to say that for a brief moment we saw everything unravelling and wondered if these crazy old ladies were going to force us to start our paperwork all over again. Then all of a sudden they called for a vote and every one of them raised their hand in favor of allowing our case to proceed to the court. Very bizarre series of events with all of these ladies making statements about Ukrainian vs. American citizenship, while grand-standing about their opinions of International adoptions, etc. Almost like they were campaigning for higher public office, speaking their mind about the looming moratorium and using this opportunity to state their opinions. I could be wrong - maybe they just like to hear the sound of their own voices...;^) But after the dust had settled, they really didn't have an issue about what we were doing - I think they just wanted us to sweat a bit, which we did!!!

We were excused from the inquisition and upon leaving the room we gave our Israeli friends the thumbs up and wished them good luck. Now we get to meet up with Vanya and his two brothers! We head off to the baby orphanage where Vanya and Alexei are patiently waiting outside for us. Vanya is so excited to see us - his smile brings tears to our eyes...and he still has his Michigan hat that I gave him on Wednesday!  We give Vanya a couple stuffed animals for him to give to his brothers, along with the toy cars he bought for them at the market near his school. You can see how happy he is to see his brothers, and we can't wait to have all of them together for a few hours this afternoon!


 

We enter the orphanage and check into the front office. Natasha tells them we are here to see Max and DJ, and we have a special surprise for them. She makes a few calls to the Director and the head nurse, but the response is heart-breaking. Due to the mini-quarantine, the nurse has decided that the boys will not be able to see us today as they don't want kids from different orphanages spending time together when they are sick. We plead to make an exception as Vanya has come a long way to see his brothers, but they say they can't allow it today. They are very sorry, but the head nurse has made her decision. Vanya starts to cry and lays his head on Emma's shoulder and quietly cries for about 15 minutes as Natasha and Emma try to console him. So sad to see him upset - the boy with the effervescent smile and sparkling blue eyes suddenly over-taken by tears. After a while, the men take over and try to get him to 'man-up' - no more of that crying son! Time to get some lunch - we'll all be together soon enough!

So we head to Camellia's to have lunch with our dear Vanya while Natasha and Alexei head to the lawyers office to take care of business. As we eat lunch, the three of us sit in relative silence while we show pictures of our house and his bedroom and try to speak about how wonderful everything will be, etc. It's nice to be alone with Vanya at our favorite restaurant, altho it makes me wonder how I will communicate with him when we get home to Vegas.  Natasha returns from the lawyers office after filing all of our documents from this morning and grabs a quick lunch with us before she heads back to Kiev. She has a 2pm bus to catch so that she can get all of our paperwork back to Lesya so she can do her magic and request our court date with the SDA office first thing Monday morning.

 

We say goodbye to her as she runs to catch her bus (how will we ever survive without her this weekend?), and we decide to take Vanya clothes shopping before he has to head back to his school. Our driver Nikolai knows a nice kids clothing shop in town so we head over there and are immediately swarmed by sales women dying to put Vanya in the latest fashions. He really is a chick magnet! They pick out two pairs of nice trousers, an adorable sweater and a really nice winter parka with a fur collar. Vanya is in heaven with all of this attention and he loves his new clothes. I call Natasha and have her explain to Alexei that we expect Vanya to hold onto these clothes and that nobody else takes them from him!

 

Time for Vanya to leave so we say goodbye and exchange hugs and kisses - we'll see you next week at court little guy!! Only five more days in the orphanage and then you are with us forever! Natasha told us that he couldn't wait to get out of there, which alleviated our concerns about whether or not he really wanted to leave his friends behind.

We head back home and Emma goes back to bed to rest while I watch Ukrainian television and write in my journal. Natasha the lawyer (our landlady) stops by for a visit and brings her housekeeper to do a bit of cleaning. She brought a big jar of home-made honey to help Emma feel better, and while the maid cleans up our mess (including the broken glass), Natasha gets her construction workers to chop some firewood for us. She has quite a large renovation project underway here at her son's house, expanding the house to a third floor with a loft above that! It will be quite a nice house when its done with a great view of downtown Kirovograd. We are getting very comfortable here - it kind of has a rustic ski lodge feel to it, with treacherous wooden stairs carved to fit each step and large wooden doors that you would expect to find in a western ranch house in Colorado. I suppose we are helping with the financing of this project so its fun to watch the progress, as slow as it is...

 

Emma comes down at dinner time and we feast on burned pizza and wine and call it a day. And what an emotional roller-coaster day it was! Time for a relaxing weekend with nothing to do but rest, read and think about our new family. Good night Vanya, DJ and Max. We can't wait until we get all of you together for good!