I will admit right from the start that I am forcing myself to sit down and write out this blog post. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to start a post in the last week only to delete everything and log off Blogger. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it is mostly because I feel a little stupid writing about what is going on at this point in the journey. Really, does anyone actually want to read about how I spent some time cleaning today, got our physician to write out prescriptions for a general antibiotic in case we get sick in Ukraine, worked on writing out a schedule for my mom who will be taking care of R&M while we are gone or "trial packed" to see how badly I am overpacking? This part of the journey is very, very important. Just not too exciting. I think the only thing that remotely qualifies as "exciting" is that we booked a flight from Kiev to a region that is two hours from Olga's region. It was that or take the overnight train and I just wasn't feelin' the train vibe.
The bright side of all of the boring stuff is that it means we are very, very close to getting our daughter home. We leave a week from today. Our court appointment is in ten days. We should get to see Olga in twelve days! Quite a while back I gave a quick tutorial on what the process might look like once in Ukraine. I'll recap that now:
We arrive in Kiev on Saturday, 1/29/11. We will be met at the airport by our facilitator then taken to an apartment for our time in Kiev. Our appointment with the State Department of Adoptions is on Monday, 1/31/11. After our appointment we will be granted a referral to travel to Olga's region, however, we cannot pick up the referral until after 4:00 PM on Tuesday, 2/1/11. We take a short flight and will be met by a driver who will drive us to Olga's region, two hours away. The next day, Wednesday, 2/2/11 we will meet with the Inspector who will give us permission to go to Olga's orphanage to meet with her. Hopefully we will walk straight to the orphanage at that point to see her. Unfortunately I know I must prepare myself for a much cooler reception that what I am used to at home from Olga. It is just different there. She has already warned me that at the orphanage she is much more somber and does not act the same way there as she does here at home. :( We will most likely spend some time with the Inspector, Director of the orphanage, perhaps a teacher and our facilitator/translator before Olga is brought in. Those people will pepper us with questions about why we want to adopt Olga. Then we should see our girl! After visiting I *believe* Olga will be asked if she wants to be adopted by us and she will then have to write out a statement saying as much. Once our facilitator/translator has that then she can start working on getting us a court date ASAP. We are hoping for a very quick court date, but not holding our breath! If we have court by 2/14/11 I will be very happy. In the meantime we will be allowed to visit Olga everyday and spend time with her. When we go to court the judge will ask us many, many questions about why we are adopting, how many kids we have at home, can we afford to support another child, how will we educate her, etc... As long as we answer his questions to his satisfaction we will be granted the adoption and named Olga's parents (YAY)! However, there is a 10 day waiting period before the court decree is issued just in case someone would like to contest the adoption. After court Jeff will be leaving Ukraine to come home while I stay and finalize everything. After the ten day wait I will be given physical custody of Olga-until then she must stay at the orphanage. As soon as the ten days are over we can get a new birth certificate for her with our names as her parents and apply for a new passport for her. Once we have those items in hand we go back to Kiev where she will have a medical exam and an exit interview and get her Visa. And then we shall be homeward bound. Sounds pretty simple, huh? :) If I have learned anything from other's experiences in Ukraine adoption I have learned that you can't plan on anything going a certain way. Everything I describe above should happen. Should being the key word. Some people go to Ukraine and everything goes as planned. Some people...not so much.
I am very much looking forward to detailing the process in action as opposed to describing what *should* happen. In the meantime, wish me luck with my packing. :)
S~
WOoHOO! Youre almost there!
ReplyDeleteDoes she ever go by Olya? Ive never heard of an Olga going by Olga... they all seem to go by their nicknames...
The orphan attitude was hard to see at first, but when it was just us, we had our girl back...
Praying for the journey to go as it "should"
I'm curious why you're flying into Donesk instead of Lugansk? There is an airport in Lugansk, which is where you will be staying at the apartment and is only 30 mins away from the boarding school ... this is the airport we left out of when we couldn't get train tickets back to Kiev for our 2nd SDA appt.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is a 10 day waiting period, but you pick up the court decree on the 11th day, and if that's a holiday or a weekend then you'd have to wait until the next business day. Then you take the court decree to the Vital Records Office in the city of her birth, which could be 30 minutes away or several hours. If you get there by 1:00pm there is a chance you can get the new birth certificate on the same day ... if nothing goes wrong with printers/computer and if they're not overly busy. At this boarding school they will not give you physical custody of her until you have the new birth certificate in hand. So, for us we managed to get the birth certificate around 5:30pm and the city was 30 mins away so we got to the school just after 6pm. They left me there to play with D while they did some more paper chasing ... then I signed some forms at the school, said goodbye to S, got his clothes and left around 7:30.
JADIP~ She isn't called Olga with a hard "g" there. She is very particular about the way her name is really pronounced, which would be more like "Ohlhya" and she doesn't like the way I pronounce it. :) She says that I say the "y" too hard and put too much separation between the "y" and the "a". So she prefers the hard "g" in Olga better than the way we try to pronounce her Ukrainian name. Clear as mud? :)
ReplyDeleteMelissa~ We looked into flights into Lugans'k, but they were *much* more expensive and our travel agent told us we would have to buy round trip and then the change fees were $100 p/p. Did you fly back after your 2nd appointment or take the train? We really wanted to fly into Lugansk, but we couldn't justify the cost difference.
As far as her BC goes, she told us she *thinks* she was born in that region. I looked at the Ukrainian calendar to check for holidays and didn't see any official one listed in that time frame. I realize that doesn't mean much, though. :) So at this point I'm hoping day 11 doesn't land on a Saturday. :)
Praying for perfectly smooth timing! And as for packing, we were glad we packed a little jar of Italian seasoning. It made it very easy to make spaghetti sauce for noodles, a yummy & cheap meal when we didn't want to eat out.
ReplyDeleteThe tickets from Lugans'K to Kyiv were about $350 one-way for both of us. Since you are flying in 2hrs away, it'll cost about $100 for the travel from the airport to the hotel (not sure if that eats up your saving or not). The first class cabin on the train is about $150.
ReplyDeletePersonally I didn't mind the train and it runs in snow/ice so it is much more of a sure thing this time of year. I must say if it was summer outside I would die inside the train.
Also, don't be scared about the Inspector. He doesn't look like a happy guy and I couldn't read him... made me nervous. Don't take that to mean he doesn't like you or things aren't going well. Weeks later I saw him having a work party at the local cafe and he said hi and we shook hands.
The Inspector will also probably send one of the ladies from his office over with you instead of himself. The one he will likely send is nice and friendly.
And they will ask Olga right then and there shortly after you guys all meet.
Good tip, Marcie! I will have to make sure to toss some seasoning into my bag!
ReplyDeleteBrian~ The cost into Donetsk is $120 p/p ($240 total) one way while flying one way into Lugans'k was $285 p/p ($570 total). Round trip in Lugans'k was $350 p/p ($700 total) but then they tack on $100 p/p in change fee's plus cost difference in tickets.
Thanks for the heads up on the inspector. Good to know that they will ask O to write the letter right away.