Thursday, I'm in Kyiv

I am alive and there is not a resolution yet. If you have twenty minutes and a soft chair to sit on, keep reading.

So, after hearing conflicting strategies from the attorney of what is 'the best course of action,' it became evident that I would not be bringing the boys home with me any time soon. I made plans to keep my original plans (you know the ones where I was supposed to have the boys with me, only instead I'm alone) to take the night train to Kyiv Wednesday night, stay in Kyiv Thursday and Friday and fly home Saturday. Yes, I could have flown home tomorrow morning, but considering all the unexpected expenses that we will now have, it was cheaper to stay in Kyiv for two nights than to pay the flight change fee and come home sooner.

Monday, I waited all day long to find anything out. I finally heard from my facilitator (whom I love and who had been waiting to hear from the attorney) in the evening. Kyiv attorney found an attorney for us in Zap and was able to firm up some plans. There were a couple options to be discussed, both of which would more than likely take at the very least a month to play out. This meant that I needed to stick to my original travel itinerary so that I could get home and not hang out in Ukraine for who knows how long. This also meant that I needed to visit the boys to let them know what was going on. I was assurred that the boys had been updated but I knew I needed to see them before I left-for several reasons.

We took the beloved bus. It was hotter this time than last and the driver not quite as smooth, but scenery was beautiful and that alone made me feel better. Seriously, this country is so beautiful that just seeing it and being in it reminds me of how much God loves us. Anyhow, when we got to the camp I could tell right away that something was not right.

If you will remember, the previous two times we have come to the camp, we were surrounded by children, welcomed by leaders, and really, everyone was thrilled to see us. Kids would be yelling our names and gather around us and we would play and have a lovely (ok, as lovely a time as you can have when you aren't allowed to play...) time. This time, it was like we were in a ghost town.

We tried to check in with the director, but she was napping (now we know who this 'quiet time' is really for...). We left a message for her with her 'secretary' and headed off to find the boys. As we walked it was just creepy. I could tell people were watching us, yet we still could see nobody. I asked Yana if she thought something was wrong and she agreed, but we weren't sure what. When we got to the cabin, none of the kids were outside.

We knocked on the cabin door and some kids answered and got their youth leader. Every. orphan. at this camp was staring at us through their windows. Awkward. The leader came to the door and said the boys were 'somewhere' and she didn't know where. Now, this is the same leader that always sits with us and chats and plays with us with the kids and she is now stone cold. Yana can hear kids whispering and tells me that she can hear words like 'lawyer' and 'prosecute' and 'leaving'. Right then BoyTwo comes around the corner and jumps into my arms. But, you can tell from the looks on everyone's faces that he wasn't supposed to come out.

Yana and I go to the famous bench that we always have to sit on and I give BoyTwo some bubbles that I brought for him and a banana and some water. While he sits on my lap, eating, I ask him what he was told about coming with me to America.

"They told me that my Ukraine mom made a bad paper and that you are having her put in jail."

?????????!!!!!!??!!??????????!!!!!!!!

Followed by, "When can I go home with you mami?"

Yana and I about fall off our bench. So, yeah, it's now becoming really clear why we are being avoided like the plague. I tell BoyTwo that his Ukraine mom did NOT make any bad papers, she didn't do anything wrong, that she is NOT going to jail. Then I had to attempt to explain to him what WAS going on-when I don't even understand. Yeah, I understand the legality of everything, I understand the technicalities. What I don't understand is that I have to tell this little boy is why I am leaving him. I have now become one more person in his life who has left him. You have to understand that this is all they hear and see. It doesn't matter what else you say, because the people that were supposed to take care of them in the very first place already told them things and didn't follow through. They have been told words their entire lives. The only thing that means anything is actions. And their cases (in all orphan's cases) it takes a LOT of actions to mean anything.

I tell him that there was a misake on one of the papers. A lady is trying to fix it for us. Mami has to go home until the paper is ready. As soon as it is ready, I will come get him.

'When, Mami. Why can't I go home with you?'

I have to tell him I don't know but that I'm going to come back as fast as I can. I tell him that he can just stay here at the camp and play with his friends and have fun while he waits for me. (righhhhhhhht. cause I totally believe that-the fun part)

They still won't get BoyOne for us though. And we are still getting lots of dirty looks. We ask the youth leaders to get him and they tell us that they will send someone, they don't really know where he is. They send no one. By now, I think that he is hiding and does not want to see me. I mean, seriously, he thinks I'm having his mother put in prison. Niiiiiiiiiice.

A precious few boys wander out, but sit on the cement slab in front of the cabin, still unwilling to make eye contact or talk at all. I ask them to please go find BoyOne. They tell me his is at the sea. One boy says he is fishing, one boy says he is swimming. Well, because the sea is kind of big, we can't exactly go looking for him. We also have a bus to catch. We have been here for an hour now. I had envisioned this last meeting as being pretty crappy, but nothing like this! Finally, I've had enough and I have Yana translate for me that I am leaving soon and that I must see BoyOne, that they must go get him for me. Another half an hour passes and still no BoyOne. I'm beginning to think I won't even get to see him before I leave, and he comes around the corner.

How news travels in an orphanage is beyond me. It is faster than anything I have ever seen. Unreal, even.

Obviously, he has been told I am here and he is very solemn. He walks over to me and says hi and in about .02 seconds every orphan in the camp is surrounding us to hear what is said. I ask him to come with me so that I can speak to him, without his friends. He tells them to not follow us and we walk a little ways off to talk. I have to sit down, because I cannot stand. I don't even know how to explain the feelings during all of this.

I tell him that BoyTwo told us that they had been told their Ukraine mom made a document and that she was going to jail and that this is not true and that I'm sorry he had been told this.

He confirms that he was told his mom had forged a document, that I was having her put in jail and that I couldn't adopt them now. I have to tell you that this was one of the weirdest conversations I have ever had with him. Yana was there translating, but it was like she wasn't there. It was like time had frozen or something. So bizarre. Anyhow, I tell him that stepdad had a birth certificate made for BoyTwo that had not been filed with the government and that when we went to pick up the paperwork to finalize the adoption, we were told that we could not adopt them because BoyTwo was not considered an orphan now. I told him that we have been talking to a lot of people who know the laws in Ukraine and have hired an attorney to try to have this other birth certificate annulled. When it is annulled, I will be able to come pick them up and finish the adoption, but until it is annulled, I have to go home. He asked me how long that would be and, once again, I become another person in his life who cannot give him an answer and who is letting him down. I tell him that we have been told that it could be two weeks, four weeks, two months, six months. It could even be as long as two years and that I am so sorry they can't come with me right now. He says he is okay. But I know he is not. He has been abandoned again. This just reinforces to him that this is life, people can't be trusted, they won't commit. He is being left again. By me. And there is not a thing I can do about it.

I give him the bag of groceries I brought for him to share with his friends. He takes my camera and takes more pictures, and we even have fun and laugh and I chase him, which he thinks is hilarious, which in all honesty was (I was jumping over benches and running around trees and can only imagine how goofy I looked). Both boys give me big hugs when I leave, but he won't look at me. He did this when he left us after we hosted him. I know what he is trying to do. He is giving all the food to his friends, but he won't eat any of it. He is distancing himself from me. And that really really sucks.

That day was pretty crappy.

Wednesday morning I have an appointment with an attorney in Zap. I find out that some of the laws in Ukraine have changed and that we now have to have a court hearing to get rid of this birth certificate. And that the stepdad/rat/biodad has to sign a paper, go to court twice and that the bio mom has to go to court. Once a petition is filed, it is reviewed for two weeks. At the end of that two weeks, a judge is assigned the case (somehow this region is light years ahead of the rest of the country and has automated judge assignments), he reviews the case for two weeks, we are given a court date, we go to court, hopefully it only takes one hearing, and then, after a ten day wait (all civil trials have a ten day waiting period), the birth certificate would be annulled and the suspension on our court decree would be lifted and we could finish the adoption.

Did you catch how many variables there were in that?!

My facilitator wanted to go immediately to look for bio dad and bio mom. I said that I had to talk to Huz first. I didn't even know what to think. The idea that all of these things had to happen just didn't seem possible. The other problem was that the time frame was SO all over the place. The soonest we would be able to come get the boys would be six weeks from now and that is if EVERYTHING goes perfectly, without any glitches. And we all know how likely that is. I also didn't have any hope that the bio parents would be willing to do all of this.

I called Huz at 2 a.m., his time and we had a little chat. I was a little emotionally unstable. He was a rock. We had a little discussion and came up with our game plan, which isn't really much of a plan. I told him that I thought there was no possible way bio dad would agree to do any of this. He told me to give him some credit and give it a chance, but agreed that it would take a miracle.

Literally the second after he said the word miracle, my phone rang and Yana was telling me that bio dad had called and agreed to sign the papers and go to court. Shocking. Still, a lot has to happen for this to finish, but that was the first major hurdle. Seriously, we couldn't even find him the five days before.

Well, after my really awkward experience at the camp on Tuesday (and you really had to be there to feel the tangible awkwardness. Words simply cannot describe), I was pretty sure that had been one of the most awkward situations I would ever be in. And then Wednesday happened. I got to spend oer two hours with bio dad.

And my facilitator kept telling me to ask him questions. I am clueless. She has really got to prep me if she has things she wants me to say. (remember the vital records lady??) I of course, introduced myself and thanked him for coming. Like it was a PTA meeting or something. Yelena kept telling me to ask him more questions. I honestly considered asking him to tell me about his tattooes. This is where Huz would have come in handy. Brilliantly, I managed to think to ask him if he had any questions for me. He did not. I asked if he wanted me to send him pictures of the boys. He said he had pictures. I told him I meant pictures of them when they come to America. He said sure. By the way, the power went off during all of this. When the power came back on and we had signed our powers of attorney, I offered him a ride home. He asked me to buy him a cell phone. I obliged. It would be nice to be able to potentially get ahold of him plus, we want to get ahold of grandma sometime. That may sound kind of crazy but the whole cell phone things is totally different here. Another story for another time. My word, just recalling all of this is giving me a large headache. He was very polite. The feeling in the room was not hostile, just really awkward. For him, too, I'm sure.

By the way, it's 3 a.m. here and there are people outside doing some sort of construction. In the pitch black. Really odd.

So, now what? Really still need prayers. Bio dad was coherent during our meeting, but we need him to be coherent at least two to three other times, one of those times being tomorrow when he goes with the attorney to file the petition at court. Two weeks from tomorrow we will find out who our judge will be. Two weeks after that the judge will schedule a hearing. Then we have to have the hearing where the bio parents have to both show up. Then we have another ten day wait. There are just still so many things that could go wrong. Right now I am most concerned about how this will affect the boys. They want to know when, I don't have an answer for them.

Now, for the pity party. I had to take the night train back to Kyiv. The heat was nearly unbearable. Literally people were dripping with sweat (yes, imagine that smell-still not as bad as the food at the camp though). I was fortunate enough to be taking the train back with my friend who is adopting her two absolutely darling boys. Leaving that city without BoyOne and BoyTwo was really hard. Especially because of all the unknowns and knowing that they want to come home so, so bad.

I am in Kyiv now, sharing an apartment and tagging along with my friend as she finishes her adoption. It's hard to go to all these appointments with her and her boys, when I'm supposed to have my boys here too. It would be really easy to just be so sad. And I am, don't get me wrong, but what's it going to be: bitter or better? I choose better.

Thanks for all your kind thoughts and prayers. Totally needed them. Still do. I keep telling myself lemonade, lemonade, lemonade...

BoyTwo and his favorite orphan dog, Jessey. He named her and everyone at camp now calls her Jessey. I tried to show him how to make her sit, but they all thought I was crazy. I mean, she doesn't speak english....

This was when we were having fun for the three minutes before I had to leave. BoyOne and I had been sort of wrestling so that I could take his picture and he got away from me and this older boy grabbed him and carried him back to me upside down and told him to smile for his mom. I think this is one of those that you had to be there for, but it was happy and fun.

This is the 'bus.' It's really a large mini van. The picture makes it look way nicer than it really is. Trust me on this one. People will seriously pay money to stand up the whole way and hold on to that bar that runs along the top. Please notice the skylight at the top of the van. This was one of two skylights that we had that were our ONLY means of air conditioning. That's right. Three hours. No a/c. No other windows rolled down. It's amazing to me that more people don't die from heat stroke in this country. I'd also be interested in finding out some car accident statistics. I'm pretty sure that I am the only person in Zap that wears a seat belt.

After a really really long Tuesday, I met up with my friend who is adopting the two boys and another friend who just got into town to adopt her son (who by the way just had an emergency appendectomy yesterday-the boy not the mom) and we went to dinner at this cool soviet era restaurant. This is the toilet. At least it's clean... Food was great. Politburo's is the name of the restaurant. If you are ever in Zap, Ukraine, give it a try.

Cool building. I love how the lights make the Ukraine flag. We stayed out past dark. Actually way past dark. But we were three crazy women with two boys and it is what it is. I think we were more scary than all the drunk people we saw.

Val, Jami, me. Thank goodness Val was with us. I was so distraught and in need of my thyroid medicine that I was completely disoriented. Jami couldn't remember which apartment building she was staying in... Look at all of our fake smiles. Don't we all look so happy (run ragged from the process). Maybe next time the husbands should come.

These are two of my babushkas. I really love them and will miss them. I think they are darling.

Look very carefully so that you can see the pigeon on top of Zhenia's head.

So this was really weird. This man walks up to me and he is holding these two pigeons and he tries to hand them to me. I'm saying no and he is pushing them onto me. Literally. Then he takes my camera from me and I'm thinking crap! He's got my camera and I'm stuck with his birds. Nice. He won't take the birds, he still has my camera (it really wouldn't have been cool if he took off with my camera, but I was more worried about what I was supposed to do with these two birds if he took off.). Val comes over to help me and instead, she ends up holding one of the birds (see above picture). At some point we lost total control of the situation and just sort of went along with it. This guy took like twenty pictures of us holding his birds, with my camera, and then wanted to charge us $100. You've got to hand it to him for creativity. We gave him $8 just to get rid of him and the birds.

This is a fountain. Just wanted to clear that up. There are many of them and people just get in them and sit. Sometimes little kids play in them but tonight I saw mostly adults in there. It was really odd. They weren't playing, they were just walking in there. One guy was actually sitting next to one of the spouts and it was spraying all over his face. Which I guess isn't a big deal when you are sitting IN A FOUNTAIN and you are over the age of two!! I feel like I'm in a movie and I'm the only one that doesn't know about it.