Day 7-Monday

So, yeah. Today was just another manic Monday. I've heard it before, but now I can echo it with experience: In Ukraine the only thing to expect is the unexpected.

I actually will back up just a little to Sunday night. We went for a little self-tour of the city we are staying in, Zap. I feel bad even saying this, but I really like it! To all my friends who have just returned from here, it is so much nicer now that spring is here!! There are little concession style stands on a lot of corners and tables set up so that people gather around to socialize. Kids are outside playing, babushkas sit on the benches together, sometimes chatting and other times saying absolutely nothing at all. People bike everywhere and are out and about. All the women are wearing sun dresses as the weather is very nice. Huz thinks it's a little toasty-especially when he's running around with a bunch of orphans, but I still think it's a little cool.

At the risk of scaring to death our mothers, I'm posting pictures of the outside of our apartment building. If they haven't already passed out, they should keep looking because once you get inside, the apartment itself is very, very nice. Our landlord is pretty funny. He has us take our shoes off. When he comes by, he'll sit on the little bench to remove his white slip on shoes. Then, when he leaves 30 seconds later after staying right where he was standing, he sits back down and uses this old, bent shoe horn to put his shoes back on. It's hard to not laugh. Huz and I have learned that we cannot make very much eye contact or else we might start laughing-not just with him, but in a lot of other situations as well.

This morning as Huz was getting ready to plug his shaver in, the following conversation took place:
me: 'You'd better use the surge protector.'
him: 'Nah. I'll be fine.'
Plugs in shaver minus surge protector and proceeds to turn on.
HORRIBLE loud, loud grinding noise.
me: 'How's that going in there?'
him: 'I think it's a goner. Maybe I can tinker with it later though.'
Any of you that know Huz will find so many things about this funny. I won't elaborate though:)

I made the mistake of asking Elena (Helen) our facilitator last night if we needed to dress up. When will I learn that it's better to ask forgiveness?! Sheesh. Of course she recommended we dress up. This is the THIRD time in five days we have donned our church clothes. Not such a big deal for Huz, but torture for me. I don't know, it just bugs. Anyhow, our driver's name is Zhenia, actually Euzhenia, and our interpreter, Yana, along with our facilitator Elena, were in the van already. On the way to the orphanage, we had to 'swing' by another village to pick up the region's inspector, which is in a way like a social worker. I really liked her. Her name is Elena, like our facilitator. She is a busy woman who I felt genuinely supports adoptions and the best interest of the children. We all rode together in our Mercedes minivan (did you even know there was such a thing?!) to the beautiful village that the orphanage is in. Again, I'm sure my friends that were just here are rolling their eyes, or vomiting, that I used the word beautiful in correlation with this village. Really, guys. Come back. Everything is green, people are out and about, flowers are blooming everywhere. Peonies, lilacs, lupine, roses, irises, and the day lilies are about to bloom. It's really amazing. Not like Hawaii amazing, but like Ukraine amazing. I'll post pics.

As we drove, Elena explained to us what was about to happen. We'd go in for our appointment with the director, she'd call the boys in, yada, yada, yada. We asked if the boys knew we were coming. Elena told us she did not think so. I asked if I could take a picture of them coming in, envisioning their surprised faces.

As we climbed out of the car, I could hear a child yelling "Mami! Mami!" I took a couple steps and saw a boy running towards us yelling "Mami! Mami!" Because I only have one brain cell, I thought to myself, 'That looks like BoyOne.' As he got closer I realized it was BoyOne!!!! He ran up to me and gave me the biggest longest hug! Oh my goodness!! It was so great to see him! He hugged Huz, too and ran to get BoyTwo who also came racing out to us and jumped into my arms, squeezing my neck. It was a fabulous reunion!!! We have missed them so much!

The director was finishing something up so we waited in the hall outside her office. It was a very attractive hallway. I'll post a picture. BoyOne was off someplace for a minute and we were with BoyTwo for several minutes alone. I pulled out a coloring book and he began to trace his finger along dot to dots saying the numbers. He is just so cute.

When the director was ready, she led us into her office. She is a very nice, busy woman. Her name is Larissa. She asked us a few questions and then called the boys in.

And that's when the crap hit the fan.

She immediately started by saying we were here to adopt them, we are a good family, our government gave us permission, their government gave us permission, we spent a lot of time and money to come here, he needs to think of his future, he has a hopeless future, nothing good will happen, and as if that wasn't going anywhere fast, she started in on his biological mom. I wasn't sure what my place was, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't have been a good move to tell her to back off. Instead I waited and watched BoyOne's jaw tense and his eyes glaze over and saw him get really ticked. She asked if he wanted to be adopted. He said no. She asked BoyTwo, he looked down and said no. Honestly, we weren't surprised by BoyOne's response. We were not entirely sure that he was sure he wanted to come. However, BoyTwo we knew wanted to be adopted and we were surprised to hear him say no, but suspected he did so because BoyOne had coached him.

If we thought the director had laid into him before, I don't even know how to describe the next set of lectures. She was very nice about it, just very frank and add to this the inspector and our facilitator. About thirty seconds into this he tuned them out. He turned his body away from us so that he would not have to look at us. I decided that more than needing to do what was right in front of all these people, I needed to do what was right as a mom and I got up off my chair and went over to him, sat myself on the floor next to him and held his hands and told him not to listen to them, it was okay, blah, blah, blah. I know he couldn't understand my words, but I know he could understand me. We were both crying. So on top of wearing church clothes, I was now crying. Two things that really bug me. Eye roll. It felt like they just kept going on and on and on. I would look over at BoyTwo and smile at him and he'd look at me and smile and then look at his brother or the director and stop smiling and look down again. I'm not sure he understood everything that was going on or that he knew about what they were saying, but like any little kid, he recognized the tense situation and was trying to stay out of it. Finally I said, 'Enough, enough. We are done. He is done.' And the inspector said he must think tonight and we will have another appointment tomorrow.

Awesome.

So, in the middle of all this we found out that they are not willing to separate siblings in this region. They say it has to be in the best interest of the child. It was all I could do to not say, 'Really? Staying here another nine years is in his best interest?!' Actually, I did say it but then told Yana to not translate that. She agreed it was not a good idea. LOL.

Basically we knew BoyOne was pretty uncertain, but we were told that since BoyTwo wanted to be adopted and BoyOne would allow it that we could still adopt BoyTwo. And now, that was pretty much going to be a no go. I guess most other regions allow it, and until you are actually in a region, you don't know what they will do. I still can't get away from how this is not in BoyTwo's best interest. It may sound callous to try to separate siblings, but they only see each other a couple times a week, for Christmas family took BoyOne to visit, but left BoyTwo and there are other reasons. But, whatever.

We tried to pull ourselves out of shock and enjoy the rest of the day with the boys, which we did. They have a ping-pong table set up in their pavillion and Huz played ping-pong in his church clothes (longsleeved, no less) for three hours. The boys at the orphanage are hilarious. As soon as they would finish a game, they'd hold the ball up and say, 'Zero, zero.' Which meant again.

It was pretty crappy. I won't lie. We knew we had a meeting with the inspector in the morning and the boys had been told we'd be back to say good-bye then. I was seriously bummed for so many reasons. I was thinking, 'Gosh, I knew that my time here at the orphanage would go by so fast, but I had no idea it would be this fast!' and other things.

When we got in the car it was suggested to us to come back in two years after BoyOne graduated and then we could adopt BoyTwo. I think my eyeballs actually fell out of my head at that one.

Elena was talking to us as fast as Yana could translate. Basically she said she thought he may change his mind, don't give up. Both Huz and I really felt like he was pretty sure. He had gone back and forth several times and seemed pretty sure of himself just then. We agreed to go back for the appointment in the morning and to say good-bye to the boys but insisted that train tickets be purchased for us to go back to Kyiv Tuesday.

We are having a hard time sleeping. I know that everything happens for a reason. I know that there are 47 million other orphans, some of which would love to be adopted and who are absolutely wonderful. We just need some time to think. It's hard to put your big girl panties on after you just got a great big huge wedgie. As usual, captions are under the picture.


Our blue bedroom. It has blue walls, blue curtains, blue satin sheets with a red heart pillow?!



Our family room. We have an enclosed balcony that would've been used to hang our laundry in to dry had we stayed long enough to need to do laundry. I am standing in the doorway of the bedroom to take this picture.

The entrance of our apartment. Notice the bench. Isn't Huz a great model:)

Our kitchen. Very small, but it has everything we need including 5 cups that hold about eight onces of liquid all together, a microwave on the fridge, 2 bowls, 5 plates, 2 spoons, 4 forks and some knives. Did I mention it was small? I truly mean that it does have everything we need. It makes me want to reexamine my life when I get home and see if I can part with some stuff. It is also very clean which is an enormous plus.

This my friends is the outside of our apartment building. I apoligize that it is once again side ways. You know, looking at it right now it doesn't look so scary. Maybe our moms will be fine:)