After the Appointment...

Hello from Ukraine,

This morning we had our appointment at the SDA. This was probably the most stress-inducing event so far, at least in terms of the unknown. Would there be any children available for adoption? The Ukrainian government is really working on getting their citizens to adopt the kids in the orphanages. The government allows international adoption, but would really prefer their kids be adopted by citizens. They’ve been pretty successful, to the point where I’ve seen a few stories of couples traveling over here to adopt, not being able to find any suitable referrals, and returning home without a child. That’s the one scenario we wanted to avoid. Serge is our facilitator that works here in the country for us. Here are a couple of Serge photos:

This is Serge before our appointment.
This is much more typical.

When we went in with Serge for our appointment, there were two very nice ladies helping us. You could tell they were searching through the files of available children, trying to find us a (reasonably) healthy pair of siblings. They showed us one file with a 6-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy, but Serge took one look at the little girl and said absolutely not – that she had major signs of fetal alcohol syndrome. They were looking for more files, when they told Serge it would be easier if they wanted 3 children, there were more options. We looked at each other, told Serge we were actually approved for 3, he told the ladies that we were open to 3, and they got excited and handed Serge a file that had just come in.

So, some time in the next couple of days we will be traveling to Donetsk, to see if we are a good match for a sibling set of 3 – 2 girls, 1 boy. Ages? Two, three, and four. Are we ready for a house full of toddlers? Absolutely not. Are we willing? Absolutely. At this point we still need to meet and interact with the kids, and check out their medical histories. But after speaking with the orphanage director, Serge was really happy. The orphanage director said the kids had NO health problems. Apparently it’s very rare to even have the opportunity to adopt kids this young. Serge has helped over 600 couples adopt, so he’s seen just about everything.

So, hopefully we’ll be able to post more details before too long. But for now, we’re cautiously optimistic. Thanks for your continued prayers, we can FEEL them. Serge doesn’t seem to be a particularly religious man, and he said God was watching over us.

Jay - I believe this is the area your friend Carolyn was in. Do you know if she has a gmail account? She'll need one to sign into our blog...

More later!

JoEllen