Adoption journey story continued...

Okay, Okay! I'll keep going.....

We were in Kiev for 5 more days. Then we were in Warsaw for 3 days doing passports and stuff at the American Embassy there. We could've gone on to Poland and finished up everything we needed to faster than that, but I was wearing out each day pretty quickly and we wanted time with the girls and just us to adjust before "having" to be out in public and stuff. We did manage to take the girls to this fun little park near our flat in Kiev a few times. They had so much fun. There were slides and swings and most importantly, room to run! Rachel would sing this cute little song while swinging. I still wish that I knew what it meant. I believe it may be a nursery rhyme of some sort. It went like this: (this is phonetic spelling of what it sounded like she said)

Woah da woah da
woah da saw

Jack oh be la

da low ta

We loved hearing her sing it. The girls were good eaters (and still are), they ate most anything that Mike bought for them to eat. We had a couple of crazy times when they tried to run away from us because they thought it was funny. It took a few months actually to teach them NOT to run away from Mommy. One such event occurred in the Chicago Airport coming home. We were tired. We had already been awake and in airports or on airplanes for over 15 hours. Mike and I were literally EXHAUSTED! I needed to go and stand in a ticket line to check on some ticket or something (I don't remember know what it was) and so Mike said he would stay with the girls and wait for me about 5 feet away. The ticket line took FOREVER and pretty soon one little blond-haired girl took off. Mike ran and grabbed her and the other two tried to run. So he grabbed them and plopped down on the floor of the Chicago O'Hare airport and held tightly to three little girls. They all were screaming (well, not Mike, but I know he wanted to), and he got some weird looks, but it was the only thing we could do.

Our flight from Chicago to Salt Lake was so much better. It was at night and by then we had been awake for probably 18 hours. Oh yes, even the girls! Because they refused to sleep on the flight from Warsaw to Chicago. They were too interested in trying to run away from us on the airplane and talk to all the little Polish grandmas. It was a sight! ANyway, we all slept from Chicago to SLC and then our families were there to meet us and they pretty much carried us home. It was wonderful! Rachel fell down the stairs the first night we were home. So the next day we bought a gate to put up. I got super sick the day after getting home because of all the jet lag and pent up emotions and such. But my dad and Mike's dad and Mike gave me a blessing and I slept well that night and got up the next day and had no more morning sickness the rest of my pregnancy! We blessed the girls on April 20, 2003 (It was a Sunday). OUr bishop came by after church and we just did it at our home as a family. It was awesome!

Meghan knew a few words by the time we got home. Mostly "no" and "time out". Mean mom, I know! Rachel and Jenny only really caught on to "no". Meghan and Rachel were potty-trained, but Rachel would still have accidents. She was ONLY three years old, so it wasn't that bad! Jenny did not speak at all. She started to say words after we had been home a month or so. Meghan and Rachel caught on really quickly to English. My method for teaching them was this: put PBS on, or a Disney movie. Something that would catch their attention and they could understand even if they didn't understand the language, and pretty soon they started to repeat words and sounds. My sister also gave me this set of videos that they gave to the Kindergarteners in her school district that taught the letters and the sounds and how to write them. It was great! Meghan and Rachel could communicate with me pretty well after about 6 weeks being home. They actually memorized and sang "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" for the Grandmas on Mother's Day a month after being home. Their accents were very strong, but it was so cute. If I could figure out how to post a video clip on here, I would post them talking with their cute little accents.

Meghan started preschool about 8 months after we got home and had no problems understanding her teacher. She could write her name and knew all the letters and sounds. About 15 months after we adopted them, Meghan began Kindergarten. Her teacher could not even tell that she had spoke another language for the first four years of her life. Not until I told her, that is. Today none of them have an accent. They all speak clearly except Rachel, but hers is a speech problem not associated to speaking a different language or anything.

They all are super smart! The orphanages told us that they were all developmentally delayed, but I am here to tell you that they are NOT!! Each of them reads above their grade level, understands math probably better than I do, and excels at school. However, they all have some issues that are a direct result from living in an institution for the first parts of their life. I will not go into that here. Mostly because I believe that my children deserve a certain amount of privacy. I will say that it is nothing too horrible or life-shattering to make me ever regret our decision to adopt. I would do it again tomorrow even knowing all that I know and having experienced all that I have and still do experience. (If you are adopting and would like more info to be better prepared, you may email me and I will discuss with you. 1colegirl@gmail.com)

The funny thing is that these girls look so much like me and my husband that most people don't even realize they have been adopted. It only comes up if certain questions are asked like, "what kind of a baby was she?", or something like that. I am honest and I say,"well, I don't know. But I can tell you that she was this type of 3 year old,etc". I feel sad every time the school does a segment on family and requests baby pictures, because I don't have them. I hate that the girls don't have those things to share. But we make do by making it seem more special or exciting that they were adopted or that they have pictures from living in an orphanage.

Meghan weighed about 28 pounds when she was adopted, Rachel weighed about 26, and Jenny weighed a measely 20 (which is the size of my 11 month old). They are totally caught up and are pretty normal weight and height today. With the exception of Jenny, who is now as tall as Rachel.

Every year we are required to send in a report to the Ukrainian Embassy stating how the girls are doing physically and otherwise. Some parents that have adopted from Ukraine have complained about this in the past. I figure that it is no big deal and if my filling our a yearly report helps is so that the adoption process can continue and more children can find homes, then I am all for it! (Adoptions were halted for a time in Ukraine a couple of years back)

Anyway, that's the update. Oh, and if you are LDS and wondering....we took the girls to the temple to be sealed to us about three months after we got home. It was a magical day and one that I will never forget.

( I delivered Jonathan about 6 weeks later....that's why I am all big and fat! Don't the girls look so CUTE in their pretty white dresses?!)

Adoption journey story part #9

This will be my last posting on our adoption story for a while. Today's entry will be the culmination of what you have all been reading about because...today is our GOTCHA DAY! That is the term that most people use to mark into memory or whatever the day that their adoption was finalized. Today marks 5 years that these little girls have been in our family. Here is the story from that day five years ago......

"We had court at 8 am this morning. The judge didn't wear a robe or anything to signify that she was even a judge. We had to state our names, birthdays, and the reason we came to Ukraine and that we want to adopt the girls. Then the Inspector read our petition to adopt and the judge stated the court decision that we were the girls' parents. It took all of 15 minutes. Then we went to the Marriage/Licensing Building to get the new birth certificates. That took forever. Then they had to be legalized. Then we got to come back to the apartment and rest whil Sergei and the Inspector waited for the girls' Ukrainian passports to be done.

Nikolai was supposed to be there at 4pm to take us all back to Kiev, but at 2:30 he called and said he couldn't be there until 7pm. This ruined our plans of getting the girls from the orphanages at 3:00. We went instead at 5:00. The director of Meghan's orphanage told me that I needed to serve soft meats to the younger girls. I thought that was pretty random. It's not like I have never been around kids before. Sheesh! We did the ritual changing of the clothes. Out of the orphanage ones into the ones we brought for them. That was strange because they were all standing there watching me like I wouldn't know how to dress a child or something.

Rachel's caregivers all cried when she was leaving. She gave a kiss and a hug to all the kids in her groupa. At Jenny's room, the caregiver came out to tell me that Jenny still had a fever and I told Sergei to tell her that it didn't matter, because we were there to get her and she was my responsibility now.

After we picked up the girls and dressed them, we headed to McDonalds for our first meal as a family! It was awesome!!

The rest of the day went by in a haze or craziness. Nikolai was even later than he had anticipated and we did not get on the road back to Kiev until nearly 10 pm. We had to just let the kids run around the apartment because we were so tired and they were not. We got them in their jammies and all ready to go and waited for Nikolai. We tried to get them to sleep in the van but it didn't work very well. We got to Kiev around 3 am and then had to try to get them to sleep again. Man, being a parent is hard!"

Meghan's groupa and caregiver Luda

Rachel's groupa

Jenny's groupa All dressed and ready to go! We are a FAMILY!! Eating our first meal as a family at McDonalds. Can't get more American than that!!

Adoption journey story part #8

(April 8, 2003)

"Today is hopefully the last day of orphanage visits. Today when we visited Jenny they told us that she had a temperature so we couldn't see her. I think that is dumb, but since she is still in their care I abided by their wishes. Rachel did not want us to leave today. We showed her pictures on the camera today and she didn't really seem to remember Meghan. Kinda weird. I think she is just wondering why there is yet ANOTHER sister. Funny little thing. You can tell she is thinking, "just take me and only me!"

I had a pretty severe headache so after lunch Mike and Sergei brought me back to the apartment to rest and they went out and bought more souvenirs and took pictures of the sights in Cherkassy.

We gave the orphanages the "donation" money that they "requested" today. That was a strange experience......

Our visit with Meghan was interesting today. We are trying to help her adjust to her new name. So we would call her "Meghan" and she would say "No, A". So finally we settled on "A Meghan" and then we will switch after a few days to "Meghan A" and then just drop the A and see how she does. From the adoption boards I have been reading, this is the recommended thing to do. She is so silly though. Won't sit still for anything. She loves to look at the picture book and today was able to point out the grandmas and grandpas. They will LOVE that!

Tomorrow we get the girls! I am so excited!!!!

Adoption journey story part #7

Day eleven- April 7, 2003

"Today was bitterly cold and the wind was blowing hard. When we went to the baby orphanage, the girls were having their passport pictures taken so we were taken to a room to wait for them. We waited for about 20 minutes and finally they brought Jenny to us. We played with her for awhile and still Rachel had not come. Out time there was running out, so Mike went to ask the director where Rachel was and was told that she was in with her groupa playing. Mike and I were frustrated because we only get a small amount of time with the girls each day and today it was wasted because they 'forgot' we were there. Apparently her and Jenny have gotten to play together a few times there. She still acted like she was bothered that Jenny was there with us and it couldn't be just her. They both enjoyed playing with the Matrushka doll that Sergei gave me for my birthday.

Sergei had to paper chase more today. We also took some time out to buy Matrushka dolls and other souvenirs for family and the girls. We bought 13 sets of Matrushkas. The store owner was so pleased that he threw in a couple of freebie gifts for us. But we are planning on 'losing' them before we get home. One is a TACKY little stick figure thing that is supposed to look like a man and when you pull down his pants, it shows his parts. I'm NOT keeping that!

The store was close by one of the fancy orthodox churches with the golden domes, so we walked over and took some pictures by it. We went in also and walked around and I had to buy a scarf to wear on my head to go inside. It was very pretty, but we couldn't take pictures of the inside.


Our visit with Meghan was good today. She like looking at the picture book of our family again, and Mike got out our digital camera and showed her the pictures we took this morning of Jenny and Rachel. She got very excited and so I asked Sergei to tell her that they are her sisters (in case she forgot) and she said "Da,Da!" That means yes, yes!


We had a yummy dinner at the Ukrainain buffet tonight. They served the good rice that I like and some breaded pork. Sure was good."

Adoption journey story part #6

April 6, 2003 was the tenth day of our trip.

"Back home everyone is watching conference. We called the missionaries to find out what they were doing here in Cherkasy, and they were showing a video of last conference to the members. We wouldv'e gone, but it was the same time as when we could visit the girls.

Jenny was more willing to come to my on her own terms today. She is so cute. She has rosy cheeks, but they look like they have a rash on them. She even smiled for us today, and we were able to get some cute pictures of her. We showed her the picture book we brought of our family and she liked looking at it, especially the pictures of Christian and Nicole (her cousins).

Rachel was super fun today. We showed her pictures too and everytime she saw a woman, she said"momma". But then we asked her to point to momma in the pictures and she totally did. Towards the end of our visit with her, the other children in her groupa came over by us and wanted to play with us too. It was hard not to give them attention, even though we aren't supposed to. Rachel cried when we had to leave. She seems to have decided already that she wants to be with us.

After McDonalds for lunch, we went to the outdoor market in search of the rest of the clothes we needed for the girls. It was raining. So add that plus sloshing through piles to try and find little girls' underwear. We must've been out of our minds! We got most everything that we will need though.

Meghan was great fun today. We stayed at the orphanage because it was still cold and rainy outside. We read books, played some legos, and colored a page in the coloring book. She is a very good colorer-trying so hard to stay in the lines. She really is smart and is the giggliest kid I know!

We thought we could improve the phone situation by buying a touch tone phone yesterday, but no luck. So we used the last of our phone card and we called them to tell them we are still alive. Didn't get through to my folks, but Andi was there and I got to talk to her for 4 very fast minutes. At least I was able to talk to someone from home. We will try again when we get back to Kiev."

Adoption journey story part #5

It was day nine on our little adventure and my 28th birthday (April 5, 2003).

"This morning I woke up feeling quite crappy. I didn't sleep very well last night. I had cornflake (well, Ukrainian version of them anyway) for breakfast. We went to visit Rachel and Jenny at the baby house around 10:00. Jenny was cute today. She sounded congested so she might be getting a chest cold. She sat on my lap and was content to just hold the board books. Not open them. Just hold them. Mike had brought some cookies- contraband- and he gave her one. She put the whole thing in her mouth at once! After that she let Mike hold her (I think she wanted more of the cookies) for awhile.

Then we went in to Rachel's groupa. So far we have only been allowed to interact with Rachel and her groupa. The other girls are brought to us separately and we don't see any of the other children that they spend their whole time with. Anyway, Mike tried to videotape Rachel running over to us again, but he was too slow. We played puzzles and blocks with her. She is a little smarty and is good at figuring out how things go together. I really don't see any of the "developmental delays" that we were told she had.

We ate at McDonalds again for lunch. I hate McDonalds personally, but thank heavens for food that I feel very comfortable eating. Then we went to the store and bought coats for the girls.

We went at 4:00 to take Meghan to the park to play. She likes riding in the taxi. I videotaped Mike swinging her around. She sure likes to giggle! We took her back around 6:00 for her dinner time. The orphanage smells like fish. I think that must be what they eat for dinner. I can hardly stand the smell. Yuck!

We went to the Internet Cafe to check our emails and for Mike to find out about getting some money wired to us. Apparently we didn't bring enough cash to pay for things that have to be with cash since we are adopting three and not one or two. But we found out that Bernadette sent out an email to everyone already about us adopting the girls. So now our fun secret is out! We had a ton of messages full of everyone already freaking out about us getting three kids! Wait til we get home and tell them I'm pregnant! Ha Ha Our parents emailed and said that they HAVE tried to call us but haven't been able to get through. Stupid phone lines!"

* Bernadette was one of the people in the office here in the U.S. that helped us get our paperwork together and coordinate travel and retained regular contact with the office there in Kiev.

Adoption journey story part #4

It was day eight of our Ukrainian adventure on April 4, 2003. We got up early and got ready to visit the girls, but we had to wait for Sergei since he was already gone paper chasing. He had gone to schedule our court hearing and pay the expedition fees to the judge (bribe money). He was able to talk the judge down from $1500 to $1200. That was a relief to us even though we didn't want to have to pay in the first place.

We went first to the baby house and spoke to the director prior to visiting the girls. We got to go play with Jenny first. She was quite hesitant about being with us which actually is a good sign. It means that they CAN attach since she was attached to her caregiver. She warmed up to us and after a while she let me hold her and she looked at books while on my lap. She even went and sat on Mike's lap!

Me in front of the baby orphanage signAfter we played with Jenny, we went in to Rachel and her groupa. They had just come in from playing outside and were all sitting down to go potty at the same time. I kid you not! She was peeking her little head around the corner and watching us and she hurried and got done so she could come out. It was the greatest thing. She ran right over to us and hugged us!! We sat down and read books with her. By the third time through the ABC book I took, she was mimicking sounds. Hooray!

Then it was lunchtime and we should've left right away because the ladies were giving us dirty looks, but we wanted to keep watching her. I'm so glad we stayed. These kids are conditioned to eat fast or it is gone. And our little trooper was all over that! She was a total hogger breath and ate super fast! She's pretty chunky so it is obvious that she eats hers all up. Finally we left because the caregivers were just giving us mean looks. It seems we were "distracting" the kids from eating.

After lunch at the Ukrainian Buffet which had really yummy food, we went to the store and bought a couple of outfits for Jenny and Rachel. Just enough to last until we got home. We then went back to the apartment and I took a short nap before we went to visit Meghan at her orphanage.

The director of Meg's orphanage let us take her into town to get some pictures taken for her new passport. Mike bought her a juice and she swigged it down super quick! We bought a pair of shoes for her and then took her back to the orphanage. We didn't really get to play much with her, but being that she is older, I felt like it was okay. We were able to get her to stay by us in the stores and that was important.
The last thing we did for the day was go back to the Internet cafe and email our parents telling them to call us so that we could tell them the news, and one to everybody else telling them that after we told our parents we would email and tell them.

Adoption journey story part #3

Since my journal entry was 8 pages long for this day and most of what is written is very private information or personal feelings, I am choosing not to write all of that here. You will have to just let me paraphrase what happened for you.

April 3, 2003-

We left at 4:30 in the morning from Kiev to travel to Cherkasy, the region where we would be adopting our girls. We had to stop and pick up the Inspector before heading to the orphanage where the oldest girl( age 4) was living. (Lets call her A) After we arrived the director went and got her for us. She came walking in wearing a red dress with ponies in her blond hair sticking out all over. She had big blue eyes and was so pretty. She seemed nervous but came right over to Mike and stood by him. The director made her recite a little poem that she had memorized and she seemed to do a good job, but not that we would really know since we didn't understand Ukrainian. We got to go into a separate room and play with her. It was hard because we couldn't understand each other, but we played peek-a-boo and she thought it was fun.
Then we left and went to meet her littler sisters at the baby orphanage on the other side of town. The doctor for the orphanage came in and spoke to us in English and I was relieved a little at that. She had the girls come in. The older one (we will call her S), who was three, came over to me after being prompted to and sat on my lap. She had a frown on her face and the doctor told her to smile and she did and it LIT up her entire face!! She is really cute. Another blondy with a really bad orphanage haircut (short) and blue eyes. The youngest girl (We will call her Aa) was teensy. She looked to be the size of a 9 or 10 month old and they said she was 20 months old. She had brown hair and brown eyes and she just cried the whole time and wouldn't let me hold her. They took Aa away after a few minutes and we got to go with S to where her groupa played to see her in action. She played really well with the other kids and we watched her do a puzzle game.
Then it was time to leave the orphanage and make our choice. Yes, they actually expect you to make those kind of life-changing choices that fast. We asked if we could go eat first. I was a little nauseas after not eating for so long and being pregnant (which no one there knew). We went to the McDonalds in the town and ate and then Sergei pressured us again to decide. Mike and I walked off alone to talk for a bit. We made our decision and went and told Sergei and Nikolai (our driver). They both hugged us and said congratulations.
That meant that we had lots of paperwork to do, so off we all went to get our apartment rented for the duration of time that we would be in Cherkasy. We got one that a lady rented out to people adopting all the time. The rent was $30 a day. Pretty reasonable. Then we had to go to the Notary's office to get the petition to adopt written up and signed. We signed so many papers that day! At one point, Sergei came in and asked us if we wanted to change the girls names. We said that yes, we would like to do that and he said, "okay, I will be back in 5 minutes to write them down so that we can get that paperwork done today also." Five minutes? Wow! So we changed their names to American-ish names. A was changed to Meghan Mae (after grandma Nancy's middle name) and S was changed to Rachel Eve (after grandma Eve) and Aa was changed to Jennalyn (closest thing to Jana, without actually being the same name).
Then we went to the Internet cafe to email everyone but couldn't get connected. I wish we had been able to take pictures of the girls on that meeting day, but that is not allowed until you actually decide to proceed with adoption.

*In case you are wondering...children ages 0-3 are housed in the Detsky Dom or baby orphanage. When they turn 3, they are moved to the toddler orphanage. I don't know at what age they leave there. I guess around 7 or 8 when they are school age and then I think they go to like a boarding school type orphanage where they stay until they are 16. At that point they are then basically kicked out to go fend for themselves. That is the reason that the girls were in two different orphanages. Rachel was three, but had just had her birthday and hadn't been moved yet. Also, another amazing fact is that they became available for adoption the week prior to us being there, but no one else had been given their referral to go see them. We were the first!!

Adoption Journey story part #2

Today is April 2,2008. Five years ago it was April 2, 2003 and Mike and I were anxiously awaiting word from our facilitators regarding the little girls whose referral we had accepted and when we could travel to visit them.

From my journal:

"We went to the Internet cafe this morning and emailed everyone regarding the latest developments. Then we came back to the flat and watched a movie until around lunchtime. We hadn't heard from Lena or Sergei yet, so we walked over to the office to see what, if anything, was happening. Lena was there and she explained that our paperwork would not be able to be processed completely until the end of the day, so we wouldn't be leaving until later or even tomorrow. It was disappointing news, but at least it was news.
We decided to try out the pizza place near the flat for lunch. We ordered a pizza each thinking that they would be small and they turned out to be large, so we had enough for dinner too! Sergei stopped by later and we shared some pizza with him. He is a nice guy and will travel with us to the region where the girls' orphanage is. I just wish he didn't smoke so much."

*Just for information's sake...Lena was our facilitator (or paperwork processor person), and Sergei was our translator. The "agency" we used was Sense Resource Center. They were extremely helpful and as far as we know, very honest. If you are interested, their website is: www.adopt-sense.com.

Adoption journey story part #1

So I am a little nostalgic this week. I've been reading in my journal and remembering the adventure that Mike and I had five years ago when we adopted our little girls. It's been fun and a little emotional also. It seems like a lifetime ago. Maybe that's because they fit into our family so well and truly are "ours" that it feels like we have had them their whole lives.

{"Today was the day that we had our appointment at the National Adoption Center in Kiev, Ukraine. It was a big building with no heat and we sat on hard chairs for a long long time before we were seen by the psychologist. She was the person that would help give referrals of prospective children to be adopted. She began by telling us that we looked very young and that was "good". Then she asked what we were interested in. Like it was a thing, not a child. It was weird. We told her that we were interested in sibling group of a boy and a girl. She frowned and I thought to myself that maybe we sounded too picky even though other people that had adopted before us and told us about it said that we should be clear in our wishes. My other thought was that she was frowning because there were no girls available for adoption, which was another thing we had been warned to expect. She then asked us what ages we were thinking of and we said that we would prefer under age five, since we had only been married four years. (We didn't want to have to explain that our whole lives) Then she asked "how about three children"? My heart kind of jumped because I wasn't expecting that, and we knew that I was pregnant already (a miracle), but Mike said to her,"well we are actually approved to adopt three. We did it just in case." She smiled and then showed us the pictures of three beautiful little girls. Two looked to be toddler age and one was a baby. We didn't know how recent the pictures were. I asked about their health and we were told that they were healthy (by orphanage and Ukraine standards). Then the woman continued to show us pages and pages of other children available for adoption, but I couldn't focus on any of them. I was stuck on the faces of these sweet little girls.

We told them that YES we would like to go and meet the girls. The psychologist then told Mike that he would have to get another job to support 4 women in his house. Ha Ha, if she only knew!! "} (excerpt from my personal journal)

That was pretty much the end of what occured that day. It was April 1, 2003. We were excited and could hardly sleep that night for wondering what the next days would bring as we met the girls.


Stay tuned for what happened the next day....tomorrow!