The first three days of our adventure in Ukraine were just a whirlwind, but the 13 days after that dragged on endlessly. We were able to visit the little boy every day at the hospital, thankfully, but it took over a week to get the results of his bloodwork back, due to a snowstorm. As wonderful as it was to visit the little guy and play with him for an hour or so every day, the hospital smelled really, really awful and the conditions weren’t necessarily sterile in the room. The little guy’s roommates were a nine year-old boy and a 12 month old little girl named Katya. The older boy was very sweet and because he was the only one able to get in and out of bed, he doted on the little ones and played with them as they lay or stood in their cribs. He left within a few days of our arrival, though, and the little ones looked to us to be their prime source of entertainment.

The little guy knew only two words: “Priveyet”, which he greeted us with every day; and “Na”. I mentioned this in earlier posts, but “Na” is sort of like a slang term for “take this” (the caregivers would feed the kids, and say “Na” to them to get them to open up). But this little guy would say “Na” when he wanted something. And any time we brought him juice or cookies, he’d smack his lips and say, “Na…Na…Na”. We could shovel whatever it was into his mouth and the moment he swallowed it, he’d say “Na”. So we nicknamed him “Mr. Na” and I’ll use that as his name throughout here.

While Mr. Na sported a very mild case of chicken pox, Katya had them everywhere. The nurses slathered bluish-colored iodine all over her body, which made her look like she waged war against magic markers and lost. Once we let Mr. Na roam around outside of his crib, Katya would get very jealous and fussy; but the nurses told us not to take her out, so she developed this highly fascinating game where she would take her pacifier out of her mouth, drop it on the floor, and begin wailing until someone picked it up for her. Mr. Na would hobble around to get it and put it back in her mouth and then two minutes later, she’d do it again. This went on for quite awhile and the way in which they interacted with one another reminded me of an old married couple where the wife barks orders at her husband and he replies, “Yes, dear.”

When he wasn’t retrieving Katya’s pacifier, he was laughing and playing with some small stacking toys we brought and a ball which he loved. I would hold his tiny hands and try to walk with him or dance and he’d giggle and babble. For the most part, Mr. Na had a sunny disposition; but when something went awry and he became frustrated, he’d sit down and proceed to bang his head on the floor with thuds so violent I thought for sure he was going to give himself a concussion. His tantrums scared us at first, but when we prepared for our trip initially, we had read about how this type of behavior was typical for children living in orphanages. Usually when securely-attached babies have tantrums like that, the school of thought is to let them play it out without calling too much attention to it and saying, “let me know when you’re finished and we can talk about it”…but for the child who suffers from attachment issues (and ALL kids living in orphanages have attachment issues), the remedy is to wrap your arms around the child and try to quiet them down by rocking them and saying soothing words. Once we got past the initial shock of “Oh my god, what is this child doing?” Pa scooped him up and held him very tight and very close. It worked immediately.

The more we got to know Mr. Na, the more we’d come to realize that NONE of the boy’s names we had originally chosen suited him, and yet since we were giving him a new life, we felt we should give him a new name and make his given name his middle name. Pa and I spent hours (and believe me, we had many hours to spend) thinking of a name. Finally, one day, as we sat in our hotel’s “Business Center” (I use that term loosely because it was a small room with five battered 386 PCs sharing a 56k dial up), we came up with the same name at the same time. Oddly, this was a name neither of us had thought of before, but the name suited Mr. Na to a “T”.

The Business Center was one of the two places in which we spent the majority of our time. The second place was our hotel room, complete with two tiny twin beds, and we definitely had our moments of cabin fever. It was difficult getting around Donetsk since our driver was only hired to take us to and from the hospital and to run back and forth to the notary public…so sightseeing was pretty nonexistent. Besides, it was cold and icy all the time, and the sidewalks were never cleared. I just thank god I had the sense to bring rubber-soled, waterproof boots, since the one and only time I wore my fancy, high-heeled boots, I nearly broke my leg having fallen on the ice. Koko, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky.

It wasn’t that Koko was wearing fancy, high-heeled shoes either. What happened was that we walked out of our hotel and down the few steps to the car. But Koko slid on a patch of ice on a step and she fell down hard on her tailbone. I knew she wanted to cry and scream because she was in so much pain after that (I later saw the bruise and had never before seen anything so horrible) but she hobbled over to Schumacher’s car and sat quietly in the passenger seat. I felt terrible. To add insult to injury, the hotel manager came out of the building and yelled at her for slipping. No “I’m so sorry” or “Here, let me help you!” It was “You need to be more careful!”

The amazing thing was that the women in Donetsk wore boots with the pointiest toes and the highest heels and I just marveled how they could master walking on the ice. In general, women in Ukraine are impeccably dressed—always; but even though I often felt like a plain Jane tourist with my jeans and Sporto “sensible” boots, I wasn’t going to break a bone in my body and spend any more time in that nasty hospital than I needed to.

We ate most of our meals in the hotel. The food was ok, but after a week, it got old quickly. Nearly every night, we ate a breaded chicken or pork cutlet, potatoes, and a mayonnaise-based salad. Every morning, we had eggs, toast, and Nescafe instant coffee. And for two latte-sipping junkies like Pa and me, we missed our double-talls. The lobby of the hotel had a small candy kiosk that sold bottled water and Milka chocolate. Milka became my favorite treat. Somehow, even after 16 days, I could never tire of it!

There were also two small “convenience” stores adjacent to the hotel, and we were able to buy cookies, juice, and diapers for Mr. Na, as well as Diet Coke and other portable snacks. But after the first week, we decided to venture out on our own during the day and that’s when we stumbled across this amazing, Target-esque supermarket in the basement of a large department store. We bought cereal and milk and things to eat that didn’t require heating or cooling, since we had a very small fridge in our room. We also bought toilet paper since the stuff at our hotel was the same size and texture as crepe paper. So, finding the supermarket was like winning the lottery.

The main reason behind why we hardly ventured off in search of different food choices was that Koko felt responsible for our safety. She was also on a pretty tight budget and felt that eating out at restaurants was too extravagant, even with our offer to treat her. So one night, Pa and I ventured out to a nearby pizza place we drove past every day. It turned out to be a nice little place and the pizza was pretty darn tasty. Even better, the check for two beers, a whole pizza and dessert cost only $11.00!

The next day, we told Koko where we went and we insisted on taking her out to eat on the night before our court date.  We wanted to thank her for all of her hard work–from getting the little guy’s passport, birth certificate, filing for the court date, and going back and forth to the notary for the ream of paperwork needed to present our “case” in front of a judge. To our delight, Koko accepted and we found a snazzy little place on the main, wide Boulevard we’d traveled countless times during our stay.

Over the best dinner of the trip, we toasted to finding our new son, Mr. Na.

Koko was a bit perplexed by my questioning whether or not the little boy was the right one; but I explained to her that he looked so drastically different in his little photo, I couldn’t tell.  She assured me that he was the right boy and I watched as the physician stood him atop her desk and began to undress him for an examination.  Pa and I were at the ready to take pictures of the little guy so that we could e-mail them to our pediatric adoption specialist back home.  We took notes as the physician pointed to his distended tummy—a sign that he had rickets.  We had known that ahead of that and weren’t too concerned since it was a Vitamin D deficiency that could easily be remedied with milk and sunlight and liquid vitamins.  Klas explained to us that none of the children went outside during the winter months—primarily because there were never enough warm clothes for each child to wear.  Additionally, milk, sadly, was not a staple in orphanages, and kids were prone to rickets which, if left untreated, could lead to bone diseases such as hip dysplasia.  But because this little guy was so young, he didn’t show signs of hip dysplasia, thankfully, and despite the physician’s various poking and prodding; he seemed quite content with the attention and the cookie still in his hand.

The physician told us that he was relatively healthy, but we were concerned when we were told that he had been in the hospital for 21 days.   She explained to us that he had initially suffered from bronchitis but because he shared a room with two children with a case of chicken pox, they decided it would be best to expose him to get it over with. Pa sided up to me and whispered that it might have been better that he had been in the hospital for that long because it was possible he might have been better fed and maybe received more attention.  But all I needed to do was look at the little guy with his sunny disposition and I knew he was fine.

The little boy was very small for his age—and he looked even smaller when the nurse put his clothes back on.  The head teacher had brought him a little one-piece clown outfit that he positively swam in.  His height was about 22 inches and his weight was 19 pounds.  I had known six month old infants who were taller and weighed more, and it was sad that he had just turned 19 months old the day before.  He had a lot of catching up to do.  But his head circumference—something our pediatrician recommended we measure as one indicator of fetal alcohol syndrome–was right on par with a child his age.

Once he was fully dressed, the nurse took him down from the desk so that he could walk.  He did a good job holding himself up and holding on to the desk to keep himself upright, but he took only a few, apprehensive steps on his own.   He was much more interested in playing with a little toy on the desk, so he plunked himself down and held the toy in one hand and the half-eaten cookie with another.

Koko asked the physician how much longer the little boy needed to stay in the hospital.  They said that he was past the incubation period for the chicken pox, but thought he’d be better off staying as long as he could.  Koko asked us if we had any more questions and told us that the physician welcomed us back whenever we wanted to visit him.  We smiled and said we’d be back the next day.  Koko also arranged, on our behalf, blood tests for the little guy so he could be tested for HIV and Hepatitis. 

Meanwhile, after we sent our photos and general observations to our pediatrician back home, she called us that next day, at 6:00 a.m. her time and told us that he looked great.  Any ailments he had could be easily remedied.  She congratulated us and told us what we already knew: we found our son.

I have to admit, Pa and I were a little alarmed at first, when our Klas told us he wouldn’t be joining us on the train to Donetsk. Instead, he explained, his wife Koshka (or Koko for short) would be escorting us. Once we met Koko at the train station, her warm smile put me at ease and I believed it when Klas assured us we were in good hands.
Klas bought a sleeping car for us and a separate one for Koko. We said our goodbyes to Klas and he wished us well on our journey to meet the little boy who might become our son.

After the train rolled out of Kiev and we settled in to our cozy compartment, we knocked on Koko’s door and asked her if she wanted to accompany us to the dining car. Since it was at the end of the train and we were somewhere toward the front, we had to go through a dozen treacherous passageways between the cars, each time having to slide open two sets of heavy doors and exposing ourselves to the freezing air outside. If we had any food with us on the trip, I would have recommended we give up on the life-threatening attempt to make it to the dining car, but Pa and I were both pretty hungry, having had nothing to eat since lunchtime. There were times, though, as we opened each heavy, sliding door to the next train, I wondered whether or not we’d make it to Donetsk in one piece. Pa simply laughed it off, likening it to a Super Mario video game, shouting “Ba-NA-NA!” every time we made it through to the next passageway.

We had a long, leisurely dinner with Koko, and though they were young, she and Klas had two teenage children. She told us that they had met at the University and were married soon after. Her English was just as good as Klaus’ and she told us that she helped him by traveling with couples to a particular region whenever he needed to remain in Kiev to incoming families to the adoption center. She and Klas loved helping children find families and Koko said that if they were wealthy, they would have already adopted twenty children. We stayed in the dining car for as long as we could, before having to make the arduous journey back to our compartments; but the lull of the train and our jet lag was getting the better of Pa, who practically fell asleep in his Borscht. Once we parted ways with Koko for the evening, Pa and I slid in to our bunks, underneath warm, heavy blankets, and promptly fell asleep.

We arrived in Donetsk at 7:30 a.m. the next day. Koko knocked on our compartment to tell us that the stewards would be bringing around tea. I got up from my bunk, grabbed my toothbrush and headed toward the toilet, which was down at the end of our car. Any fears I had the night before about the dangerous crossing between train cars was quickly eclipsed by visiting the bathroom. Rather than have a full-fledged, flushing toilet, there was simply a hole over which to hover, thereby depositing any waste on to the tracks below. I’d been warned that Ukraine was a tough place to visit—I just didn’t realize to what extent.

Once in Donetsk, Koko introduced us to our driver, dubbed “Schumacher” by a previous family because of his love of cars and a penchant for fast driving. Though his car was an older model, it was spotless inside and out. The beige paint glistened even in the dreary January daylight, and the back quarter panel was adorned with a large, checkered flag decal. Once he started the car, techno music blared from several speakers all around us. I guessed that Schumacher was in his mid- to late-fifties and I wondered why on Earth he’d like techno. But who was I to judge?

Koko told Schumacher that we had to drive to the central office that managed all of the children’s homes in the city. As we made our way into town, we passed several large hills dusted with snow; but upon closer inspection, it was clear that the hills were actually made of slag from the adjacent coal mines. Koko explained that Donetsk was the largest coal mining center in the country, and as we passed a beautiful new stadium, she told us that its soccer team, the Donetsk Schachter, meant “coal miner” in Russian.

The city was compact but, like Kiev, its striking architecture gave it more of a western European feel than a city in the former Soviet republic. Where Kiev had its gold-domed churches and vibrant blue and white colored buildings, Donetsk’s main, wide boulevard was lined with sandstone colored, Romanesque buildings like those found in Paris or Vienna. It was a huge contrast to the slag hills and mining machinery off in the distance.

The central office for children’s services was located on a tree-lined square, adjacent to, Koko explained, dormitory-style housing and a school for older children. Schumacher parked next to a building with “Nirvana Rules” spray painted in English on the side. There were several snow-covered picnic tables in the courtyard, along with outdoor fitness stations to do pull ups and stretching. Koko told us to wait in the car while she went in to speak with the manager.

Schumacher turned off the engine and got out of the car. I watched as he took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped the hood of the car lovingly. Pa got out to stretch his legs and I stayed in the car, bundled up from the cold. We waited for a long for Koko to return. Pa took a short stroll on the grounds, I opened a book I had brought with me, and Schumacher fiddled with the car radio. Apparently there was more than one techno station in the Donetsk region. When Koko returned, she said a few things to Schumacher in Russian and then explained to us that since it was Saturday, the city manager had to pull a few strings to enable us to visit the child at his orphanage. Thankfully, the director of the orphanage was expecting us and but we had to get across town quickly before she left for the day. It occurred to me, as we drove nearly 60 mph along the slick city streets, why Schumacher liked techno. It seemed to complement his erratic maneuvers and provide the perfect soundtrack to our bobs and weaves through traffic. Without seat belts Pa and I clanked against each other in the backseat like two bowling pins. We were grateful for the “oh, S&!t!” straps above the doors, otherwise we would have had nothing to hold on to.

Schumacher slowed to turn into an icy, unplowed and unpaved street. I gave thanks once the car stopped in front of a building with a snow-covered play structure in the front, but my waves of nausea from the car quickly changed to butterflies at the idea of meeting the little boy.

A faint smell of bleach permeated the lobby, which was adorned with a large mural of a panda. We climbed the staircase and I marveled at the little handrail installed several inches lower than the one adults used. I thought that despite its simplicity, it was a cute and thoughtful gesture. As we rounded the corner of a darkened hallway on the upper floor, I saw clothes laying flat on top of the radiators along the wall, and it occurred to me that perhaps donating an industrial-sized dryer might be something they’d appreciate.

We were led into a large, cheerful room with painted murals of children dancing together. Stacks of toys and stuffed animals filled bookshelves along one of the walls and Koko motioned Pa and me over to chairs by the window while she excused herself to speak with a woman sporting the brightest orange hair I’d ever seen. We had only been in Ukraine for 22 hours, half of which were spent sleeping on a train, but I still wasn’t used to the way in which people communicated with one another. Everyone seemed so tense, always using raise voices and wide, sweeping hand gestures, I was certain that the woman, whom I later learned was the head teacher, was angry at us for arriving with little notice. When they were finished with their…dialog…Koko told us that the little boy was not at the orphanage, but in the hospital with a nasty bout of bronchitis. Koko pleaded with woman to allow us to see him at the hospital, arguing that we had come all this way. The orange-haired woman was not going to let us go, until finally, she relented, providing we took her along as a chaperone.

Koko squeezed into the back of Schumacher’s car with us and drove back toward the edge of the city, passing the heaps of slag and coal mining equipment. Instead of it being a high rise, the hospital was a series of long, two-story buildings. But it was in a pretty bleak neighborhood filled with graffiti-tagged, communist-style apartment buildings, stray dogs picking at trash cans, and people huddled around over one with a fire. We started off in the main building—a darkened lobby that smelled of vomit and disinfectant; but we were lead to another building on the grounds—which, presumably, was the children’s’ ward, judging by the wall mural inside. I’d begun to think that wall murals signified “children present” in Ukraine, and this pretty one was offset by the smell of urine and feces. Inside, there were a series of rooms cordoned off by glass, and we were led to the head physician’s office where we met a middle-aged heavy set woman with a warm smile and a firm handshake. The teacher explained our presence and handed the physician some clothes she had brought with her from the orphanage. The physician left the room to go and get the child and I looked out the window on to the snow-encrusted grounds just as a pair of orderlies were wheeling a sheet-draped body on a gurney.

Moments later, a nurse entered the office, along with the physician who carried a little boy with the blondest hair I’d ever seen. He was holding a cookie in his hand and the physician said something to him and he smiled a wide, two-tooth smile at us and held out his cookie. I was stunned by how big he was and how different he looked from his little photo on the profile sheet. I turned around and asked Koko, “Are you sure this is the right kid?”

Pa and I had never scrambled before as much as we did the minute we got our appointment date at the adoption center in Kiev. Literally, the tree went up Christmas Eve and was taken down the day after Christmas. We bought our tickets, packed our bags and hopped on a plane bound for Kiev on January 5.

We finally landed in Kiev after flying all night and making a connection in Amsterdam, but we were both a tad nervous getting off in Ukraine given that we each were carrying a substantial amount of cash to pay for our trip and our facilitator’s services. Ukraine is very much a cash-based society and our facilitator made it pretty clear, too, that the bills had to be new and clean—without tears or dog ears. Our local bank branch actually audited us when we took out the amount of money needed.

At the recommendation of a few adoption group message board members, we used a service through our travel agent to have an escort move us through customs quickly, without having to count our money in front of several hundred people. I immediately saw the benefit, too, when I saw a man on our flight counting out his money in front of a customs official. Our escort simply pushed our customs cards in front of the official, who stamped it without so much as glancing at Pa and me. This was the first of many services we used to “expedite” our time in Ukraine.

Our facilitator, whom I’ll refer to as “Klasno” (or “Klas” for short) found us through the sea of people outside of customs. We shook hands and Klas carried my suitcase outside to our driver’s car. Pa and I sat in the back and held on for dear life as the driver navigated the icy streets leading to Kiev. We’d been warned that driving in Ukraine is much like playing “Smash Up Derby”. Drivers had very little regard for other drivers or pedestrians or curbs or sign posts, and sliding around in the snow made the experience even more harrowing. I figured if anything was going to kill me in Ukraine, it’d involve a car.

Klas told us that our appointment was at 11:00 a.m. the next day and that we would be staying in an apartment just outside of the city’s center. Our driver would come to collect us at 10:00 a.m., but he cautioned us not to go outside.

Once we got to the apartment complex, we discovered why. The gray and dingy building was one of six facing one another in a rectangle and all I could think about were the hundreds of housing projects I had ever seen in Queens and the Bronx. As we made our way into the “lobby” of our building, darkness enveloped us though it was the middle of the day. Klas pressed the elevator button and a very small, rickety box with a giant, spray-painted anarchy symbol on the doors took us up to the third floor, where we were lead to two doors leading to the apartment—the first was a heavy metal fire door lined with various odd-colored colored carpet squares. Even more attractive was the second door which was adorned with white upholstery. But once we got inside the apartment, it was warm, cheerful and spacious, with the last of the midday sun coming through a series of windows overlooking the other buildings. Once Klas gave us the grand tour and showed us how things worked, he locked us in for the night. The apartment wasn’t stocked with any food and I was grateful for bringing along packets of instant oatmeal and Cliff Bars. That was dinner.

We had a tough night of trying to get some rest. Both of us were keyed up with excitement and also on Seattle time, so we dozed more than slept. At 4:00 a.m., Pa’s parents called to see if we made it to Kiev without problems. After that, Pa couldn’t sleep at all. He went into the living room and turned on the TV. Ironically, the movie “Parenthood” was on and so he watched it in Russian.

The next morning, our driver collected us and Klas met us at the adoption center. We climbed up two flights of stairs and entered a long, narrow hallway lined with chairs and doors. We sat in the chairs and watched a dozen or so people leave a room from one door, walk across the hall and go inside of another. Then another door would open, a person would emerge, close the door, cross the hall, open another door and go through it. This went on for fifteen minutes and I remembered someone mentioning that it reminded them of being in a Scooby Doo cartoon. They were spot on.

Finally, someone called our names and Klas took us inside of one of the rooms. We were introduced to a man and a woman sitting at desks across from one another. The woman was a social worker and the man was a psychologist. We sat down at the woman’s desk and she proceeded to ask us a few questions about ourselves: why we wanted to adopt from Ukraine; what sort of child we were hoping to find; and why we would make good parents. These were all questions that had been asked of us since we had begun the adoption process, and we had our answers memorized, but I couldn’t help but wonder why adoptive parents always had to be grilled so much the hardest part about having a biological child for most people was giving birth.

The woman gave Klas a binder to look through. He flipped through the pages very quickly and because of my understanding of very little Russian, I found it hard to keep up with him. But he said that the profiles he had been looking at were of children with terminal illnesses. That was our cue to turn to the woman and tell her that we weren’t able to parent a very sick child and that we were hoping to find profiles with children that had minor, correctable medical problems. She nodded and held out four loose sheets each with a one-inch by one-inch sized photo of a baby. These were profiles of two boys and two girls that had just come in that day and they were all from the same region, all under the age of two.

I had this moment where I couldn’t even remember my own name, let alone pick one of the four children’s profile before me. I thought I had it all figured, out ahead of time, too, that I would have this epiphany once I saw my child’s picture; but nothing but sweat rose to the surface. I froze. Luckily Pa was able to think clearly because of the four children, he honed in on one little boy’s picture and said, “Look at him. I know he’s only a few months old in this picture but he’s looking at the camera with curiosity. Almost like he’s wondering what is that thing?” I looked at the child’s picture and saw nothing but a baby with a small tuft of brown hair and very large brown eyes. It wasn’t even the entire baby—it was just his face and hands. But he was cute and I just looked at Pa and said, “Ok, let’s go meet him.” I don’t know where the words came from, but I figured I’d go with it.

We told Klas who then translated it to the woman. She nodded and told Klas that she would phone the orphanage that day to let them know we’d be coming to visit.

The baby lived in Donetsk, a city about 12 hours away, by train. Klas told us he’d go and get our tickets and meet us at the train station for a 7:00 p.m. departure. Our driver took us back to the apartment so we could rest and pack. The packing was easy, but the resting was not.

I mean, how could anyone rest when they were about to meet their son for the first time?

To be continued…

Once we discovered that we could adopt a child in Ukraine independently, we were ready to part ways with the incompetent agency we were using. I found an online support group of families that had adopted in Ukraine and I asked for some referrals of translators who specialized in helping foreigners facilitate adoptions. I received a dozen or so names and I either called or e-mailed each and every one of them, asking them for their rates and descriptions of the services in which they would provide. Pa and I narrowed down our options and found a person who had been highly recommended by several families. Not only was he competent in guiding families through the adoption process, but he had a great deal of compassion toward the children. This really meant a lot to us since more often than not, the adoption had thus far been treated like a business transaction by nearly every one we approached.

Without asking for any money, the facilitator assured us that he would go to the adoption center in Kiev and look for our dossier. A week later, he e-mailed us to let us know he’d found it sitting on the desk of an employee at the adoption center, who had been fired. What was worse was that the facilitator told us the translations were awful, and if the dossier had been reviewed for approval, it would have been rejected a second time. He promised us that he’d re-do the translations and turn the dossier in as soon as he could.

In the meantime, our facilitator told us, we had to have a series of documents renewed since their dates were either a year older or more. We went back to the agency and told them that we were no longer using them for the in-country adoption process, and that we had hired a facilitator. They seemed pretty happy to let us go as clients, but before we completely severed our ties, we made them, without charge, procure new copies of the expired documents. Of course these documents took weeks to gather, and so September 2002 turned into November 2002, by the time we were ready to send our updated documents to our facilitator. Our facilitator contacted us about ten days later, letting us know the documents had arrived and he took the newly-revised dossier to the adoption center in Kiev.

In late November, Pa asked me if I’d like to come along with him to London during the first week in December. It had been awhile since we’d taken a vacation together, and for the first time during the adoption process, we finally felt at ease and that it wouldn’t be too long before we heard anything about our appointment date in Kiev. So, we decided to make a vacation of it and we added a week in Prague, which was absolutely amazing. The nice thing, too, was that Prague was the first city we’d seen that still had subtle bits and pieces of communist history entwined with its Gothic architecture, and so it gave us a rough primer of what Ukraine would be like.

We returned home just a few days before Christmas. Both of us were run-down and had bad colds from traveling. Gearing up for Christmas seemed rather mundane, especially since we hadn’t heard any news from our facilitator and we were still unsure as to when we’d have a chance to go to Ukraine.

But on Christmas day, our facilitator wrote to tell us that we needed to pack our bags. We had to be in Kiev on January 7 for our appointment at the adoption center.

To be continued…

Over the years, people have asked me why we decided to adopt from Ukraine, and my standard response has always been that it was accidental. Once we stopped trying to have a baby of our own and decided to explore other ways in which to start our family, Pa and I looked into both domestic and international adoption. We found a local agency that handled adoptions from China, and attended an open house to learn about the process.

At the open house, the director of the agency told us about a new program they were starting in Ukraine, and I think what initially made it so appealing was the fact that the adoption could be completed in one trip and the process took only 6-8 months, while adoptions in China, Guatemala, or Korea took a year or more.

We also thought that Ukraine’s culture and history was something we wanted to learn more about, and given that Pa’s family is Polish and Austrian and my mother was born and raised in Germany, we were drawn to that part of the world.

But the deciding factor for us was that we found Ukraine’s adoption process to be unlike any other country. For one thing, Ukraine does not allow pre-selection of a child and the potential adoptive parents are granted an appointment to go to the adoption center in Kiev to look at several different profiles of children, and choose one child they would like to meet in person. In other countries, a couple’s dossier is sent for review by adoption officials, who will choose a child’s profile, based on the couple’s request of age and gender. The profile is then sent to the couple, and if they accept, they then fly to the country and meet the child in person. We preferred Ukraine’s process because we would be the ones to choose from a group of referrals, rather than having someone else make that decision for us.

So in July 2002, we signed on with the agency and they gathered all of the necessary paperwork to assemble a dossier that they would send to Ukraine for approval, including copies of our marriage license, birth certificates, police clearances, medical records, tax returns, letters of employment verification, and letters of reference from three friends. They put us in touch with a social worker, who conducted an interview for our home study–which is a report that describes our backgrounds, our families, our careers, and our home life in great detail.

Meanwhile, we had to file a request with Homeland Security to grant us permission to bring an orphan into the United States, and had to write a letter to the adoption officials in Ukraine promising that we would send them annual reports of our child, along with pictures. We also had to promise that the child would have a dual citizenship, and at the age of eighteen, the child would either have to renounce his Ukrainian citizenship or sign up for army duty.

Each document had to be notarized, and then sent to the Secretary of State to be apostilled (basically someone from the Secretary of State’s office looks up each notary seal and verifies that it’s legit.) Once the documents were apostilled, they had to go to the State Department for authentication (basically someone ensures that the apostilles are legit).

It seems like a lot, I know, but we were happy that the adoption agency took care of most of the dossier. Once they had everything assembled, they had everything translated into Russian.

Things were going along just fine, and we weren’t too worried when the six month mark had passed and we still hadn’t had our dossier fully assembled. But then six months turned into eight months, then ten months, then twelve months. All the while, the agency kept saying “we’re almost done, we’re almost done…” but we wondered what happened to the time table we were promised.

Finally, in July 2003, the dossier was sent to Ukraine, but it was immediately rejected by the adoption officials, due to a missing document. The agency director just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I had no idea. You guys are our first couple, which makes you the guinea pigs!” We were livid.

In late August, when the missing document was still…missing, the director told us that he had success with a family who had signed on just after we did, and in September he was going to escort them to Ukraine so he could see the process first hand. He promised he would hand deliver our dossier to the adoption center in Kiev and would follow-up to ensure it would be approved.

By late September, we hadn’t heard anything further from the agency. I called the office and the director’s wife told me that he was still in Ukraine, but she had no idea whether or not her husband hand delivered our dossier. I couldn’t contain my anger any longer–especially when she offered to write us a check for services not yet performed, if we decided to go with another agency.

I felt helpless and I didn’t know what to do. So I summoned the gods of Google and looked to see if there were other local agencies with programs in Ukraine, and then I learned the most amazing thing: adoption in Ukraine could be done independent of an agency, and in fact, even though couples can use an agency to gather the paperwork, the adoption agency cannot go to Ukraine to facilitate an adoption on the couple’s behalf.

To be continued…

We have an appointment to travel to Kiev in July! This is big, big news for Team PaNaMa because now the hard part begins. Pa and I were so nervous that the Adoption Center might close again for an undetermined period of time that we decided against making preparations for kiddo number two until we got our date. Now that it’s just slightly over two months, we’ll be scrambling prepare ourselves for the trip AND paint Mr. Na’s new bedroom, along with designing and building his furniture. (Ahem–Pa if you’re reading this, STOP! I don’t want to stress you out further! :-) Mwah!)

So for those of you just tuning in and wondering what the heck is going on, I’ve put together a Q&A that will hopefully shed some light. I didn’t intend to just jump right in without providing some context around Ukraine adoption, but it’s big news and we’re pretty excited about it.

So, here goes…and I promise to follow-up with our previous adoption experience!

When you say travel date, what does that mean?

It means that we were granted an appointment to meet with officials at the National Adoption Center in Kiev, Ukraine to look at profiles of children available for adoption.

Do you have a child already chosen for you?

No. Ukraine does not allow pre-selection of a child. It’s only during our appointment that we’ll see profiles of children available for adoption.

What is a profile?

It’s a one page summary that includes a child’s name, date of birth, location, and bits and pieces of medical history. It’s usually accompanied by an extremely outdated 1”x1” photo of the child.

Do you have a preference as to the age or sex of the child you’d like to adopt?

We hope to adopt a boy or a girl, with minor, correctable health issues. We do not want to adopt a child older than Mr. Na.

Why don’t you want to adopt a newborn?

Ukraine law prohibits foreigners to adopt children under the age of 14 months, and we are comfortable with that. When we adopted Mr. Na, he had just turned 19 months, which was perfect for us.

Would you consider adopting an older child?

No, most importantly because it wouldn’t be fair to Mr. Na to disrupt the birth order.

What are minor, correctable health issues?

When we adopted Mr. Na, he was diagnosed with hip dysplasia, a heart murmur, asthma, and rickets–all treatable illnesses. Incidentally, Mr. Na only had rickets.

What are the risks of adopting a child from Ukraine?

There are many, but the worst case scenario for us would be to come home without a child.

Why would you come home without a child?

It’s a matter of timing, unfortunately. Oftentimes, families are shown profiles of very sick children (children with Leukemia, Cerebral Palsy, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or AIDS). Children’s profiles often take months—up to a year—to get to the Adoption Center in Kiev. So, we may not see profiles of relatively healthy children, within our requested age range. If that’s the case, we’ll file a request for a second appointment,which could happen within a few days after the first appointment or in 2009, depending on which way the wind blows.

Why take that risk?

Why not? Look how lucky we were last time!

What happens once you see a profile of a child you’d like to adopt?

The Adoption Center makes a call to the child’s orphanage, letting them know we’d like to come and meet the child in person. That evening, we’ll travel by train to that child’s region.

What happens once you meet the child?

We ascertain whether or not the child has any severe problems that were not listed on the profile (this happens a lot, unfortunately). We work with our pediatricians, who will coach us through a medical examination. We’ll send photos and videos to the doctors back home and they will give us a cursory diagnosis. We’ll also have blood tests performed to ensure the child doesn’t have AIDS or Hepatitis. After spending a few days with the child, we will let the Adoption Center in Kiev know that we are accepting the referral. We’ll then apply for a court date, the child’s passport and immigrant visa.

“If” the child isn’t well or displays extreme attachment disorder behavior, we will request another appointment at the Adoption Center and start over. I know this sounds heartless, but we aren’t equipped to take care of a very sick child. We’re not looking for the next Gerber baby, but we do want a child who will thrive. Having been through this before, and raising Mr. Na these past four years, we know this is possible.

How long will you be gone?

That’s a tough question. Last time it took 16 days door-to-door. We’re hoping it won’t take that much longer.

How is Mr. Na with all of this?

He’s still too little to understand the nuances of what we’re about to do. We hope that this trip will be a positive experience for him. We wouldn’t dream of leaving him home because it would be much harder on him if, after weeks of being gone, we came back with a new little one, saying, “Here’s your brother/sister!”

Hard to believe that a little over four years ago, Pa and I were in Ukraine, finding our son who we’ve come to now as Mr. Na. It feels like he’s has been here forever, and that he’s such an integral part of our lives. I honestly can’t remember what life was like before we brought him home.

Mr. Na will be six in June, another difficult thing to imagine. Where’d the time go? Seems like it was just yesterday that I was able to pick him up in one fell swoop. Now I can barely lift him with two hands.

People have asked me if I feel like I’ve missed out on the first 18 months of Mr. Na’s life; but to be honest with you, I feel like we adopted him at the perfect age. In fact, even though he was 19 months old when we first met him, he was developmentally delayed by six months, and as such, he still wasn’t walking or talking. He even wore 12 month old-sized clothing since he was so puny. But within six months of being home, he gained weight and grew, and not only was he walking, he was running–both with his feet and at the mouth! At first, I started writing down new words he learned, and then it became almost impossible to keep track. So, no, I really don’t feel like I’ve missed out on too much…and seeing his personality flourish has lead me to believe that I don’t think he’s missed out on too much either.

Mr. Na still hasn’t asked too many questions about his adoption, although I’m told that often begins when they’re seven. He knows he was living in an orphanage when we met him; he knows another lady gave birth to him and loved him enough to know that someone would provide a better life for him; and he seems very comfortable with his story, to the point where he takes bits and pieces of it and weaves it into his daily dialogs. For instance, he’ll say, “When I was a baby, I couldn’t wait to find a mama and papa who would take care of me. Now I have the bestest mama and papa ever!” (I swear to you I’m not bribing him!)

But I worry about the day when someone at school makes him feel “different” because he’s adopted. You know, the kid who says, “she’s not your REAL mom”. I know we can’t avoid that forever, and the best we can do is reinforce his self-esteem so that he feels good about who he is; but I’m still not looking forward to it.

We have a “lifebook” that I wrote for Mr. Na when he first came home. It’s a picture book that explains his adoption in great detail: from the time Mama and Papa board the plane to go to Kiev, to the time we meet him at the hospital, and the time we go to court and promise the judge we will take good care of him, to the day he arrives in his new home. One day, he wanted to bring that book with him to show-and-tell, but Pa and I talked him out of it. He’s only in Kindergarten and there are very few children his age who even heard of the word “adoption” much less know what it means. We’re not sure that Mr. Na knows entirely what that means, so we told him that lots of kids would ask a lot of questions in his class (and Pa and I came up with a few as examples like “what is an orphanage?” or “where is the lady who gave birth to you?”). Once Mr. Na realized that he couldn’t necessarily provide answers by himself, we told him it might be better to bring his life book to show-and-tell in first grade instead. And what really clenched it for Pa and me was that Mr. Na didn’t follow up by asking those questions. He hasn’t yet asked about his birthmother or about the orphanage even though we’ve told him that he could ask us anything he wanted to know about his adoption. That’s proof to me that he’s just not ready yet for the complicated stuff. And so, Pa and I will continue to follow Mr. Na’s cue.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about our journey to adopt Mr. Na.

If you’ve stumbled across this blog, then I’d like to welcome you with a hearty “hello”–or, “Privyet” in Russian, whichever you prefer. This blog will chronicle the before, during and after events of our second adoption in Ukraine. I’m your host, LaFemmeMonkita, or “Ma” for short, and I’ll introduce you to our cast of characters:

I’m a writer, runner and mother to a very awesome little boy named “Na”. I’m also married to the most wonderful guy in the world, named “Pa” (I’ll explain all this silly nickname stuff in a minute, so bear with me). We live in the great Pacific Northwest with our two nutty dogs, Scout and Oatmeal, and you’ll learn much more about us in due time.

With regard to our nicknames: well, I think “Ma” and “Pa” are fairly obvious, so I’ll tell you about “Na”, or “Mr. Na” as we like to call him around here. We met Mr. Na a little over four years ago in Ukraine. He was 19 months, and only spoke two words, both of which were Russian: “Na” and “Privyet!” “Privyet” means “Hello” and “Na”–well, the little guy had that word confused. You see, it’s sort of like a slang word for “here, take it”, which is what his orphanage caregivers said when they fed him. But when we met him, he was using “Na” as “Hey, give me that. That looks TASTY!” Just one of his endearing traits that pretty much had me and Pa convinced that Mr. Na was the perfect little guy for us to adopt.

Put our nicknames together and whaddya get: PaNaMa, which you’ll probably see in a lot of my posts here, so I thought I’d provide a little bit of background so you didn’t think I was completely off my rocker.

Team PaNaMa is about to embark on a journey to Ukraine in search of another little person to add to the mix. We’re hoping somehow this next one will have a “Ra” in his/her name or use “Ra” as a part of his/her daily repertoire so we can change the family code name to “PaNaRaMa”. I don’t think that’s asking for too much.

Well, I promise not to sound too cryptic or silly in all of my posts, because adoption is a really big deal and this is something we’re super serious about. But as you get to know me , you’ll discover that love and laughter are the preeminent themes in our household. My husband and I had our share of sadness in the many early attempts at creating our family, but ever since we met Mr. Na, the joy in our everyday lives is immeasurable. So, expect a little silliness, but my hope is to educate readers about adoption in Ukraine and provide details of certain events as they unfold.

In my next few posts, I’ll provide information about Mr. Na’s adoption as well as our upcoming trip to Ukraine. We do not have a date to travel just yet, but we expect to hear something any day now, and the suspense is killing me. I’m guessing it’ll be in August some time…but I intend to keep this blog active with “before” posts until then.

I hope you’ll bookmark “Privyet” and come by often! Thanks for reading!