SDA Appointment - January 29, 2008

We are having a great time in Ukraine. The streets are really slippery and we are doing a lot of walking. We walked to the McDonalds and really ENJOYED having fast food! Randy is amazed by the way people drive and park. You can park on the sidewalks - which means you walk in the streets a lot. All of the streets by our apartment are one way - this does not mean that they only drive one direction. The signs say one way but Randy is of the opinion that all traffic laws are suggestions, not actual laws. Seat belts are always fastened and behind the seat, where they do absolutely no good. Yelena looked at us a little askew when we put them on.

The churches here are absolutely beautiful and are our favorite landmarks to find our way back to the apartment. All of the buildings here have amazing architecture.

Our apartment is within walking distance of the SDA building. Right next to another lovely church. We met with an interpreter and a social worker who showed us the girls (as babies) and told us that they are indeed available for adoption. They were both abandoned at the hospital at birth. Lera's birthday is September 2nd and Lena's birthday is May 4th. They asked how our kids felt about new sisters and we asked if they had any medical information on them. The medical information is sketchy at the SDA. The orphanage has better records about this. They did say that Lera was diagnosed with Cardiopathy and Lena was diagnosed "congenital heart disease and hypotonia". Not really news.

I showed them pictures of our kids and showed them a few photos that we have from Wendy Saunders. They said our referal will be ready tomorrow between 5 and 6pm tomorrow. We have train tickets for tomorrow night to Odessa and then we will be taking a taxi to Izmail! I can't wait to see our girls!

We're Here!

We made all our connections. Paris was kind of a mess, too early in the morning for alot of things and we were transfering to Ukraine Airlines, so finding information was difficult. Alot of the staff speak english which is fortunate because I can't speak a word of french. Carryon restrictions are different so we had to check our luggage for the last leg of the trip. They do want to see a copy of your prescriptions, even though it was explained that the US doctors and pharmacies don't do that. The attendant at the counter said to put them in our checked luggage and perhaps they wouldn't notice. Carryon bags can way no more than 7kg or they need to be checked. Mine was 12kg but our laptop bag which is probably about 10kg with all the electronics, wasn't even weighed.

All of our flights were business class up until this flight. Our flight to Kyiv was crowded and we sat on the runway for over an hour. Long enough, that when we took off, I got rained on by the condensation that had formed during the wait. I had the middle seat, between to men and couldn't budge. We were given customs documents to fill out on the plane, which required an act of contortionism to reach my passport and a pen out of my bag in front of me.

While we were in line to go through customs, I reached for my passport and discovered that it was not there. After a long search, I concluded that it had tumbled out during the flight. I found a lovely gentleman in uniform who called the crew and had them check my seat and fortunately, it was found.

I had visions of Tom Hanks in The Terminal while waiting. We then needed to fill out declarations because of the amount of money we had and finally, they let us out. Poor Ileana, we had her so scared. There is no way to contact anyone until you clear customs, so she was panicking. I don't think they even are told that the flight is massively delayed, added it to customs woes and it was 3 hours late before we actually got to see Kyiv.

We did make it and we are safe. We have our appointment at 3pm on Tuesday. Our apartment has internet (you need to go sit on the unheated balcony because the walls are so thick, but its internet!) so we will post later.

January 27, 2008

Just a quick post while we are still in the USA. We got off to the airport fine - more of less. Michael woke us up yesterday at 5am because he was having an asthma attack. He is definitely getting sick and I know that he is very sad that we are leaving. We had 3 more episodes during the day. I feel so awful leaving him when he is feeling so bad. I know that he will have a blast with his grandpa but it was so difficult to leave that sad little face. I can't even write about my Caeli-bird without crying.

I didn't sleep at all last night, so I slept most of the way from Minneapolis to Washington D.C. We are waiting for our flight to Paris. Our flight # is AF 039, leaving Dulles at 4:55pm. We'll be in Paris for breakfast.