We left the Yakima airport on our way to Seattle, then Seattle to Amsterdam on August 18. We arrived late the next afternoon in Kiev. We departed the plane on the tarmac and were bused to the terminal. We had to cross a weird little carpet to clean our shoes for some animal based disease that I can't remember now! We stood in line for passport control for over an hour and realized we were in the wrong line and had the wrong forms and forgot to purchase the $8 insurance! We finally got through it - gathered our luggage and looked through the crowds and saw our driver holding a sign with our last name. That was the first time we met Valery (pronounced Va-larry) and our Kiev translator, Irina. We loaded our luggage into Valery's big Ford Van and they took us to a grocery store in the middle of a high-rise neighborhood... looked alot like a ghetto! We bought enough food to last a day or two... then they took us to an apartment.
The first day, we just rested in our apartment. I don't remember venturing out or exploring at all! Day two we went with Irina to the NAC. To make things "official" we had to look at the infamous binder of children there to pick one out to go and visit. This was extremely difficult, as Irina told us to not ask questions or say anything about the fact that we already "knew" who we were going to see. It was like an act... we thumbed through this notebook... Irina said a few things to us like "this child has AIDS, this child has dislocated hips" the pictures that we saw were very hard to take in. At some point, Irina took a page from the binder - said something to the social worker and we were on our way. Basically, we were just getting permission to go to an orphanage. After our apppointment, Irina took us to lunch at an outdoor cafe and we had our first Ukrainian borscht - it was awesome! We did alot of walking and then Irina and Valery did alot of running around. Later that day, we went to meet with our facilitators. Who were Michael, his wife (whose name escapes me!), Nina - who was supposed to be our regional translator, Valery our driver and another man who was driving us to the region. We asked about the Twins - whose names were Alina and Dmitriy. We did NOT ask their age, as we had already been told by our agency. We were told they were very healthy and good children... we were very lucky to find such a good referral. We were told alittle about the region (Poltava) and that the driver and Nina would pick us up for the drive at 4am the next morning.
The Drive to Kremenchuk
Nina and our driver picked us up at 4am. We had to load everything into the little car. We did not eat breakfast (dumb Americans - we thought we'd be stopping at breakfast time!) The first hour, Nina was "running errands" picking up gift bags (bags of bribery! booze and chocolates!)and paperwork. We left Kiev about the time the sun was coming up. Our driver had an extremely heavy foot and the scenery raced by! Outside the city, we enjoyed the countryside for the first hour or two... beautiful farmland and lots of sunflowers! It was a beautiful day! We stopped only once to use an outhouse on the side of the road... it was a little weird! We arrived at the orphanage about 10am. We did not know what to expect. We pulled up to a large white stone building with greenish trim... there was lots of sheets hanging up to dry out front. Nina took us inside the building and up stairs to the Directors office. We went inside and met the Director, whose name was Nataliya. She seemed very efficient and to the point. She asked us a few questions. Not long after - two little children were paraded into her office.
MEETING THE TWINS
My first thought was - OMG - these children are HUGE 2 year olds! The twins came in saying "Privyet Mama, Privyet Papa!" It was an odd sensation and feeling. After about 10 minutes of the nurses telling us about the children (via Nina) we were asked "You will adopt them? They are beautiful children - very healthy" . Lina and Dima were beautiful indeed. Lina had light brown hair and blue eyes, Dima was a blue-eyed blonde. Both children were told to sing for us, tell us things they liked (more like we were told what we had to buy for them!) and then these tornado children started going thru our bags and taking our camera! We asked Nina and the director if we could play with them before making our decision. Nina kept pushing us, telling us how good they were and healthy. Our adoption agency told us these twins were 27 months... in reality - they were 47 months and would be moved to the pre-school in a month. (this was lie #1 from the agency).The hubby and I asked to talk it over in the other room... Nina was ok with it - the director was a little put out by how long we were taking. We went into the music room across the hall. I remember that I sat down and the tears started. They were not tears of joy - more like tears of uncertainty and grief. I knew in my heart that these twins were not our children. Nina came into the room and asked us what the problem was. We told her that our adoption agency had told us that the twins were 27 months, toddlers. Nina told us over and over that SHE had personally talked to the agency and told them the birthdates more than ONCE... she was upset about the fact that we had been misled, but she was persistant about us taking these twins home. She gave us a few minutes to talk, think and breathe. We both felt the same thing. These twins were more than we could handle - we just did not feel it in our hearts. We were worried that we were making a huge mistake. During our hour talking and thinking and trying to figure out how to put it into words that Nina could understand... the twins each came to the door a few times and said... "Mama? Papa? blah blah blah in Russian"... it was heartbreaking.Finally, Nina returned and we told her that we could not adopt these beautiful children and that she could take us back to Kiev.
The Second Referrals
Nina went into the Directors office and apparently told her our decision. There was a lot of screaming on the part of the director (Nataliya) ! She was not happy at all! Nina came back and told us to wait and she would see if there was any other available siblings to look at while we were here. We were pretty numb at this point... we just wanted to get outta there! It was beyond emotionally draining! Nina was gone for maybe 20-30 minutes and came back and told us that there was only ONE set of siblings available interesting, since this place was overflowing with children! Within a few minutes... Nina left the room...
Meeting Vitaliy
Not long after Nina left, a nurse brought in a little boy (who was wearing the same exact clothes that Dima had been wearing a few hours before) who had dark brown hair and brown eyes. He was extremely quiet. He sat in my lap and once I handed him some crayons, he began to color. The nurse stayed and answered lots of questions about him, via Nina. We moved to the carpet and played on the floor for a bit... not long after - we heard screaming coming closer. And in came Vitaliys little brother screaming his head off... and his name is Dmitriy. 
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