Nov 22 - 2006 - Turkey Day

Two years ago today, myself, the hubby and Big Al were sitting in a small flat in downtown Kyiv overlooking Independence Square. It was foggy and gray and we were suffering from extreme jetlag and homesickness!


One of our translators, Era met us about 8am and walked with us Ukrainian-style (meaning really fast!) to the SDA (State Department of Adoptions/Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine) for our morning appointment. We met our main facilitators wife, Helen, who handled alot of the paperwork and dossier translation. Helen was very interested in Big Al, and spoke to him nonstop in Russian.... he just looked annoyed and tried to smile... Era kept telling her that he did not remember any Russian. Era rolled her eyes as Helen pretty much ignored her! We waited inside the SDA for about 20 minutes until Era told us it was our "time"... we were reminded to take notes on the region and the childs name, so that we could keep our facts straight... we were told which regions to avoid if possible.... Our translator at the SDA was Tatiana, who was really young! We walked back into a small office and sat down. She introduced the social worker who would be showing us files while she translated.


We spent only a few minutes showing them pictures of our home, talking about Big Al (who was busy playing his gameboy!) Then they moved right into showing us files.


Alot of people have NO IDEA what families are talking about when they say that they were given a referral.... A referral in Ukraine is simply an 8x10 white paper with alot of Russian wrote on it with a really bad and usually outdated picture of a child stapled to it.


Our original request when we turned in all of our paperwork was a "healthy" child under the age of 3 with minor correctable physical limitations.


It was a true heart dropper when our first file was a girl, age 6. This little girl had a laundry list of health challenges and issues. Of course she was a beautiful girl - but it was really hard to hear the situations of her health and conditions. My first thought was that the SDA was only going to show us children over the age of 5, and with health issues. The next file was a 4 year old girl with bright red hair... I remember the translator trying to make some little joke about her hair as red as a fox! This little girl had many health issues as well. After seeing the little red haired girl, alot of my hopes were gone that our little child was not here...


The translator, Tatiana, had 3 more referrals in her hand... and for some reason, she had turned and the three photos were fanned over so that I could see the pictures before she was showing them. It was there that I saw Miss O, and I knew that was the one to see.


We were shown another girl about 2 years old - with another laundry list... then we were handed the referral for Miss O and given her information. We had one more referral, which was a baby at 14 months old. The only thing that stopped us from taking this referral was the information regarding a neorological disorder and a few other facts. We were given some time at the end of our appointment to discuss our "options" and make a decision. While the older 2 girls were tempting for keeping a closer distance in ages with the boys, and the 2 year old girls were tempting, the baby was decided against pretty quickly, due to the diagnosis and the fact that we knew that it would probably be more than we were ready to take on - we decided to take a chance with the little 22 month old girl in Zaporizhzya. It was not exactly an "easy" choice - but her referral seemed the most promising and had reliable information regarding her "conditions". After our appointment, we walked back to our flat, arranged to have Dr. Yuriy go with us to the region - and then we went to the Internet Cafe to find out some information about the "conditions" that were listed on Miss O's referral. Because our appointment was on Thursday, we were unable to get our permission to visit Miss O until Friday. The Orphanage Director would not be there on Saturday, so we had to wait until Monday to visit her.



For Turkey Dinner - we had McDonald's!! It is amazing that you can sum up one life-changing day in a few paragraphs!


Amy