Day #3

I'm just going to copy and paste my family email for this day so just overlook any info I already covered and the bad grammar etc. :)

Just got home from our SDA appointment!

Had quite an expected fitful night with the usual waking up at 2am hungry and raring to go :) Finally around 5-6 we all were in bed and slept till 9:30. Bill had just got back from running and Pey and I were still lounging around in our pj's when Vitalia calls and says Serge wants us their early and he will be here in 30 minutes to pick us up :-0 Had to really hurry since we are still living out of a suitcase and searching 10 minutes to find the iron which was in the bottom cupboard of the kitchen HA Was a little worried why Serge wanted us their early, but Vitalia said he never knows any personal information and all he knew was that Serge had said nothing was wrong. Got to the famous- infamous SDA building that looked very unimportant, with a little side entrance with the pink door:) Met Serge and then went across the street to a pizza place to talk. Since we hadn't had breakfast and was just going to walk down the street for some lunch when we were summoned to go, we were all hungry so ordered some pizza. Serge never did say why he wanted us there early, but he explained the procedure and that he had a 6month old baby boy picked out for us! He left us there then and went back to see if we could get in before our appointment, I will insert here that we have already found out this is a very respected man with the adoption officials and I think they jump when he says instead of the other way around! :) He soon calls and says we can come. We go up a couple flights of rickety stairs and enter a very nondescript room with not much in it but a desk in one corner and an L shaped couch in the other. We sit down and a lady soon brings out a file of the boy. Serge translated it for us explaining his diagnosis. It was some kind of heart condition were the lining on one side of his heart wall was thicker than normal. He all of a sudden stopped and said that his file said he has HIV. He said he did not know that, so he started calling around and found out his mother has it and the babies first test tested positive but then when they did the second more extensive test it came back negative, so just positive antibodies. He went and got 'THE' book of apparently all the available children and started leafing through it (I'm quite certain he wasn't legally suppose to have access to that book!:) all of the children had obvious problems with quite severe special needs. He said he had another boy that was 31/2 years old that he knew of that we could have for an option, but he didn't see anything in the book that would be of interest to us. So if we wanted to pursue this little guy he would proceed. We didn't have any special feeling that this was the right one, but no glaring reason why we shouldn't proceed and the other boy seemed at the high end of our age range so we told him we would like to go see him. He started trying to get the paperwork for an official referral and found out that a Ukrainian family had just asked for permission to see him! :( He gets on the phone and after awhile he said the family had decided not to take him, but their 'official' time was not up until 2 weeks! The family lived 4 hours away and refused to come and sign papers that they were not taking the child allowing us to get permission to visit. the family said it was nothing to them that we wanted to go before there time was officially up... :) Just remember this is all taking more than a mere 30 minutes and Peyton is sick and tired of sitting on the couch, trying to be quite and still, and had looked at all his books and written in his tablet till he was bored silly and was starting to get whiny, but of course refusing to sleep!!! I sense Serge getting very antsy and stressed and I asked Bill what time it was... I was hoping it was getting close to 2:00 and all our prayer warriors at home were on their knees!!!!!!!!!! It was 1:50!! HOPE:) If you prayed on our behalf take the credit!:) Serge all of a sudden had an idea, he babbles away to the lady and she leaves the room. Serge goes and gets 'the' book again and more slowly turns the pages to see if he had missed anything, the whole time his face is wrinkled and I can tell this was not going as he had planned! Eventually the lady returns with a file and a big smile and Serge says THIS is the one for you!! The wrinkles fade and is replaced with a very relieved look and smile! He said I have been knowing about this child and it is a GOOD one! I have been to it's orphanage and interacted and you will love it! He said he all of a sudden remembered this child was suppose to be coming available for adoption soon so he had the lady check to see when it was....and it was TODAY!!! Today folks!! Is that coincidence??? My heart tells me no! :) So we will be the first family to visit it and if we adopt it we can say it was adopted on the first possible day it could have been!! :)) 

Sorry all the juicy details on the child are deleted for now... will share as soon as we see the child  and decide on our answer! :)

Peyton is extremely excited and doesn't think he can possibly wait another day to 'play' with HIS new sibling!:) Bill likes this option better than the first because he thought 6 months was too young and for me.... I deal with emotions by putting up a wall and therefore I'm neither here nor there with it yet! :) It was not love at first sight with Peyton and I doubt I will let myself with this one either! :( Like I said I was very impressed by the facial expression, l think there was a lot of personality behind those beaming eyes! :)

So what from here? We go back to pick up our official referral and permission to visit the orphanage tomorrow and then leave on the train to the region Saturday night at 9 and arrive at 6 Sunday morning. The region which translates 'crooked horn' is in central Ukraine. Vitalia said it is a long city of about 10 kilometers with only one street through the middle:) 

One note of interest and I know this is getting a little random, but I'm very tired and emotionally drained so it is what it is:) When we left we took the official that helped us at the SDA to some bldg way on the other side of Kiev and then picked up another lady and took them both back to the SDA. I asked Vitalia what was up with that and he smiles and said we do these kind of things so we can get what we want with the adoptions! ;-) I told him in America we have a saying that it's not what you know but who you know and he said Da Da that is right!! :)

After dropping the 2 ladies off we went and got our train tickets and it was the same story there...tickets were all sold out, but for some reason we could get in a line with only one person in it while the other lines had 50! Our line had tickets available:) Vitalia got questioned down by several people who were not impressed with his powers HA

So now we are back at the apartment and had us a little snack and Pey is sleeping, Bill reading and after awhile we are going to go out on the town and enjoy this awesome fall weather!! We have a metro stop at the end of our block and its only $.20 a ticket so think well ride that out aways and see what we can find. Just like every big city it's not lacking for things to do!! 

If you have any questions about something I didn't cover just ask away :)