Well we made it, FINALLY! We missed a connecting flight in Frankfurt, and had to fly to Berlin and then to Kiev. We got in 7 hours later than we were supposed to. We used the VIP service at the airport which we highly recommend...it was quick and easy!! We met Nastya at the airport and she took us to our apartment in Kiev, where we met Oleg. Our appointment was for 10:00 am. today at the NAC. We waited in the waiting room with 6 or 7 other families. We met a couple who is from NJ who was back to adopt their second child. We were only there about an hour and either tonight or tomorrow we are going to see a 15 month old boy named Sergei. Cant' remember which region he is in, but that it is about 5 hours east of Kiev by train. Right now we are waiting to see if we are leaving tonight or tomorrow. I can't get my laptop to connect in the apartment, hopefully it will work better in the region! It's cold and blustry here. No snow since we've been here...Well we're getting kicked out of the Post Office. Hopefully we'll write more tomorrow!
OK, since the Post Office closes here at 2:00 pm. I decided to come back to the apartment and continue and hopefully I can upload this file at our next stop. To start from the beginning, we left Harrisburg, PA at 4:55 pm. on Saturday with Kim, Greta, Rory, Marc, David and Betty Jane seeing us off. (My sister, David's sister, our nephew, Greta's boyfriend and David's Mom and Dad) We got into Philly on time, but the plane to take us to Frankfurt was late, so we spent about 4 hours at the Philly airport. This caused us to miss our connecting flight, so we spent about 5 hours in the Frankfurt airport. We finally got a flight to Berlin and then to Kiev. We were supposed to get to Kiev at 2:55 pm., instead we got here at 9:45 pm. For those who are wondering about the airlines, we flew USAir to Frankfurt, Lufthansa to Berlin and Ukraine International to Kiev. We do not recommend Ukraine International!! Their food was served cold, fried fish (they told us it was chicken), corn/beans/peas and some kind of potato stick/roll. On all flights the attendants were great, no complaints. We'll see what happens when we come back with a baby!
We've both adjusted to the time difference already as I didn't sleep at all until we got here and David had a few hours on the plane. Not much to see so far. We don't even know what section of town we're in. For those adoptive parents that have been here, we're about 5 blocks from the NAC. The apartment is nice & newly remodeled. Most of the people that we have seen on the street are dressed in dark colors & everyone wears a hat. We have seen some people wearing jeans, (not very many) and a few bright colored coats.
When we got to the NAC, our translator, Natsya signed in and we went to the second floor waiting room. There were 4 American couples and a few more that weren't. It is a small area, not very many seats, and some people were even down the steps. After about 20 minutes, we were taken back, down a long hallway to wait and see one of the psychologists. The wait was only a few minutes. She asked us to tell her about us, just a few short sentences, what we did for a living, whether or not we had any bio children and how many, gender and ages of the children we hoped to adopt. We told her we would like to adopt 2 children, a boy and a girl. The big books that everyone talks about were sitting on the desk. After some discussion between our translator and the psychologist, we were shown the book of siblings who were available. My understanding is now that 2 children can only be adopted at the same time if they are siblings. There is some new family law that was put into effect just last week that only one child can be adopted at a time (unless siblings). Your file then gets closed and if you want to adopt another, you have to go thru the process all over again. The psychologist pointed out to our translator the new law in what ever book it was. So needless to say, we won't be coming home with 2 children this time because we wanted to adopt under 30 months of age and there were no sibling groups that young. So then we were shown the boys who had just become available. Yes, a boy for all you family members at home, someone to carry on the Demchak name, to go fishing with David, and to play and get in trouble with all his male cousins!! So the little boy we are going to see is named Sergei, he was born Nov. 26, 2002. He had dark hair and blue eyes. The picture was probably taken when he was only a few months old. If we adopt him we decided to name him Jacob. So now we are just waiting to see when we get to go see him.
While we are waiting, we went to the market, which when people say market, think of an old country store that has everything. We then went to the Post Office to get on the internet. No one there spoke or understood English, so there were a lot of hand signals. We were on for about half and hour and it cost less than one Ukrainian dollar. They looked annoyed when we didn't leave at 2:00. The lady pointed at her watch and then at the door. OK, we understood!! Now we're back at the apartment and I'm trying to figure out how to consolidate our luggage. I thought I did well packing, but after lugging it thru 5 airports, I knew what people meant when they said to pack light!! We did bring some baby stuff, toys, books which took up some space, and munchies that took up some more. Hopefully everything but the laptop and the backpack can be checked on the way home.
So, that's all for now! Please feel free to email with any questions or comments. I'll try to respond as quickly as possible. Until next time!! Lori
February 24, 2004
What a day! We took a train last night to Kharkov, which is the city where Sergei is. It was an 8 hour overnight train. We were lucky enough to get the cabin right over the wheels. Our translator Max said it was the worst train ride he's ever been on. David and I both agree. None of us slept, so we're going on about 10 hours of sleep in the last three days, not to mention the jet lag. We got in to Kherkov about 6:30, got a room at the Hotel Mir. At 8:00 am we were off and running, first to the Inspector's office (Social Worker). We were there about an hour and then we went to the orphanage to see Sergei. We met with the Director of the Orphanage first. She was very nice and went over Sergei's file with us. Then we got to meet him!!! Of course we were strangers and he didn't really want anything to do with us. He also has a cold, missed his nap and it was feeding time. After about an hour with him, they took him to feed him and we were told to come back around 2:00 pm. We went and got something to eat and came back to our room for about an hour or so. We left around 2:00 to go back and see him. It's about a 30 minute drive to the orphanage. And yes, for those of you who want to know, the roads are bad, and the drivers are the same. Our driver was OK, it was everyone else on the road. We spent 2 more hours with Sergei and decided we wanted to adopt him. He was much more receptive to us in the afternoon. We were put in a playroom with him and pretty much had him to ourselves with the exception of one of his caretakers keeping an eye on us. He loves balloons and balls. He is crawling and starting to walk. He's trying to say a few words although we don't understand him. I think we taught him how to do “high fives” and he gets the biggest kick out of it. He also likes to look in the mirror. The orphanage itself is well kept and it looks as if it is well funded. There was a piano, a new TV and new colorful chairs for the children in the playroom. The playground outside also looked like it had new equipment. He is a favorite of the caretakers and we can see he is attached to them. He smiles whenever he sees one. They took him to feed him at 4:30 pm and we were off and running again after meeting with the Director to complete the paperwork. Next was a stop at the Inspectors and then to the Notary. It's 7:30 pm. here now. David and Max went to get something to eat, and I am here writing. We are changing rooms later and then hopefully we can get some sleep. We are going to the orphanage tomorrow morning to see Sergei and I don't know what's in store for the rest of the day, except another visit after 4:00 pm. Sorry, there are no pictures yet, I forgot to take the camera on the second visit, but I will be sure to take it with us tomorrow!