Let's answer some questions

Many people have been asking me questions about the adoption process. I realized that since I have been going through this that a bunch of stuff is in my head, but I haven't shared it with many people. I thought I would take a moment to explain some things.

1st: What do you have to do before you can go to Ukraine to adopt?
Well, a lot of things. Here is our timeline

1. Februay 2005...We sent in our application to Homeland Security with multitudes of information about us. I also hired an adoption agent in Danville, Ky to do our homestudy. She is awesome! She was quick and efficient and friendly to boot. We had to get referral letters, income taxes, police clearances, doctor physicals along with many blood tests (Yuck!) for her to use to help with the HomeStudy she was doing for us. I cleaned forever when she came to inspect our home and of course the day she came we were putting in hardwood floors in the bedroom....what a mess.
2. March 2005 our homestudy was done and in the hands of Homeland Security. Others before me had their approval back in 10 days. As luck would have it...it took almost 3 months to get ours back. Something about somebody being sick...anyway, we were of a small group that took an abnormal amount to time.
3. We received our approval on June 9th...woo hoo (we picked it up at the PO and were just getting ready to leave to visit David's sister in NY). You know I had that big black binder that Kathy Marshall let me borrow that had all my adoption information in it so that as soon as we returned to Ky, I could start working on my paperwork to send to Ukraine for THIER approval now.
4. June 13th 2005 when we got back from NY, there were a million emails. The bad news is that it was being said that the Adoption Center was being closed. Cathy Harris who has been helping in the adoption process (and is extremely helpful, funny and there whenever we need her) told us to go ahead and get the paperwork to our translator so that it would be ready when things opened up. What luck...our immigration paperwork was delayed and now things are closed.
5. The good news is that the adoption center wasn't closed down...it was just going to in the future. Our paperwork was translated and submitted on August 7th and we were registered (approved) on September 8th. Yeah!!!!!!!
6. September 25, 2005...the adoption center stopped accepting dossiers (that pile of paperwork that we sent to Ukraine).
7. December 2005...the Adoption Center closed down.
8. June 2006 we had to redo our fingerprints (good for one year) to still be able to travel.
9. July 2006 the adoption center became the SDA (new director, new staff) and told everyone who was registered to send a letter affirming that we are still interested in adopting from Ukraine and they would start appointments in September. The initial list with our registration numbers said we would have an appointment towards the middle of November...but we are here with an appointment on December 6th.

How will you get there and what do you do at the airport?

Lonnie Rowland made our reservations for us with a layover in Amersterdam. David just knew I wanted to go there to do some major shopping, but hummmm...don't think it can be done in the 1 1/2 hour lay over. He won't be able to see the girls in the windows there either. :) We leave at 5:55 on Sunday the 3rd of December and arrive in Kiev, Ukraine at 4:45 on Monday. (The clock on our blog gives the time of day in Ukraine which is 7 hours ahead of us.) After we go through customs, we will be greeted by SOMEONE(?) and have been told not to talk to anyone unless they use our name. It seems that there are many people hanging out just past the customs gate trying to get money or give you a ride.

Then what?

Our facilitator will hopefully take us to our apartment, get some money changed out for us, take us to the grocery, and tell us what is next. K is our main facilitator and regional facilitator (in Kiev and whereever our child is.) Tuesday we will try to get adjusted to the timezone change and get ready for the next day. We have some people we have met through Ukrainian Angels who have an appointment on Thursday that we hope to meet up with and eat dinner with on that day. On Wednesday we will go to our appointment, on Thursday the paperwork should be checked off and we can go visit our child...depending on the region will determine if we will see the child that day or the next day. If we choose to adopt that child, our facilitator will start trying to get all the paperwork together and get a court date set. Once the court date is done, there is a mandatory 10 day wait period before we can leave with our child. Once that is done, we return to Kiev, get the childs physical done and VISA (a few other things) and then we fly home. Once the court date comes, one of us will be allowed to come home. David will probably be the one coming back!

What about Matthew, your son, will he be going?

No, he will be staying here with his Grammy and Grampy and taking care of Max (his dog) while Footz (David's dog) and Snowy (the family cat) will be at the kennel. Our other cat Domino is too wild and we couldn't catch her if we wanted. Grammy and Grampy have big plans with Matthew. All I can say is that I want to be with them too, but I have other plans. I can't tell you what they are going to do, because Matthew doesn't know yet...but it will be great.

That's about it!