We are back in Kiev in a hotel. We have a flight leaving tomorrow (Sunday) at 7:00am. It is now 6:00pm on Saturday. We will be in around 9:00pm Sunday. This is not a fun process. It is full of bureaucratic red tape. I am not sure that I ever explained it and some of you are probably wondering what's the deal. So here's the deal.
Ukraine does not allow adoptive parents to meet and choose children prior to the approval of the dossier. To complete the dossier one must get all of the tests and documents and signatures and notaries and "stuff". In the "stuff" is a home study. The home study, the international home study (different than the domestic home study) tells all about our lives, from our home's square footage to our income data to the number and type of children you are willing to accept. This portion must be very specific. Which medical conditions are acceptable to you, which will you not accept. How old, what gender. I felt like I was shopping from a catalogue. This must be sent to our government to have it apostiled, which basically means notarized by our government, the it must be sent to Ukraine to be translated and then they notarized it in their country's version of apostile. After that is all approved by our government and their government, the Ukrainian government issues an appointment to the prospective adoptive family. The appointment is for a specific date and time. The prospective family will then need to get on a plane and go to the appointment. We have not seen any child at this point. The only information that we have about the child is what was laid out in the home study which is approved by our immigration services. For the record, when we filled out the home study we indicated a desire to have one child, a girl age 3-8 and we would be willing to take a second child boy or girl, sibling or not. When we got to the appointment, in Ukraine, we noticed that we had been approved for 1-2 children ages 0-6. As I mentioned before, that left us with a window of only one year to chose from, as we also found out that they do not allow for international adoption under the age of 5.
So, at the appointment in Ukraine the prospective adopting parents look through the photos and histories of the "available" children that meet their criteria. Then they make a choice. After they make a choice of a child to visit, they are given a referral. We were given a choice of one child only as the "available" children did not have siblings or the sibling was not available. So, we made our choice to visit this child and received our referral (the referral is for that child only and you can only have one per dossier). At that point, the prospective adopting parents have 10 days to decide yes or no. If yes, then more bureaucratic red tape to go through with the adoption. If no, then you have a choice of:
1. give up and go home
2. get another appointment in about 1 week to look through the same binders or at least you can look through the binders for children that are "available" that day. Maybe there are some different ones, maybe not.
3. go home, redo the paperwork using a different set of criteria, get approved by all the governmental agencies and get another appointment and try again.
So, we have decided to come home and make a decision about whether or not we redo the paperwork and whether or not we come back to Ukraine. We do not see any benefit in staying here for another week waiting for another appointment only to look through the same binders, and have to make the same types of choices. My heart muscle may not be able to handle that much stress on it in that short a time frame.
BTW, we have had one referral. They will only give you three maximum, no matter what way you choose.
We have some options if we decide to do it again. Things we were not aware of. Ways to make the process easier for us, but still leave God in control. IF we were to do it again, we would be better prepared in many different ways.
Why did God have us come to Ukraine at this time to meet Vika (this is the name our facilitator used for her. I believe it is a common nickname.)? Why did He not press us to take her home? We may never know, but I DO know that He is in charge and He wanted us to go through this. I pray that I will become more like Jesus as a result. Thank you Lord for growing me, even though growing pains are painful.
I feel like I have just binge watched episodes of your life for the past week,having just read the last 10 entries in a row. Wow. So much that you are going through, I am in absolute turmoil over the roller coaster of emotions that aren't even mine. In the end, whatever that is (nice cliffhanger there!) God will be glorified and lives will be changed. That is always huge, even if to us it seems like pushing on a rock. you have put yourselves in a position that I don't think I could handle. The choices are too difficult and there are so many sides to bravery. Thank you for your vulnerability, your willingness to step out and have your faith, strength, hearts be tested and living that out in front of us so we can pray, and grow. Love you both, a pretty lot.
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