Choosing a name

We are trying very hard to choose our daughters name. If her Ukrainian first name is nice then we will most likely stick with it. If she is old enough to choose to change her name to an American name then we will let her make that decision. If we change her name, then her first name will become her middle name. Here are the names we all can agree on so far: Sage and Peyton. Luke wants a common name like Jessica. Me (Michelle), I want something that isn't common and it has to be strong for a girl. We have also been looking up Russian names but don't find too many that we like...the quest continues.

Long over due update

So much has happened since I posted that post last March. We were using a facilitator in Ukraine that had 9 families ahead of us before our dossier was submitted. In Ukraine, your dossier is expired once it is 6 months old. The adoption center (SDA) will only accept a dossier if it has a full 6 months left. Some of the paperwork in our dossier began to expire in October and we still had at least 7 families ahead of us. Another factor in adoptions in Ukraine is how many American families are allowed to adopt from Ukraine each year. This amount (around 580) is broken up into the 4 quarters. If the quota is met then adoptions for Americans cease until the next quarter. There was also a huge "line" of Americans waiting to have their dossiers submitted (it was rumored to be around 300 families). So not only did we have to wait for a place with our facilitator but also a place in line to submit. Our future with this facilitator did not look good. We would have had to redo our dossier at least 2 more times before our dossier could possibly be submitted. I decided to do some research on other facilitators and see what our options were. We found a great guy named Roman stateside who assists families with adoption in Ukraine. He had our new dossier submitted in 3 weeks! Needless to say we were thrilled!!

Here is the process in a nutshell once your dossier is submitted:

The wait time for an appointment date with the SDA (Ukraine's National Adoption Center) is supposed to take 20 business days. Ours took about 6 weeks. Travel is usually 3-4 months later. Our date is March 12. Once we arrive at the SDA we will meet with a psychologist and an employee of the SDA who have preselected files of children who meet our homestudy requirements. This can vary also. Some people have been shown 5 files, some 10 and some have been shown books! Once we choose the child we want to meet, we wait for approval from the director of that orphanage and leave Kiev (capital of Ukraine) to meet the child. This could take anywhere from 1-2 days on average. Once at the orphanage we will have the child examined by a western trained doctor to confirm her health history. Much of the files they have on the children are old, outdated or wrong. If all is well and we believe it is a good fit then we will petition the court to adopt. Waiting for a court date could take anywere from 1-3 weeks. On average it is about 2. Once we get through court we have to wait 10 days in case someone wants to contest the adoption they can. After court one parent may return back to the states and the other parent can bring the child home solo. Once the 10 day wait is over we will need to get the birth certificate changed. Hopefully it is the same region the child is in. After that is done, it is back to Kiev to apply for the childs visa, medical exam, passport and all other paperwork. Total time in country on a smooth adoption (very few are smooth!) is 35 days.

So now that we have our date to travel we need to work on airline tickets, warm clothes (we Floridians do not have many of these!), compiling of our research, figuring out how to pay our bills while we are gone, who can watch the dogs and look after our household things such as mail, finding a stateside doctor that can also look at the referral of the child including pictures if we have access to email and the list goes on and on.

Since we won't know anything about our child until we meet her, it is impossible to buy clothing to prepare for her. I am not sure if we plan to get her room together or not. Maybe I will think about this after the holidays.

Here are some other fun things about our upcoming trip:
We will most likely stay in someone's apartment for the duration of our trip. People there give up their residences to adoptive families to earn extra money. Ukraine does not have laundry mats and only if we are lucky will we have a place with a washer. We will have to hang everything to dry. If we are not lucky I will be washing clothes the old fashion way. In every piece of adoption preparation advice I have been given/read says to pack light, plan to wear the same clothes over and over and by the time you are done you will probably want to throw all the clothes you brought away. Most apartments do not have working elevators so we will be lugging our bags up flights of stairs. Most of the language spoken there is Russian which comes with its own alphabet! Neither of which Drew or I know! Some apartments/hotels have internet but many don't so we plan to buy a Blackberry so we (mostly Drew) can stay connected with the states. In most regions there are internet cafe's. Only out in the most rural areas they don't.

Our plan all along was to take Luke with us and most likely one of us would return with him after court so he could go back to school. Our trip will fall over his spring break so maybe unless things go really long, we will all stay there together. I have to get him in shape to be home schooled! This will be an amazing journey that we would not want him to miss or be a part of. I couldn't imagine being without him for a month or more.

I think that basically catches us up to this point. I hope to keep this updated much more regularly. No telling what will happen after I am a mother of 2!!

Post from old blog from beginning of process

It has been awhile since I have posted on our blog and many things have happened.

We finished our home study which was a breeze. Alma was wonderful and made us feel so comfortable. I felt kind of guilty because she didn’t look in our rooms, interview Luke or any of the other hard stuff others have posted about. She was thrilled with us because we had almost all of the paperwork she needed and ready for her to review. She had our home study complete and in our mailbox within 2 weeks.

After we had our home study we submitted it to BCIS to complete our I 600 form. This is what the US required adoptive parents to do. We had to submit finger prints as well as an application and our home study. I had heard that Orlando BCIS was quick and so I was at our mailbox daily hoping to get our “golden ticket”. Finally I got something from them but it wasn’t what I was hoping for. It was a letter requesting information about Drew’s arrest. Luckily when he was in Vegas the last time he got all of the paperwork we needed to prove the case had been purged. We submitted this to BCIS and within a week we had our “golden ticket”. I have been hanging on to this document (I 171H) for dear life! We will need it when we leave Ukraine.

The I 171 H was the last document we needed to complete our dossier. I sent everything by courier to the Secretary of State to be apostilled. The courier who does this for adoptive parents found one little problem with our medical release and fixed it for us before she submitted it. That same day she sent all of our documents back to us.

I sent our dossier off to Valentina in Ukraine last Thursday and it was supposed to arrive today. Last I checked on the Fed Ex site it was in Kiev waiting for customs release.

Next Valentina will translate our dossier and then wait in line at the SDA to get it submitted. The SDA is only taking 5-8 American dossiers each Monday. It seems to be taking a month and a half to get dossiers submitted right now. After it is submitted they are supposed to take 20 days to review it and schedule your appointment. This has been taking them 45 days instead. However, they have just appointed a new director so I am hoping things will start running the way it is supposed to. We anticipate we will travel in early fall. This will be perfect for us because Luke can start school and then we can leave.

I have been feeling all different things during this process. It seems when I am tired I think to myself “what are you doing?” but I know deep inside I would regret the decision to never have a daughter. I went and bought her bedding and I felt so excited. A dream come true.

I am afraid of our SDA appointment. What if they say there aren’t any girls in our age range? Drew doesn’t want to take a child that has any medical problems…not even a cleft lip/palate. I think if it is surgically correctable we should consider it. We will have Dr. Yuri evaluate the child so we know exactly what we are dealing with. Things have gone so well so far I can only anticipate things will continue this way.