Court Date and other news

Yay!!! Court is over! As many of you know, we had court on Thursday at 4pm. I was calm until we got into the courtroom and the judge began to question us. The judge was very young, mid-30s, and casual in short sleeves and khakis. There was a man on one side of him and a woman on the other side. There is no equivalent for their roles in the USA. They mostly kept silent and listened to the hearing, but occasionally the judge would ask if anyone had any questions for us and the woman would speak up. Next to her was the court stenographer/recorder. She used a computer to take down proceedings. On a lower level in front of HER was the representative for the prosecuting attorney’s office. Now in the US, a woman in this position would have been in a power suit. Not here- this girl (younger than me, anyway) was wearing a VERY low cut dress- can anyone say, “EYE TRAP?”- and was dressed like a girl headed to the beach for vacation! She also asked us questions occasionally.

Seated with us was Yulia, our facilitator, and the Inspector of the region, who acts as a sort of regional minister for the rights of family and children within the State Department of Adoptions. The inspector is a very nice lady who seems to care about the children she is responsible for.

The judge began by reading our petition to adopt Mira and to change her name. Her birth name is Miraslava something something that someday I hope to have written down and translated so I can tell her when she asksJ Her new name is Mira Kathryn Wells!!!! Anyway, the judge asked Rich to stand and put forth questions to him, such as: how stable is your job/income, why do want to adopt another child when you already have 4, what size is your house, etc. Then I had to stand for my questioning. I was quite nervous and was shaking and blushing like a schoolgirl!! I was asked how I was going to handle 5 children, would I be bringing in outside help (AS IF!!!), did our family get along, did we live close to relatives, etc. After all this, there was a brief recess while the judge read his notes. He came back in and told us “Congratulations!” and cracked his first smile of the day. Yulia said, “Congratulations, you’re parents…again!”

Maybe if I had all typical births and children, the congratulations would get old after 5 kids. But well, Kimberly was my first born- CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Lauren was my miracle- CONGRATULATIONS!!! Brandon and Connor are my boys, my boys that I wanted since day one and which took bedrest and multiple tests and ultrasounds and an emergency c-section to get here- CONGRATULATIONS!!! And Mira. Mira is my adopted daughter, my daughter that I never even knew about until 1 ½ weeks ago. My daughter who is living proof of the faithfulness and care of my God. Miraslava means “Glory” and God has indeed shown me His glory and He is being glorified on this entire journey! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Here is a photo of the happy parents in front of the courthouse. We are now in our ten day appeals wait period. After this, I can start the proceedings to get Mira a passport, visa, medical clearance.

Now for other interesting news:

Our hotel seems to be the party spot in town. Music and loud people til all hours of the morning. We even got to see a wedding party!

This next picture is for my Yuku chat group- I miss ya’ll!!!!! Every Monday night we’d stay up talking about Ukraine, adoption, and special-needs children. One favorite topic of conversation was how nasty the bathrooms in Ukraine are, especially on the trains. So, some of us said that we would buy Depends just to wear on the very long train rides to region. Well, I didn’t have to take train rides, and I have only used the hotel bathroom so I’ve been fortunate. I did however, find a market stall selling lots of Depends!!!!

Some more sweet photos of our Glory- Mira Kathryn Wells!!!

All bundled up for the warm weather:) Ukrainians believe in keeping the children WELL covered here- poor Mira gets quite clammy.

Look at that sweet face!

Mira's sweet little feet. She will require surgery as one of her feet is a pretty severe clubfoot. I love that the caretakers still put shoes on her!

Mira loves to play with Daddy!!

Mira's first photo taken with BOTH her parents!

Thanks for all your prayers and sweet comments! We have lots more photos to show you!

The Orphanage

Now, I know many of you are wondering about the orphanage here in Priluki. Rich and I have been pleasantly surprised after hearing so much about the state of other orphanages in Ukraine. Like I’ve said, we seem to be the first to adopt from here (internationally and special-needs) so there was no info we could get before we came. We want to pave the way for more children here to find homes!!! There are about 80 children here in the “baby house” which is for children ages 1-5, and about 10-15% of those have noticeable disabilities. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Spina Bifida, Cerebral Palsy, Hydrocephalus, and one little boy with Downs Syndrome that we have seen.

The director of this orphanage is a woman named Lidia -which endeared her to me right away! She is a very sweet, happy person who genuinely seems to care about the children in her care. She also cares about the upkeep of her orphanage and we have seen repairs and ongoing maintenance while we have been here. She also works closely with a humanitarian group from the Netherlands to supply toys and such to the children. We don’t know how often this is, but the children seem well-supplied (although not as well supplied as individual American children). Rich and I are hoping to find some way to help this orphanage in the future.

The chief medical doctor of the orphanage is also a woman- a very nice lady with a few English words in her vocabulary. She loves for us to take Mira on walks and tells us to pick flowers for Mira. She was very worried that we wouldn’t be able to understand all of Mira’s needs and has asked several times if we are sure we understand what certain terms mean. She is very open with us about Mira’s family and medical history, which we appreciate! She oversees individual nurses which come around to check on the children with specific special needs and who also dole out medicines every day. They come every morning, making their rounds with a huge tray laden down with all kinds of medicines. The medical staff here is very organized!

The only men we really see at the orphanage are maintenance crew. They have been working on painting one of the baby houses (we think it’s for the really young babies) and re-welding the metal stairs. Otherwise, all the workers are women. There seem to be about 8 workers for each group that rotate- we see a few different ladies every day. I think we’ve seen all of Mira’s caretakers now! There are about three that seem to really work closely with Mira and have a sweet relationship with her. There are 6-10 children in each group and three caretakers at a time to watch them.

As you can see from the photos, the orphanage is a very clean cheerful place. These people do the best with what they have and for that we are grateful! No, an orphanage is no substitute for a real family- with two parents as God intended. However, this one does a good job of “holding” this sweet little ones until their forever families find them. Everything is very clean and safe, the children get plenty of fresh air and sunshine, and the caretakers seem to love the children in their charge.

Beautiful flowers like this all over the orphanage grounds! Mira loves to pick flowers and pull all the leaves and petals off the stems. It keeps her content for a long while!

Mira is in a group with 7 other children. Here is their bedroom- nice and clean! Her crib is the one with the blue chair in front of it.

Mira is the oldest in her group. We believe that the reason she is still in this group is because she doesn't yet walk. Here is a common sight in her group- caretakers chatting while rocking baby strollers back and forth!

Our visiting hours seem to coincide with outdoor playtime. All the little darlings follow their nurses and caretakers out to their group's assigned play area. The children are very sweet and well-behaved, holding hands with each other to get across the path. As soon as they see Rich (men are a rarity at the orphanage) they all start to point and wave and shout "Dadda" or "Papa." These poor dears NEED a daddy!!!!

These two statues are on either side of Mira's "house." Mira doesn't like things she isn't used to and she was hesitant to touch these. Any idea what these represent? I think the bear looks like "Little Bear."

We are allowed to visit Mira twice a day. We visit in the mornings from 10am until noon, and in the afternoons from 3:30 until 5 o'clock. Sometimes we play on a rug on the grass in her group's play area, sometimes we take walks around the orphanage grounds. The staff here does a really good job of keeping the play shelters bright and colorful, as you can see. I imagine that with the harsh winters they have here, these murals have to be re-painted every year.

This last photo is of Rich pushing Mira in her new stroller towards the gate that we usually come in when we come to visit.

Coming up...our court experience, food in Ukraine, and out and about in Priluki!

The Road to Priluki

Now for the next leg of our journey…

On Thursday morning, the 6th of August….Rich and I were sleeping off our jet lag, when someone came pounding on our door! It was 9am- time to pack our bags and leave this joint! You have to be ready to move at a moments notice- we had no idea when we were going to meet Mira! Nicholai, our driver/translator, took us to Priluki which is two hours away from Kiev.


The drive was interesting. Ukraine has beautiful countryside- no high-rise buildings, no road construction (not really any decent roads either), lots of green trees and fields. We passed sunflower field after sunflower field. Beautiful!!! The flowers are harvested for sunflower oil and seeds as well as the flower. The people of Ukraine LOVE flowers!

We stopped at a sort of “rest stop” for coffee. Nicholai brought me out this cute little cup of “kaffe.” Not at all like a big StarBucks, eh?

Rich and I laughed at the outhouse behind the rest stop. We think WC must stand for water closet. These signs are seen quite often on restrooms. You won’t catch me using one of these!!!

Our drive came to a halt, thanks to this:

Interesting. Every man…or cow…for himself over here. And really, that is true. I hold on tight when I’m in a car over here- it’s insane. Very few traffic lights or painted stripes on the roads. No idea of the traffic rules, it seems like everyone just fends for themselves in order to get to where they want to go. SCARY!!!! Swerving all over the road to miss the potholes, creating a third lane of traffic just so your car can squeeze through, parking on sidewalks….

Once we got to Priluki, we headed straight to the orphanage after picking up the regional Inspector (minister of the Rights of Children). It is a really nice place- I’ll have more photos to show you later. We met with the Director (whose name is Lidia) and the chief medical officer of the orphanage. They are very nice ladies. All the workers in contact with the children are women. We have seen a few handymen around the place, though. We were able to explain why we have a heart for special-needs children and they just loved hearing about Lauren and seeing our family photo album. We are the first family to EVER adopt a special-needs child from this town but there are a couple of families right behind us!!! Reeces Rainbow is going to make such an impact on this place! It really is a wonderful town and the we have been very impressed with the orphanage.

We were able to meet Mira for the first time that morning, for just a bit. She was very scared, since there were quite a few people on the room- two of them being men (Rich and Nicholai). She’s a tiny little doll!! Very fine pale blond hair and big light blue eyes. Sweet natured, with a streak of fun!

Here are some photos I took of Mira and Rich the day after we first met her:

After the initial meeting, we headed to the only hotel in town. It’s nice and we feel safe there. There is a restaurant downstairs that seems to cater to all the parties on town, so we have only been able to eat there once. But we’ve managed to find a few other good eats around here- I’ll post those later!!!

I need to take photos of the hotel and some of the street vendors- y’all would enjoy seeing those! Life is so different here, but nice. People take the time to socialize, no one is in a hurry- yet everything necessary gets done. Hmmm….we Americans could learn from that.

Catching Up

Hello all our readers! We’re gonna backtrack a bit and catch you up-to-date on our trip starting at when we landed in Ukraine at 9:30ish Tuesday morning, August 4. We landed in Kiev safe, sound, and just a little bit tired. Our driver/translator Nicholai took us to our apartment and then dropped us off at TGIFridays to meet three other adoptive families; The Hosfords adopting Victoria from Kiev, Paula (I‘ve forgotten her last name-AUGHH)adopting Bella in Kiev, and the Haires adopting Anastasia and Sophia. Here we are looking pretty American in an American restaurant. Thanks for lunch, Paula!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shopping in Ukraine is very different and something to get used to! Rich and I have enjoyed it, but it makes us appreciate our grocery stores in the U.S. so much more. There are very few self-serve shops, you have to go to the counter that stocks your particular item and ask that particular sales clerk for what you want and pay them before moving to the next counter.

Produce is not sold in store except in the larger cities, I think. We have been buying produce in open air markets or covered markets JUST for produce. Here, Rich stocks up on plums and bananas to get us through our two day stay in Kiev. There is one really nice store in Kiev that we visited that has everything, but still not comparable to Lowes Foods:)

We had a very nice apartment in Kiev for only $60 a night! It was within walking distance to everything we wanted, including the SDA. One bedroom, bathroom, eat-in kitchen, and living room. Very nice. We even had a balcony overlooking the cul-de-sac we were in. Our door was guarded daily by our babushka landlady. She scolded us one night when we were late returning and showed us how to let ourselves in.

Here is the very lovely church across from the SDA- state department of adoptions. We have seen many ornate churches like this- beautiful! Ukraine has lots of lovely old buildings.

Our meeting at the SDA was at 11am the morning of the 5th. We explained to the social worker why we wanted to adopt a special needs child. She was really touched when we showed her our photo album and told her that we already had a daughter with Spina Bifida. She thanked us sweetly for being willing to give a Ukrainian child with needs a good home. We accepted the referral for Miraslava at this time and were told to come back in the afternoon for our letter allowing us to get into the orphanage.

We were fortunate enough to meet the Tubbs family while waiting for our SDA appointment- they are adopting Sergey from an institution. We can’t wait to hear the rest of their story!

Rich and I decided to try a buffet restaurant of traditional Ukrainian food so we could point to what we wanted. Mmmm,mmm,good!!!! Bortsch, meat and potato pierogies smothered in sour cream, and some kind of meatballs in sauce. I love the food here and you’ll get to see much more of it in later posts. I did get sick once-but that’s another story.

Our apartment was not far from Independence Square- a really nice part of town, very modern

When we returned to the SDA that afternoon at 4pm, we were able to meet the Taborn family, adopting Simon. They were planning to leave right after their appointment on the train. We wish them he best of times with their new little boy!

For dinner, we met Christine Reed, her daughter Julia, and her newly adopted son, Alex. It was a wonderful meeting- we have been praying for Alex since we first saw him on Reece’s Rainbow in December! Alex has Spina Bifida like our Lauren and our Mira Kathryn. We had lots of info to share with Christine concerning spina bifida. We can’t wait to see how Alex grows and develops! We ate at McDonald’s for dinner. Big Macs are universal :)

Looking forward to letting you know all about our adventures in Priluki, Mira’s town! If you want to email us, you can- at Ukraine@strongsignals.net

Oh, my dear DEAR friends!!! Rich and I are just so overwhelmed and encouraged by all your comments! God IS good, and He DOES most certainly have a wonderful plan for our family- a plan that will glorify Him! yes, we are still grieving the loss of Tori, and until we know that she has a "forever family" will probably always be sad when we think of her.

However, we are already bonding with Mira Kathryn Wells:) She is a beautiful little 2 1/2 year old girl and has been very loved and well taken care of (but not like if she had a family). She is a tiny thing! She has spina bifida and many complication that our daughter Lauren also has had. God has opened a door WIDE for us here in Priluki. We are the first family to ever adopt a special-needs child from this place and already we have touched many hearts! The regional inspector and the orphanage doctor and directors have LOVED hearing about Lauren and all that she can do. They are amazed and very excited about the opportunities that little Mira will have!

There is another Reeces RAinbow family coming within the next month- this place is gonna be taken by storm!!!! The harvest is here, but the workers are few!


We love you all and miss you!!! Keep emailing and commenting- we wil ltry to get to internet every few days. This is a small town with limited access to many things.

Love,
Rich and Lydia

Update

Hi, all! After a very eventful trip and TWO DAYS of travel we made it to Kiev! We don't have internet in our aprtment so we are out of touch for right now (I'm writing this from an internet cafe).

We have our SDA appt in an hour. Sadly, we will not be bringing Tori home. Kristin, I wanted to call you, not break the news this way. Long story- but the situation has gone bad in the Crimea again and will not be resolved for some time. Please pray as Rich and I look at referrals for another child that Yulia (our facilitator) has suggested.

Thank you for your prayers!
Lydia

needing travel prayers

Well, we SHOULD be in Munich waiting for our connection to Ukraine. As it is, we are still in NC. Yes, you read that right. We are in Charolotte, NC after having spent a VERY rough (on me) 24 hours or so.

We left our house a little after 10am yesterday (Sunday) in order to give our taxi plenty of time to arrive at the airport by 11:30 in order to meet our 2:33 flight. Our plane ended up being delayed for 3 hours, which meant we missed our Munich connection, which means we are now missing our Ukraine connection. After spending close to 4 hours trying to work out something with the airline, they managed to get us on a flight for 11:10 today to JFK to catch a direct flight from there to Ukraine this afternoon around 4:00.

We got a free stay in a VERY nice hotel last night, free supper and free breakfast. We got to the airport this morning only to discover that the flight to JFK had been cancelled!!!! The airline decided that even though it was already 8:15, we could make a 9:25 flight to JFK- why didn't they book us on this last night?! Anyway, Rich and I rushed to get this flight ticketed and I broke down SOBBING in front of the poor airline supervisor. After we got into the security line with only 20 minutes until the flight left, Rich noticed that HIS bording pass had my name on it and security would not let him through. He had to run back to the ticketing counter while I went on through security.

He made it back with about 10 minutes to spare. We RAN, and I mean RAN. My chest hurt, my legs hurt, and I thought I might collapse right on the concourse. We got to our concourse only to discover that this flight has been delayed. It's 9:35 now and we have no idea when we are leaving. We MUST make JFK by lunchtime so we can EASILY make our flight.

Gotta go- it's here!!!