And She Said...

Today we arrived at the orphanage at 10am and met with the orphanage director until A got out of class.  When A came into the room we could tell she was still struggling.  She had not been able to get in touch with her brother on the phone last night and so she wasn't sure what to do.  Our facilitator, who is wonderful by the way, along with the director talked with her about what kind of life she would have in America and what kind of life she would have in Ukraine once she graduated from the orphanage in a year.  I don't really think she can grasp that though because if all you know is what is inside the walls of an orphanage then you have no concept of the war that is going on in your country or what America means.

I  brought a photo book of our family and our life and she smiled but still she was unsure. We then had to move to another room since the director had work to do.  When we got to the other room the facilitator asked A if she could have brother's phone number to call him.  She tried but the phone was not in service.  A then gave our facilitator the phone number of her brother's aunt. The aunt was very supportive of A leaving Ukraine and told her it was up to her but to make a wise choice that she would not regret later in life.  They talked for quite some time and after they hung up A was still not sure.  As you can imagine this is such a hard decision to leave everything and everyone you have ever known and start again at almost 16 years old.

And then it was like she was done thinking and she turned to me and she said...YES I want you to be my mother and to Peyton, my sister and she hugged us both tight.  Next she had to write down on a legal document that she wanted me to adopt her.  She then left the room and went to class.  From that point until we left at 3pm the paperwork was moving fast; 3 copies of this, 3 copies of that;, sign here; stamp here. Really so much chaos in the room with all the documents that had to be printed and the phone calls that were made.

Once we left the orphanage we travelled to the administration building to get that part of the paperwork started which should be finished on Monday.  After that we went to the notary so that I could sign the documents to apply for a court date.  Then we finally got to eat at 5 pm.  This was a long day of hurry up and wait.

We did find out today that we have to try and time when the court date will be because when A turns 16 on April 15 she has to get a Ukrainian passport and that can take a month or more.  If we were to have court before she turned 16 and then the 10 day waiting period after court were up we would have to get her out of the orphanage but would not be able to leave Ukraine until we had that passport. So our facilitator will take care of that detail.

Tomorrow A and one of her caregivers, Katerina, such a beautiful, kind woman, will pick us up here at our hotel at 11am.  We will travel around Berdychiv just spending some time together and grab some lunch.  It will be fun to have this time with A outside of the orphanage.  : )

In all the excitement of this day, I have no pictures to share but maybe you can see the pictures in what I wrote.

~Tina