adoption progress

Today we spent most of the day running around signing documents, stating our intent to adopt two specific children from Ukraine, and requesting approval from the authorities to do so. We have to have approval from so many different individuals and offices, each one translated and notarized. Once all relevant offices have consented to the adoptions, we will be able to request a court date. I expect that we might find out what our court date is sometime next week. Depending on which judge gets our case we could have court within days or weeks.

Our facilitator told us not to take it personally, but some judges do not care about us or about children, and others do. If you are praying, you can pray we get the judge that does care about us and about children, because that will determine how soon we get our court date. We'd rather not stick around here for another 3 weeks. When we asked our facilitator for an estimated timeline, he answered, "Am I look like God?" 

Regardless of how soon we get court, we will have to come home without the children, and will return probably in August to finally bring the children home. Just so you know, we are not doing anything wrong for it to be taking this long. It has everything to do with adopting a second child as well as the region we are in, which is less adoption friendly than other areas.

Today our visit with the kids was way too short, because of all the running around we had to do. Joseph spotted us and his face lit up. He looked at his nanny as if to ask if he could come play with us. Once she nodded, he bolted towards me. Well, in my mind he bolted towards me. There I was, with my arms open wide, ready to receive him, and he ran right past me, giggling, and into John's arms. OK so he is a daddy's boy. That's fine by me. 

We only got to see him briefly because our main purpose there today was to start the adoption process for Zoya. The social worker had to witness our having contact with her before she would sign off on the adoption. Finally we are at a point where we can start making progress. We had about 30 minutes with her doctor and caretakers to ask every question we will ever get to ask about her life, her first family, her medical history. Can you imagine trying to cover, in 30 minutes, all the questions she might ask me someday? I doubt I covered it all. Later I wished I had asked who named her. I didn't think to ask until later, and I think she would want to know this someday.

One of the questions I had to ask was....Does Zoya, or any of the children for that matter, understand the concept of a family? Do they even really know what a mommy and a daddy are and do they understand the concept of adoption? The worker said that yes she very much understands that we are adopting her. They also told us that the kids do understand what a mommy and daddy are, because some of the children do have mommies and daddies that come to visit. But they said that every child longs for their own mothers to come for them, and they all are convinced that their own mothers will come....... someday.

At this point in the conversation I just burst into tears. It was overwhelming to think of all the little faces we have seen here, waiting for mothers who will never come for them.  What a broken world we live in, where the sins of the fathers and mothers have such a profound effect on innocent little souls. How I wish I could make all the bad in this little girl's life go away but I know that only Jesus can heal her hurts and pains. We have committed in our hearts to love her fully whether she ever  loves us back or not.

Isn't that what Jesus does for me?

In our very short visit today, she was a little bit shy, but seemed very happy to see us. John picked her some wildflowers and she smiled so sweetly and she posed for my camera. Of course now that she has learned there is a viewer she wants to see each and every photo, which is very entertaining for all 3 of us. We pushed her on the swing for a bit and then her nanny came and motioned that it was time to eat. Zoya whined a little bit, and clearly wanted to stay with us to play and swing, which I loved very much. But we blew kisses and said we will be back tomorrow for a better visit. We also learned today that she loves pretty dresses, jewelry and chocolate. My kind of girl. Once, on New Years, she ate an entire box of chocolates and broke into a pretty bad rash. Today I gave her my bracelet which hung WAY too big on her skinny little arm, but she wore it proudly.

Here are a couple of photos my dad sent me this morning. Looks like my boys are having a good time in Mexico! I guess I'll stop feeling sorry for them now. ha!