Bringing Raisa Home

One Year Home!

2009-01-15T19:32:00.017-05:00

Where did the time go? It seems like only yesterday Rachel and I were flying home from Odessa, and yet it will be 1 year next week. It was a great year, full of ups and downs, but mostly ups. It was a while since I posted last time, so I’ll fill you in on Rachel’s achievements in the last several months.

She is a very happy girl, and looks like she’s securely attached to us. We’ve been very lucky (knock on wood) as most of the time we didn’t have the older adopted kids’ issues with her, so we feel very blessed. Rachel is currently repeating 4th grade, and she is thriving at school. She has absolutely awesome teachers – when other parents have to struggle to have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) in place, I don’t have to do anything – they know what do to with her without IEP. Her classroom teacher somehow finds time to do one-on-one work with her, and to give her assignments based on her abilities. Her ESL teacher spends a lot of time with her working not only on English skills, but helping out with Social Studies, Science, etc. Academic work is not easy for Rachel, and she doesn’t like to read or study, but the fact that she says “I love going to school” very often, speaks for itself – they are doing something right there! She’s currently reading at the mid 1st grade level, which is a huge milestone for her, because a year ago she was reading at a 6-year old level in Russian when she was 10. She mastered multiplication tables, learned long division, and started to do some word problems. But the main thing is – she finally SPEAKS ENGLIGH!!! It took a long time, and I was very worried about it. Then all of a sudden, a month ago I was driving Rachel and her friends, and all of a sudden I heard her speaking with them! It was like a light bulb moment - something clicked, and she started to speak. It’s not correct English yet, but she’s speaking, and that’s what’s important.

What else? Rachel is doing chorus and PE Intramurals at school, and takes hip-hop and cheerleading lessons outside of school. In December we celebrated her 11th birthday (first in America!), so I took her and a couple of friends to the girls’ salon to have their up-dos, manicure and a make-up. They had a blast!

Both girls grew 2.5 inches this year, Rachel gained 12 lbs, and Victoria 5 lbs. They are the best of friends and love each other to pieces. At first I was worried that Rachel plays on the same level as Victoria, with the same toys, coloring books, etc., but then I understood that she needs to experiment everything she missed while being in the orphanage, so going through all childhood stages is a good thing. I think she adjusted very well because we set a routine as soon as we came home a year ago, and she thrives on the discipline and the routine. She’s the only one in her 4th grade class, whose bedtime is 8:00 pm :)

Victoria turned 6 in December. She is in kindergarten this year, and she just loves it. During the holiday break she was counting days until she can go to school again! She reads at the beginning 2nd grade level, can add and subtract over the tens, and her classroom teacher is doing a great job working with her individually and keeping up her reading and math skills. She started piano lessons this year, and now she and I play in 4 hands!

So overall we had a pretty good year with a lot of firsts for Rachel, I can’t complain! Of course, it’s not easy. Even though the girls love each other, they still bicker a lot, and want my attention all the time. It’s like having two 6-year olds instead of 6-year and 11-year olds :) But at the same time it’s a pleasure being their parents, and a lot of fun watching them grow into smart and beautiful young ladies.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Rachel a year ago in Odessa:

In soccer uniform in July:

At the Marineland park in Niagara Falls:

At friend's birthday party:

Another party:

Watching fall folliage

Picking apples at the farm:

Girls showing their up-dos and make-up at Rachel's birthday party:

Victoria turned 6:
At the mall during the holidays:

Family pictures!

2008-05-22T08:09:00.007-04:00

We finally had our family pictures taken! My friend and co-worker Teri came over to our house to shoot our first ever professional pictures as a family of 5! She did an amazing job, and we spent all weekend trying to choose the best ones out of 140 images she took! Teri, thank you VERY MUCH!

And this Saturday we are leaving for a much needed weeklong vacation to Cancun! The girls will be staying with Grandma, and I miss them already, but I can’t wait to spend the week at the ocean...

First Mother’s Day with Rachel!

2008-05-13T09:41:00.002-04:00

Ukraine doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day. Instead, they celebrate a Women’s Day, which is great in my opinion – it’s a holiday for all women, and you don’t have to be a Mother to enjoy the gifts and attention. But here in the States we embraced the Mother’s Day, and of course, it’s one of my favorite holidays. Not only it was a first Mother’s Day for Rachel, but also, as my blogging friend Tina said, it was a very first Mother’s Day for me as a mother of 3 kids (I still can’t believe I have three)!

About a month ago Rachel started giving me some hints about a special gift for me :) Something like this: “Mama, I’m making something for you, but I won’t tell you.” It was very cute! Then the last week or so both girls were very mysterious and tried to cover their art projects when I was nearby :) And finally on Mother’s Day I’ve got gifts from all 3 kids, and it was a VERY special day.

Then went to see the first major festival of the season in Rochester area – Lilac Festival.

The girls had a lot of fun – they explored beautiful lilac bushes, climbed trees, had fun on the rides, ate ice cream, and of course had a photosession. Enjoy!

Spring is here

2008-05-07T08:05:00.012-04:00

After the crazy week of mid-80s and another week of 40s, spring finally came, and the girls are having a lot of fun playing outside. Every time I see them on the swing set (luckily, we have 2 swings for both of them!), I think how lucky they are to have a built-in playmate for each other! It was different in Ukraine. Alex was an only child for 14 years, but we’ve never felt that he was missing out by not having a sibling. We lived in a big 9-stories building with the huge "dvor" (courtyard), and at any given time there were at least 10-15 kids playing outside, and at least 3-4 Alex’s age. So he was never bored and always had somebody to play with. Even when we moved to the States, there were a lot of Russian immigrant kids in our first apartment complex, and Alex made a lot of friends there. By the time Victoria was born, we already lived in the suburban development with virtually no people outside at any time. Luckily I have friends with kids, and we do a lot of play dates, but yet I felt that Victoria missed out on not having a sibling. Not anymore! Now the girls have each other, and it works out great!

Lately their favorite game is "dochki-materi" – daughters and mothers. It was my favorite game when I grew up, but Victoria never seemed to have any interest in playing with the dolls before. But now it all changed! Their favorite dolls are baby dolls ("pupsik" in Russian), and they are taking a very good care of their babies, making sure they are fed, have their naps, baths, etc.

Most of the time the girls speak Russian, but I can hear more and more English phrases from the playroom :) For example, a couple of days ago as they were getting ready for the soccer practice, I heard Victoria saying in English "I love soccer", and Rachel immediately replied also in English "Me too"! It’s also funny to hear how they repeat whatever Oleg and I are saying :) Though we speak Russian at home, our Russian is very americanized. For example, some words we say in English only, such as "All set", "Let’s go", or "Have fun". We also have a habit of mixing both Russian and English words, and we had to carefully watch what we say while in Ukraine because our friends couldn’t understand the English words we were throwing here and there. When the girls can’t answer my question, or don’t know something, I usually say: "What do you mean ti ne znaesh?" – meaning "What do you mean you don’t know?". Well, yesterday, Victoria couldn’t find one of her toys, and I heard Rachel saying with my tone of voice "What do you mean ti ne znaesh?" It was very funny.

Rachel continues to improve academically. But man, it’s not easy to be a tutor! When I worked as a math teacher in Ukraine, I supplemented my income with private math lessons, and let me tell you, one hour with one student is as tiring as 3-4 periods with the whole class! So 1 – 1.5 hours is the top of my ability working with Rachel, usually I’m beat up after that :) But recently Victoria surpassed Rachel in reading, so now she’s my teacher’s assistant! It’s really great because I can do something else, but still listen to Rachel’s reading, while Victoria corrects her if needed (Rachel needs to be corrected for most of the words she reads, so she really needs somebody to sit with her all the time).

The other day Victoria had a picture day at her dance studio, and Rachel had a chance to see the studio and all the great costumes. She’s not taking the lessons now because I don’t want her to be overwhelmed with so many activities, but next school year she’ll definitely start the dance lessons if she wants to.

What else is going on? Victoria had a preschool field trip to the Butterfly Garden at the Strong Museum. They had a lesson about the butterflies’ life cycle and then went to see the butterflies.

I can’t say enough good words about her awesome preschool teachers this year. She learned a lot – they had "Show and Tell" for a different letter every week, which attributed greatly to her ability to read. They had a restaurant unit, a post office unit, learned about water lifecycle, and even grew butterflies in their classroom! And yesterday they had an amazing Mother’s Day Tea with an awesome performance, gifts for Moms, treats, etc. Thanks to my Mom, who drives her to preschool, Victoria was able to benefit from this amazing program – not all working parents are so lucky. And even if I was a stay at home mom, I would never be able to create such a curriculum for her, so I’m very happy Victoria had such a great enrichment opportunity.

Here is one of the songs from their performance:

And this is Victoria with her wonderful teachers:

Pen Pals

2008-04-30T14:53:00.008-04:00

While preparing for our trip to Ukraine, I virtually "met" Kelly, another adoptive mom. We had so many similarities in our trips – our SDA appointment was on the same day – November 20th, we both had a court session in the beginning of December, both went home during the holidays, both went back to Ukraine in a middle of January (I’m on Jan 14th, she’s on January 12th), and both came home at the end of January (I’m on Jan 26th, she’s on Jan 27th)! Kelly and her husband came home with 2 kids – a 10-year daughter Diana and a 4-year old son Will, and now Rachel and Diana are pen pals!!! Of course, Rachel’s English skills are not good enough to write letters yet, so she’s writing her letters to Diana in Russian. Unfortunately, her Russian skills are also very limited, so I’m helping her to write the letters (while Diana writes her letters by herself!). But I think it’s a great idea to exchange real letters, and Rachel thinks so too!

What else is new? A couple of days ago we celebrated 3 months since Rachel came home. And you know what? All of a sudden I noticed that she started understanding more and more English, and even started to communicate in English! Just a couple of days ago I heard her saying to Victoria’s friend “Come here” and “I’m gonna get you”. Maybe for some kids it’s not a big deal, but for Rachel it’s huge, and I’m anxious to see the difference at 6 months’ mark!

This weekend we went to the Fish Hatchery at our local park, and the girls had a lot of fun feeding the fish with the special fish food. It was so cool watching the fishes jumping out of the water and opening their mouths to get the food!

We also went to the circus – the Damascus Shrine Circus was in town. Though Rachel has been to the circus in Odessa (there is a permanent circus there), she’s never seen the show on 3 arenas at the same time! The girls loved the show and especially the pony rides during intermission.

Another first for Rachel last week: a lawn mower! After a week of summer-like weather our lawn needed a trim. But that was something Rachel couldn’t understand! There are almost no lawns in Ukraine, so people don’t mow them! Can you believe that she’s never seen the lawn mower before?

And this is the last warm day last week (it was only 34 ° F this morning :). Rachel is reading "Neznayka" (a boy that didn't know anything) to Victoria. It was my favorite book when I was growing up, and it's so nice that my daughters like it too!

Weather in Rochester

2008-04-22T12:13:00.005-04:00

March 30, 2008. Temperature: 28 ° F

April 3, 2008. Temperature: 54 ° F

April 18, 2008. Temperature: 85 ° F (notice the lack of leaves on the trees!)

Also we had some other "firsts" this week for Rachel:

- First playdate! An 11-year old girl from our neighborhood came over, and all 3 girls had fun riding the bikes and drawing with the sidewalk chalk. It was so neat to hear Rachel trying to use English words to communicate!

- First Delta Sonic Super Kiss Car Wash! Cost - $11.99. Rachel's reaction - PRICELESS!

Spring break

2008-04-15T12:13:00.014-04:00

The spring break is here, and the girls are having fun. A couple of days ago we bought Rachel a new bike – something she wanted for a long time. She was SOOOOO happy, you can’t imagine. She repeated over and over again how happy she is that her dream came true!

On Sunday we went to the mall, and I ended up having a make-up session at the Estee Lauder counter. I’m not a make-up person, so I almost didn’t recognize myself in the mirror :) Oleg and the girls approved my new look, but then Victoria started crying that she wants her mommy back :) To appease her, the make-up lady put some lipstick on both girls and gave them a lip gloss as a gift. Of course, Victoria immediately stopped crying :)

Then, after a mandatory ice cream and carousel ride, the girls had their faces painted and received balloons from the clown. Again, it was one of the “firsts” for Rachel. It never occurred to me that she’s never had anybody to create a balloon especially for her or to paint her face. When the clown gave her the balloon flower she requested, her face just lit up. You would’ve thought she’s got a new car or a moon from the sky!

Every time Oleg and I are amazed at the little things that make Rachel happy. We take so much for granted, not realizing that simple things like riding the bike or getting a balloon made by a clown are not available to all kids in the world. Yes, biologically she’s 10 years old, kind of too old to enjoy some of the little kids activities. But socially she’s like 6-7 years old, who’s catching up on everything she missed in her life. Take the playground for example. I hear “Mom, watch me” more often from Rachel than from Victoria.

She’s making more progress with the school work. Yesterday I gave her a page with 50 division problems (from the multiplication tables), and for the first time ever she didn’t make any mistakes! The math word problems, even the simplest ones, are still a mystery to Rachel, she’s having difficulties with abstract concepts. With her reading we are making one step forward, and two steps back. It’s hard for her to remember all the rules: the “ake”, “ike”, “ain” families, short or long vowels, etc. But by now we know that the only thing that works for her is repetition, so we make sure to work on the same concept over and over again and then return to it to make sure she didn’t forget.

This week I signed both girls up for gymnastics camp in the mornings, and for swimming classes at night. And the swimming lessons are free because our local YMCA has the “free swimming lessons” promotion during the spring break!

And finally last week I received Rachel’s Ukrainian passport back from the Ukrainian Consulate at New York City. We are done with the post-adoption paperwork!

Our Anniversary

2008-04-09T07:33:00.007-04:00

21 years ago, on April 9, 1987, Oleg and I got married! We’ve been married for more than half of our lives, and we’ve met on the first day of school in first grade in 1974. Here is the picture of the day we met. I’m the second from left, and Oleg is staying next to me :)

This is our last day of classes in High school. My Mom is next to Oleg – she was our Math teacher and homeroom teacher for 7 years. The little bells symbolize the very last school bell we heard on that day.

And this is our wedding day!

Gymnastics

2008-04-02T22:21:00.008-04:00

This week both girls had open lessons in their respective gymnastics classes. Of course we made sure to make lots of pictures, and both girls were very proud to show us what they can do. Especially Rachel! You should’ve seen her face – she was so happy she had her parents coming in to see her in class, she kept looking at us and smiling for an hour and a half non-stop. That’s something the kids who grew up with parents take for granted – what’s the big deal? It is a big deal for Rachel. She finally has her Mama and Papa cheering for her!

Victoria is helping her big sister with the bridge:

In other news Rachel’s made a lot of progress with multiplication tables. Even a month ago it was a hit or miss – she would get it right at about 50%. Now she’s more at 90% mark, and I’m very proud of her. She also started to understand the concept of division, so I think we are going in the right direction.

Victoria continues to improve her reading. Yesterday she read me a book about Spot the dog. She looked at the word “Spot” and told me: “Mama, if you read this word backwards, it will be Tops (this is the name of our local grocery store)” Then she looked at this word again and said: “If you swap “t” and “p”, it will be Stop!” Isn’t she one smart cookie?

Now that she started reading, she corrects my pronunciation more often :) Since I only started learning English at 29, I have a very thick Russian accent, and there is nothing I can do about it. Recently she corrected me when I pronounced the word “it” as “eat” or vice versa. I even consulted with my friend from work about pronouncing long and short “e”, but I still can’t get it right :)

In addition to English reading, Victoria started reading in Russian this week! Even though she knew Russian alphabet, I didn’t teach her to read in Russian on purpose – I wanted her to become a solid English reader first. But a couple of days ago she looked over her Grandma’s shoulder, who was reading Russian book at the time, pointed to one word and said: “Grandma, isn’t this such and such word?” It was a short 3-letter word, but she got it right! My Mom was speechless, and then she showed Victoria how to read in syllables. It’s very easy to read in Russian if you know the letters, it’s somewhat like Spanish: what you see is what you read. Of course, there are some rules, but most of the time, you just put the sounds together, and that’s it. By the time I got back from work, she was reading simple sentences! So now every evening we have a new ritual – both girls read to me in both languages!

2 months home

2008-03-27T09:49:00.002-04:00

We’ve been home for 2 months now, and it already feels like Rachel’s been in our family forever. She’s such a sweet little girl, very well behaved, trying to please us, always doing what she’s asked to do, etc. She and Victoria are a very good friends even though there is a healthy sibling rivalry between them :) Lately they started bickering a little bit more than before, but I think this is very normal after their “honeymoon period” has ended. There is still some jealousy between the girls in regards to the attention they are getting from Oleg and I (especially from Rachel, which is expected). We are trying very hard to spend an equal amount of time with both girls, and I think we are doing very good.

Rachel started gymnastics a couple weeks ago, and she loves it! She also started ballroom dancing lessons! Our local “Fred Astaire Ballroom Dance Studio” has a spring session for 4th-graders at our elementary school, and Rachel is a natural! Ballroom Dance is my weakness – I used to dance back in Ukraine, and Alex took several years of Ballroom Dancing as well, so my goal now is to find partners for both girls and start the formal lessons ASAP :)

Now that Rachel is getting more comfortable with her new life in America, I’d love her to find friends her age, but it’s not an easy task because her English is almost non-existent. One would argue that it’s because of the fact that we speak Russian at home, and I agree. According to Dr. Gindis, the leading expert in international adoption, a second language is usually acquired based on two models: "additive" and "subtractive". Internationally adopted children replace their first language by a new language, it’s a subtractive model, and the immigrants learn a new language in addition to their native language, which is an additive model. Since Rachel is speaking Russian at home, she acquires English by an “additive” model, and her language acquisition is supposed to be slower. But we’ve been through this before! Oleg, Alex and I started learning English virtually from scratch. All our friends came to the country not speaking any English and were able to learn it and go on to receive BS and even MS degrees. The process to learn English in immigrant families is usually the following: start with learning some basic vocabulary, then able to translate simple written English sentences into Russian, then being able to build simple English sentences, then start understanding native English speakers, and then finally start speaking. After this stage many kids (depending on age) usually stop speaking Russian, but still understand it, so when their parents ask them something in Russian, they reply in English.

After 2 months we see some progress with English, but it is VERY tiny. Oleg and I even decided to speak to her in English, but it doesn’t work! She starts crying when she doesn’t understand us! So what’s more important for us – her language development or her happiness? Of course her happiness! Yes, she’s very behind, yes, it takes her more time to memorize things, but hey – she has all time in the world to catch up. We are working very hard tutoring her, and I’m sure she’ll get there, even it will be later then we we’d want her to.

She still loves school :) Her teachers are AWESOME! I had a parent-teacher conference last week, and even though her academic progress is not as fast, her social progress is much better! She’s trying to communicate with other kids at school, which is a huge plus with her lack of language, and she seems much more comfortable in the classroom. She’ll probably repeat 4th grade with the same teacher, and hopefully by the end of next school year we’ll see more results.

Though I’m a little bit disappointed with her slow progress, it’s something that was expected. The post-institutionalized children are usually developmentally behind because they didn’t have a chance to be nurtured and educated by their parents. Of course a child whose parents started reading to him from birth, and a child who never had an individual attention, will have different results. I firmly believe that parents play a huge role in their child’s academic progress. It’s a parents’ job to prepare the children for school, to tutor them as needed, etc. Though all children have different abilities, I can say from my teaching experience that the kids whose parents work with them at home usually are better students.

Speaking of students, I recently connected with my former students in Ukraine! There is a new social-networking website http://www.odnoklassniki.ru/, where I found my old friends, classmates, neighbors, and even students! I used to teach Math for 6th – 9th graders, and imagine my surprise when I received a message from one of my former students! Then another, and another, and now I’m in contact with many of them! I only taught them for 3 years, but they still remember me! It was so nice to hear that I was their favorite teacher :) These “kids” are now almost 30 years old, married with their own kids, and it’s so strange when they address me formally with my patronymic name: “Nataliya Vitalievna”!

Anyway, back to my thoughts about parents working with their kids. I taught Alex to read by 4 years old, and I felt guilty that Victoria still didn’t read at 5. She recognized alphabet since 23 months old, she was doing “Color by number” and “Connect the dots” activities by 3 years old, etc., but I didn’t know how to teach her to read in English. Well, I’m happy to report that she’s reading now! These tutoring sessions with both Rachel and Victoria were good enough to get her started! Yesterday she even took one of the books to preschool and read a story to her class. The kids were very impressed :)

My other “baby” Alex doesn’t need my tutoring anymore, and even if he needed it, I wouldn’t be able to help him. Last semester he took a “Differential Equations” class, and even though I wrote my Master’s thesis in Differential Equations many years ago, I don’t remember ANYTHING :) His program requires several co-op blocks as a part of curriculum, and he’s looking for a job now. So if any of you are hiring a computer engineering/computer science/information technology intern, please let me know! Yesterday he attended a huge student job fair, and it was so neat to see him in suit and tie – he looked like a real professional!

We still didn’t have a chance to take a new family portrait, but I’m working on the plan to get everyone together for a photo session :)

First Road Trip

2008-03-18T08:20:00.001-04:00

This past weekend we drove 6 hours to New Jersey to visit our dear friends Anya and Dima. We’ve known each other forever – Anya, Oleg and met in 1st grade and were classmates all the way to the High School graduation. Then Anya, Dima and I were classmates at Odessa State University studying Math and Computer Science. So every time we get to see them it’s a treat.

It was a first road trip for Rachel. She loved it! Both girls had fun in the car watching cartoons as well as educational phonics DVDs :) We had to drive through downtown Philadelphia, and Rachel finally experienced bumper-to-bumper traffic in America! The traffic in Odessa is very bad, so she was very surprised not see it in our every day life in Rochester (there is no traffic on her school bus route :)

The weather was gorgeous – 60s and sunny – a welcome change after snow and 30s! All 5 kids (they have 3 kids ages 9, 12 and 14) had a blast riding the bikes, fishing and even riding the boats! So overall we had a great weekend, and the girls can’t wait to see their friends again.

In another news I’m happy to report that our post-adoption paperwork is done! Here is what we’ve accomplished:

- Social Security Number: applied in 2 days after arrival, received 10 days later;
- US Passport: applied 2 weeks after arrival (could’ve done earlier, we didn't need SSN to apply), received 3 weeks later;
- Certificate of Citizenship: received by mail 37 days after arrival;
- Ukrainian Consulate registration: sent last week!

Some people do these steps in a different order, but I wanted to get Rachel’s US passport before sending her Ukrainian passport to Ukrainian Consulate for registration. They take a loooong time returning Ukrainian passports (like several months!), that’s why I didn’t feel comfortable sending the only document verifying Rachel’s immigration status. But now she has her US passport, so I don’t really care about her Ukrainian passport anymore. Knowing from other people’s blogs how the Ukrainian Consulate tends to lose important paperwork, I sent Rachel’s registration by certified mail with return receipt. This way they won’t be able to lie and say they didn’t receive it. I intend to do the same when sending annual post-adoption report to them next year.

For those of you waiting to go, I would really recommend getting “Adoption Certificate” in Ukraine. It’s not required for American families, but it’s very handy! This certificate is issued at the same place where you get a new Birth Certificate, and it looks very similar – one page with parents names, adopted child’s old and new names, the court date and court decree number. It’s much more convenient to show this one page document than a multi-page court decree written in legalese. I also ordered certified translation of both Birth and Adoption Certificates from Hudson Translations, and used them everywhere. They have a raised seal and look very authentic!

International Women's Day

2008-03-07T00:01:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow marks 6 weeks since Rachel came home. It’s also a second biggest holiday in Ukraine (after New Year’s) – International Women’s Day! Women of all ages receive gifts – daughters from mothers, teachers from students, aunts from nephews, etc. And since it’s a national holiday, everyone gets a day off! We don’t celebrate it with the gifts in our household anymore - Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day are enough – but it still feels like a holiday to us!

We’ve come a long way during these 6 weeks at home. I’ve become a strict disciplinarian, which is a totally new role for me :) We have a routine for everything: playtime, study time, TV, bedtime, etc. Of course, Victoria had a routine before, but now I really enforce it, and I think it’s the reason Rachel is doing so well. All children are different, and it wouldn’t even occur to me to send Alex to bed at 8:00 pm when he was 10 years old. But Alex was always very mature, so this approach wouldn’t work for him. As most post-institutionalized kids, Rachel is emotionally much younger than her biological age. She’s more like 7- or 8-year old, and she needs a totally different approach than home-grown 10-year olds. I’m tutoring her every day in Math and English, and she’s really making progress! We started from scratch with the kindergarten and first-grade level work, and both Victoria and Rachel are doing amazingly well. I’m sure Rachel will be able to catch up very soon on her age-appropriate level when she learns the basics. Victoria really benefits from these sessions, and I’m afraid she’ll be bored in kindergarten next year :)

What else is new? Rachel experienced a lot of “firsts” during these 6 weeks.

First visit to the Strong Museum, which is one of the best children’s museums in the nation. The girls had a blast “working” as cashiers at the children’s Wegmans:

doing the weather forecast on TV:

and riding the carousel:

First visit to the mall, with an ice cream at Maggie-Moos:

First visit to the zoo:

First haircut! The hairdresser just trimmed the ends, but the result was awesome:

First gymnastics lesson! Rachel is very good in gymnastics, she should definitely try out for varsity team in high school :)

I started thinking about summer and already signed Rachel up for soccer and swimming. Both girls will go to day camps, it should keep them busy :)

Overall I’m very pleased with our transition so far. Rachel’s attaching very well, the girls are the best of friends, and our life is slowly getting back to our “new” normal.

Making Progress

2008-02-16T23:01:00.004-05:00

Busy-busy-busy… That’s how I can describe the life in our household now :) Where to begin? We accomplished a lot during these 3 weeks home. Just 2 days after Rachel and I came back, we went to our local Social Security office to apply for her Social Security card. I know that many adoptive parents had a hard time getting it: some of them were asked to show CoC (Certificate of Citizenship), which usually comes about 45 days after arrival, the others were requested to bring something “American”, i.e. insurance card, etc. Luckily, the Birth Certificate, Adoption Certificate and Ukrainian passport with the Visa were enough for our local SS office. Just 10 days later we received her Social Security Card!

My next goal was to apply for her US passport. Some parents are usually waiting for the CoC, but since internationally adopted kids are the US citizens upon arriving on American soil, it’s not necessary. So a couple of days ago we went to apply for Rachel’s passport. I specifically ordered another translation of her Birth and Adoption Certificates from the Hudson-Neva translation. Their translations are notarized and have a raised seal, so they look very official, and the price is very reasonable. We had to leave the original adoption certificate with the translation as well as her Ukrainian passport with the Visa, but we were assured that everything will come back to us safe and sound in 4 weeks. After that our last step will be to register Rachel at Ukrainian Consulate, and our after-adoption paperwork phase will be done until the next January when we are required to send the yearly post-placement report to Ukrainian Embassy.

The school work is not easy for Rachel, but her teachers are amazing. I met with her homeroom teacher and ESL teacher last week, and we had a very good discussion about what’s the best for Rachel and how we can help her to catch up with her peers. Academically she’s very behind – I would guess she’s at about 2nd grade level in math, and Russian reading. But this is very normal for a post-institutionalized child, and with proper tutoring she should be able to catch up. Currently she is in the 4th grade being one of the oldest in her class. I thought it would be better to place her in the 3rd grade, but now I see it won’t make any difference. With her teachers’ suggestions we decided to leave her in the 4th grade, but take a totally different approach to her school work – we are starting from scratch! She’s given homework appropriate for her level, and we are taking it one day at a time. There are 2 girls speaking Russian and/or Ukrainian in her 4th grade class (and none in the 3rd grade), which is a huge plus since she can communicate with them and get help as needed. The other kids in class are trying to include her in all activities, so she’s making new friends even without speaking the language!

On Valentine’s Day I sent her to school with the cards for all kids in the class, and she came home with LOTS of Valentines! She was ecstatic! I don’t think she’s ever got so many cards and presents before, especially on Valentine’s Day!

Rachel’s riding the bus like a pro, and last week she even took the late bus after she stayed in school for intramurals! She also started buying her own lunch in cafeteria, which is not easy for a girl with almost no English!

Last week we went to the dentist, and she was a trooper during her first ever dental cleaning! She has a lot of cavities, but luckily for us, all of them are in the baby teeth, so no need for fillings :) Though she’ll need to have braces next year when she turns 11, which is earlier than most kids, so we need to start saving :)

So overall I’m very pleased with her transition. Each day makes a difference, and at the end of 3 weeks she made a lot of progress. And I can finally calculate the amount of groceries we need :)

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks:

Getting ready for bath:

Valentine's Day party at Victoria's preschool:

Playing outside:

2 weeks home

2008-02-08T09:21:00.000-05:00

After being home for almost 2 weeks, we are slowly adjusting to our “new” normal routine, which is not an easy task :)

Rachel started school last Wednesday, and all this week she rode the bus to school as any other American 4th-grader. Luckily I have my Mom who’s getting Rachel ready for school in the morning and picks her up on the bus stop in the afternoon. It’s obviously harder for her to take care of both girls now (even though Rachel is in school for most of the day), but she’s a trooper! Alex is helping out as well – yesterday he picked Rachel up at the bus stop since my Mom had an appointment.

Most of the time the girls are getting along very well. However, I noticed some sibling rivalry between them, nothing unexpected, but totally new to me because Alex and Victoria never experienced it with the 14 years age difference. It started just a couple of days ago when the novelty of having a sister wore off for each girl :) “Mama, she’s doing this and that!”, “Mama, she’s not doing this and that” and so on. After growing up in the former Soviet Union, I’m very intolerant of tattling since in the communist times people were forced to tell authorities on each other. So I told them I don’t want to hear this nonsense unless it’s something really important. Rachel is craving our attention, but we can’t spend all the time with her only, so we have to be inventive and make sure we have quality time with Victoria as well. And with Alex when he’s available :)

Next week Rachel has a dentist appointment, and I’m afraid she’ll eventually need to have a lot of work done :( But at least the dentists in America are not as scary as in Ukraine, so I hope it won’t be to so hard for her. Our pediatrician declared her very healthy (I’m knocking on wood :) and the only thing left is the Eye Doctor appointment.

Overall I’m very pleased with our transition despite our daily ups and downs. It helps a lot to be able to seek advice from the other parents who also adopted older kids. My friend Tami returned home last week with her new daughter. Kathy and Kelly are in Ukraine now adopting older kids. And Melissa and Steve returned home a couple of weeks ago with their 3 sons, so now they are the parents of six kids having 3 boys and 3 girls! They created a very touching video of their story, make sure you have a tissue in hand when watching it:

Mama, I’m so fortunate!

2008-02-01T09:19:00.001-05:00

Those were the words I heard from Rachel when I picked her up from school! Yes, you read this right – she’s already enrolled in school! Originally I wanted her to start school a little bit later, but when the school district indicated she can start on Wednesday, I decided to go for it. The sooner she starts school, the sooner she starts learning English! I tried to teach her English, but it doesn’t really work since we speak Russian at home all the time.

Anyway, we survived the first 6 days at home, and Rachel is adjusting remarkably well, which can’t be said about her mother :) I’m still adjusting to the time difference, and recuperating from everything I’ve been through in Ukraine.

The first couple of days we did a lot of administrative tasks – applied for a Social Security Number, registered for school and had a physical done. On the first day of school both Rachel and I were a little bit apprehensive – it’s always scary to go to a new school, and if you don’t speak the language it’s even scarier. But all my worries were unnecessary. When I came to pick her up, she came out with a huge smile on her face and said: “ Mama, I’m so fortunate, I love my school!” She started her first day of school with a one-on-one session with ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher and spent the rest of the day in the regular class setting. There is one Russian and one Ukrainian girl in the class, so Rachel has somebody to talk to and ask questions if needed (she speaks Russian and understands Ukrainian). Currently the school assigned her to be in the 4th grade, but I’m thinking she’ll be better off in the 3rd grade, so I’m going to talk to the school counselor about it. But overall I’m very pleased with the school so far – we have great public schools in our town.

Our house is much louder now with the 2 girls :) We haven’t set the routine yet – it’s hard for me to go from 1 to 2 kids (Alex doesn’t count :) – who takes the shower first, who goes to bed first, etc. But I’m sure we’ll be able to set a schedule that works for everybody.

The other change I need to get used to is the amount of groceries :) Victoria hardly eats anything, and I don’t mind since she is in the 85% in weight. Luckily she loves to eat her vegetables and to drink her milk, so I don’t have to worry about it. Alex is never home, and Oleg and I are not a big eaters. Rachel is totally different :) This tiny girl can eat! So far I can’t get the amount of groceries right – we went to Wegmans on Sunday, and on Monday night I needed to go again. Then another Wegmans visit on Wednesday night. Today is Friday, and it looks like we need another grocery run before the weekend :)

So far Rachel is on her best behavior, and though I know it’s still a “honeymoon”, I hope it will continue! The fact that we speak the same language is a great help, and she feels very comfortable in our house. She had a lot of “firsts” since she came here 6 days ago, and it’s a joy watching her to discover something new. The garage door opener was a hit – how come the door is opening by itself :) The next one was the fact that Mom can drive. “Mama, can you drive? REALLY? Are you a good driver?” And on and on and on. But the most remarkable “first” was her first ever English sentence. She told me “I love you” in English, and I didn’t teach her that!

Here are some pictures from our last week in Ukraine:

We are on American soil!

2008-01-26T16:49:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone, we made it safe and sound to the American soil! I’m writing from the JetBlue terminal at JFK while waiting for our flight to Rochester.

But let me start from the beginning and tell you the whole story starting with the passport. Caution: this is a very long entry (written on the long plane ride to JFK).

Similar to many parents who recently adopted from Odessa, we had a bit of a problem because Raya inherited a property. That’s great, right? Wrong! Not only her flat is in a very bad shape and in a very bad location, but also it’s almost impossible to legally sell a property owned by a minor. The law is trying to protect orphans by placing all kinds of legal roadblocks on their properties, but in reality these flats are often being taken away from the kids who own them. Anyway, who cares about a flat when we want to go home? So we’ve decided to leave it as is and think about it later when Raisa is older. Sounds like an easy solution, but nothing is easy in Ukraine. In this case we were required to submit a specific paper verifying the fact that Raisa does own a property, but doesn’t live there anymore. This paper was very important because we couldn’t receive a passport without it. Basically we needed to do the following: apply for the passport, get a special paper verifying the fact that we applied for the passport, go to another office, show them this paper, get a special stamp, and then bring the paper with the stamp back to the passport office to exchange it for the passport when it’s ready. I know, it’s very confusing! Honestly, my two graduate degrees are not enough to understand Ukrainian bureaucratic system :)

Lo and behold, we applied for the passport on Thursday evening, got this special paper and headed to another office on Monday the 21st since it was closed Friday – Sunday. This office was in a very poor part of the town, called Perecip. There were a lot of babushkas waiting in line, but it didn’t take very long, and we went in. The lady in charge seemed very nice, she even shared with me that her relatives adopted a 4-year old girl from Moscow, so I was cautiously optimistic. She sent us to the local Police Department (don’t ask me why – it’s beyond me!) to get another stamp to prepare for our stamp :) Off we went, found the Police Department, found a specific man in charge, showed him our paperwork, and received a stamp! Absolutely for free!!! Then back to the first office, then to another office, and finally at the end of the day the lady from the first office told us that we should be able to get our stamped paper on Wednesday. Why Wednesday, when it’s only Monday evening? Apparently she needed to go to another higher office on Wednesday morning to get the stamp because it was closed on Tuesday. Since I didn’t really expect the passport to be ready before Wednesday, I reluctantly agreed.

On Wednesday we were told to come “posle obeda” - after lunch. This is a very broad definition. Usually the lunch hour is from 1 to 2 p.m. After lunch could mean 2:10, or 2:30, or 3:00. At 2:00 sharp I called this woman and asked if I can come to pick it up. Do you want to guess what the answer was? Yes, you guessed right. The paper was not ready because we needed to supply more paperwork! Why didn’t you tell me about this additional paperwork on Monday, I would’ve done it on Tuesday? Her answer: I forgot! At this time the call from the passport office comes through, and I’m informed that Raisa’s passport is ready, and I can pick it up anytime as long as I have this special paper!!! Can you believe that? I finally have a passport but can’t pick it up???

At this point my friend Lena has had enough. She went to that office with the look on her face leaving no doubt – she won’t have “No” for the answer. To make the long story short, she’s got the stamped paper. I had to use my emergency fund, but it was worth it :)

So with the priceless paper in hand, Raisa and I headed to the passport office. By this time I was a nervous wreck, and I was not sure I’ll get the passport – who knows, maybe the stamp was not right or something else? But on the way to the passport office I ran into my guardian angel – Tami! I guess it was a good omen because 5 minutes later we were able to exchange the paper for the passport! Thank you, Tami!

I forgot to mention before that the Passport Office is a part of the Police Department, and all workers are police officers! I was very intimidated by the head of the Passport Office in the major uniform when we applied for the passport. She looked very scary :) This time when we came to get the passport, she actually smiled, and I noticed that she’s not as old and scary as I originally thought. But when Raisa on impulse gave her a hug and a kiss, the genuine smile on her face transformed her to a very good-looking woman. As many other people before, she was very surprised when I signed for the passport in English and showed her my American passport. She assumed I was a translator!

Now it’s 5:30 on Wednesday, and there is still time to get train tickets and take a night train to Kiev. Of course there are no tickets, but a call to a special ticket-agent lady with the promise of some extra gratitude worked wonders, and we had our tickets in hand. Then off to the apartment to pack, to make several calls to our friends to say “good bye”, and to finish some other tasks. And finally it was time for Rachel Alice to say “good bye” to the city where she was born and raised for the first 10 years of her life, and to her guardian Lena with whom she lived for the last several months. It was a very emotional time, but finally the train departed and we were on our way to Kiev.

The train ride was okay, a little bit worse than last time in December, but still manageable. Raya and I had the whole compartment to ourselves, so we had some privacy. She had fun riding the train, and slept soundly. I on the other hand didn’t sleep well because it was too hot in the cabin. The train arrived to Kiev at 8:30, and our great facilitator Sergey took us to the Medical Center for Raisa’s medical exam.

When I saw all these people waiting in lines everywhere at the Medical Center, I was so thankful that at home we don’t have to ask who’s the last in line when going to the doctor’s office. Luckily we didn’t have to wait in lines because all adoption cases are given a priority. But we needed to go to several rooms, and it took a lot of time. The first snag hit us in the very first room. I forgot Raisa’s pictures in Odessa! It was entirely my fault, but it was very easy to fix – just go and take another set of pictures. The next one was much worse. Raya’s medical form didn’t have the results of her blood work. She could get the blood work done at the Medical Center, but the results were ready only after 3:00 p.m. It didn’t work for us since we needed to drop off our paperwork at the Embassy before 12:00 on Thursday in order to receive the visa on Friday. Of course, I’m a nervous wreck again :) But Sergey wisely advises me to call the Embassy and ask if they can accept everything but the medical today. I call the Embassy and find out that it’s indeed possible to drop off the paperwork today and bring the medical tomorrow. Okay, it sounds good. We went to the photo place to take Raya’s pictures, then to the Embassy where a very nice young woman accepted all our paperwork (can you see how I like American Embassy?) and told us to come back on Friday at 2 p.m for the interview with the Consul. Note for pre-adoptive parents: it’s very convenient to fill out all Embassy forms ahead of time. I downloaded them from their website, and brought them with me. It worked out great because after the train ride and the Medical Center experience I was in no shape to fill out any paperwork :)

After Embassy we went back to the Medical Center to have the blood work done. The nurse immediately asked for Raisa’s passport. Well, I don’t have her passport anymore because I left it at the Embassy to get the visa! But the nurse is adamant – no passport, no blood work. At this point I break down and start crying. I’ve had enough! Fortunately, it works and the nurse takes the blood work (I didn’t do it on purpose, honestly!) But since we came back after 12, the result will be ready not at 3 today, but at 3 tomorrow! I feel like my blood pressure is rising again – we have a 2 p.m. interview with the Consul tomorrow! But Sergey found a solution once more – we paid a legal expediting fee to have the results by tomorrow morning. Then back to the doctor’s office, then back to another room for a couple of vaccinations (another legal $50), and finally we were told to come back for the final results next morning.

On Friday we arrived to the Medical Center bright and early to pick up the results. In typical Ukrainian fashion it took almost 2 hours, but after $85 (cost of the exam) and my nervous breakdown (related to the lack of Raisa’s passport again :) we finally had our results. After that the visa interview was a piece of cake. The Consul was extremely nice, he even talked to Raya in Russian, and 20 minutes later we were on our way with the Visa in hand!!!

For our last dinner in Ukraine we met my blogging friends Kathy and Matt at a restaurant on Kreschatik called “Domashnia kuhna” – it means homemade food in Russian. Just before we left for the restaurant, we had an interesting experience at our apartment. When I was trying to open the door, the doorknob came out, and the door wouldn’t open! It took us 15 minutes to finally open it, and by that time I thought we are going to be prisoners of that apartment forever :) Then we rode the subway – the first time for Raya - and finally saw Kathy and Matt. It was so great to visit with them and exchange our war stories. They only started their journey in Ukraine, so please keep them in your thoughts and prayers, as they are leaving for the region on Monday.

This morning we woke up at 5:00 a.m., and our facilitator took us to Borispol airport for our 8:20 a.m. flight to Frankfurt. Note to pre-adoptive parents: make sure you have your court decree with you! I was asked for it twice: at the check-in and at the customs. I knew about this requirement from other people blogs, so I was prepared. The check-in lady also asked for the Power of Attorney from Oleg in order for Raisa to leave the country. I explained that her father is in the States, and of course he wants her to leave Ukraine and go to her country. She was very skeptical, but the court decree was good enough and she let us go.

The flight was another “first” for Raisa. She was very afraid at the beginning, but after the plane took off, she had a lot of fun watching the clouds and eating her first ever airline food. We had only hour and a half between the flights, and with my luck, our flight was 30 minutes late! By the time it stopped taxiing, it was only 40 minutes before our flight to JFK! Can you imagine how high my blood pressure was? Luckily, the departing gate was at the same terminal, and after going through security we made it to the gate with 30 minutes until departure. The flight was already boarding, but we were assured we still have time while the Delta agents asked me to show Raisa’s special Embassy envelope. After another 10 minutes we finally boarded the plane.

And finally after another 8.5 hours flight, our plane touched the ground at JFK. The passport control took about 5 minutes, then another 2 minutes at a special immigration room, and voila – we have a new American Citizen! Our plane to Rochester is boarding soon, and our adoption journey is finally coming to the end. Stay tuned! I’ll try to post soon!

We've got the PASSPORT!!!

2008-01-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

It was not an easy day, but just an hour ago we received Raisa's passport! I'll fill you in later - we couldn't leave Odessa without another portion of Ukrainian bureaucracy :) But the most important thing is that we are on our way to Kiev!!! We are taking a night train, arriving to Kiev at 8:00 a.m. Thursday. Hopefully we'll get the visa by Friday and fly home on Saturday.

Here are some pictures from our last days in Odessa:

The weekend

2008-01-20T17:15:00.000-05:00

We had a great weekend with Raisa. On Saturday we went to the "Privoz" market for a little retail therapy :) Privoz used to be a food only market, but now it's a huge complex with lots of stores and individual sellers where one can buy everything: you name it, they've got it. When I visited Privoz in December, I totally forgot about pick-pocketers and lost some small amount of grivna from my pockets :) This time I was very vigilant and made sure all my grivna stays where it belongs :) In addition to the clothes sellers we visited the meat, cheese, fish markets, etc. The food sellers always let you try everything they sell. When I was growing up, we would try everything - delicious cheese, smoked meat, farmers cheese, etc. We didn't need lunch afterwards :) Though this time I thought I'd better pass on trying unknown food!

After dinner I called my friend Tami, and we went to see the downtown area at night. It's absolutely beautiful! The New Year's and Christmas lights are still on, and there are lots of people on the streets enjoying the sights. Though I have to say that the alleys in the courtyard of Tami's apartment are absolutely dark and scary, but we were brave enough to go through both alleys with no problems :)

Today we went to the Opera Theater! One of my friends got us a couple of tickets for the children's musical "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". It was a great performance, and both Raya and I enjoyed it. It was obviously geared towards children, and the actors tried to make it as interactive as possible. Every time they asked the audience a question, Raisa along with other kids would enthusiastically yell "Da" or "Net". It was very cute. The theater was closed for several years for reconstruction, and just reopened last summer. It was gorgeous, when I visited it many years ago, but now it's breathtaking.

After performance we went out to dinner with my classmates. It was a ladies only night, and we enjoyed our evening at one of the restaurants in the "Afina" mall in downtown. Of course, Raisa was the center of attention, and she loved every minute of it!

I was able to borrow a USB cable at one of the photo stores (at no charge!), so I finally uploaded some pictures. This album doesn't have the latest pictures of the Opera Theater, but tomorrow after chasing the paperwork I'll try to borrow the cable again and upload the latest pictures.

Vacation Day

2008-01-18T19:07:00.000-05:00

After two 10-hour grueling days I decided to relax today. I played a tourist for a little bit, went to some places I didn't have a chance to visit last time, did some shopping, etc. And I walked in my flat warm ugly comfortable boots :) I couldn't wear my favorite 3-inch sensible heel boots after yesterday's blisters! Though I walked in them for 3 weeks last time and didn't have any problems, so I'm not sure what's different now :) And this time I left my 5-inch stiletto heel boots home :)

I made a lot of pictures today, but I can't post them because I forgot my USB cable at home! I'm going to stop at one of the photo stores tomorrow and see if they let me borrow a cable for a reasonable price.

Then it was a lunch time. Do you know who I had lunch with? I had lunch with my blogging friend Tami!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe that? We "met" online several months ago at approximately the same stage of the process. We waited together for our dossier to be submitted. Then we waited for the SDA appointment date. Then we waited for the actual appointment. Then both of us ended up going for 2 trips. And finally we've met!!! It was so good to be able to finally connect in person half way around the world! Hopefully we'll be able to meet again before Raisa and I leave for Kiev.

On Monday we'll be calling the Passport Office to find out when to expect the passport to be ready. We also have one more issue to take care of before we can leave Odessa, but I hope it will be resolved soon.

In the meantime Raya and I are concentrating on spending time together, having fun and learning English! She's eager to learn, and she's making a good progress! She'll be speaking English in no time!

Making progress!

2008-01-17T16:27:00.000-05:00

When Oleg and I came to Odessa almost 2 months ago, it took us a while to get used to the fact that we are indeed in our hometown. After spending more than half of our married life (11 years out of 20) in the States, and totally assimilating in our new country, it was really hard to believe that we are back in the city where we grew up. Every day we would walk the beautiful downtown streets and shake our heads in disbelief – is that really happening? Are we really back?

This time it’s totally different for me. It feels like I’ve never left! Everything looks familiar, I know where to go, I know how to behave, and I even speak on my cell phone while riding the bus, though not as loud as the other fellow riders :) But yesterday I really remembered my childhood. There was no water in our apartment! When we were growing up, the water was turned off from midnight to 6:00 a.m. every single day. Odessa never had enough water, and it was a measure taken to conserve it. In addition to that, we almost never had hot water during summer time, and there were sporadic cold water outages at any time. But it was OK! The key was to have enough water saved for emergencies. I think I only recently stopped reminding myself to take the shower before midnight while the water is on :)

Well, enough reminiscing! Let me tell you about an important stuff! We started the day at 8:00 by taking Raya to school. The next stop was at the bank to pay the official passport dues. We couldn’t pay them at any bank. We were only supposed to pay them at a specific branch in a specific place. Oh well – we waited in line and received the coveted proof of our payment. Then we went to legalize the birth certificate. There was no line (surprise!), our paperwork was accepted (can you believe that?), and we were told to pay the official dues at a specific bank branch (of course! ) and come back later. Well, this branch didn’t accept payments on Thursdays (how weird is that?), but somehow we were able to persuade the teller to accept our payment. While we were waiting for our legalized birth certificate, we went to the notary office to fill out a passport application. Guess what? Of course, the first notary didn’t like the power of attorney Oleg wrote for me. No problem. We went to another one. Same result. The third one. Nope. Finally we went to the passport office and asked if they can accept Oleg’s power of attorney. They agreed! So I went to the fourth notary office and filled out an application, which only listed Raisa’s mother, i.e. myself :) Then back to get a legalized birth certificate, then to the Tax IDs office, where we received Raisa’s Tax ID, back to school to pick her up, and finally by 5:15 we were back at the Passport office ready to apply for the passport! The office was open until 6:00 p.m., and there was still a huge line of people waiting. But it was a lucky day for us. WE APPLIED FOR THE PASSPORT! They accepted all our paperwork, took Raya’s picture and told us to call back on Monday!

We finished the day at the great restaurant in the City Garden (Gorsad), where I had the most delicious ribs in my life :) The only drawback of this great day was that my poor feet ended up with blisters from walking too much :) Tomorrow I’m planning to take a vacation day :)

Back in Odessa

2008-01-16T13:09:00.000-05:00

My flight to JFK was short and sweet. The plane was very tiny: it only had a single row of seats on the left side and a double row on the right side. It didn’t even have enough room for carry-on in the overhead bins! Oh well, who cares about one hour flight, right? I’ve got my luggage in literally 5 minutes, took AirTran to the terminal 1, found Austrian Airlines counter, checked in and then enjoyed my Starbucks coffee while surfing the Internet. Most of the other patrons at Starbucks were speaking Russian :) How cool is that?

Both my Austrian Airlines flights from JFK to Vienna and from Vienna to Odessa were on time, my luggage made it intact, so overall my 22-hour journey (including flight from Rochester to JFK) was great. I really enjoyed flying Austrian Airlines – much better than Aerosvit :) The Vienna airport is very small and very easy to navigate - it took me about 5 minutes to go through security and find my gate! The only inconvenience was the time – my plane arrived at 2:00 a.m. EST (8:00 a.m. Vienna time), and my internal clock was still programmed for night, so I was literally falling asleep while trying to stay awake for 3 hours and not to miss my plane to Odessa :)

Passport control in Odessa was a piece of cake – I was done in 15 minutes (including customs), picked up my suitcase and was immediately taken to the Birth Certificates office. I was pretty sure we won’t have any problems getting the Birth Certificate, but boy was I wrong! The lady-bureaucrat in charge read the court decree for a long time. She really tried to find something amiss, and she succeeded! There are several parts in the court decree – one section explains all details of the case, the other allows us to be Raisa’s parents, and the final section instructs the Birth Certificate office to issue a new Birth Certificate and list us as the new parents. Here is the catch. Both first and second parts list our names, DOB, and citizenship. But the third one only lists our names. It doesn’t list our DOB and citizenship! So she can’t issue us a new birth certificate! We politely suggested to look at the other 2 parts of the court decree, or at the translation of our passports that I was required to supply. Or I could simply tell her that we are the citizens of United States (in case she didn’t know), and when we were born. But she was adamant – go and change the court decree so that it lists our DOB and citizenship in the third part! Just to make the record straight, we supplied all necessary paperwork, including something extra (you know what I mean). But apparently it was not enough! So we called the lawyer, who helped us to schedule a court date, asked her to help, and finally went to Raisa’s school to pick her up. She didn’t know I’m coming, so she was VERY happy to see me! I think the whole school heard her yell “MAMA!!!” It was great!

This morning we’ve got a call from the lawyer. Apparently she went to the boss of that lady-bureaucrat from the Birth Certificate office and said: if we don’t get the Birth Certificate today, we go to Kiev to the Ministry and file a complaint! Guess what? It worked! We have a Birth Certificate!!!!!!! Tomorrow we plan to legalize it, receive a new Tax Code, go to a Notary office (I brace myself…), get another paper, and then (knock on wood) apply for the passport!!! Please keep Raisa and I in your thoughts and prayers – we really need to apply for the passport tomorrow: Raisa wants to go home!

Leaving in 10 hours

2008-01-13T23:58:00.000-05:00

I was so looking forward to flying JetBlue to JFK: comfy leather seats, individual TV channels and extra legroom. It wasn’t meant to be! About an hour ago, just before I wanted to check the status of my flights, the phone rang! It was an automated message by JetBlue airline calling to inform me that my flight to New York is cancelled and I can get a full refund. Let me tell you: it’s not the first time one of my flights is cancelled when I’m about to fly abroad :) It happened to me last year when I went to France on business trip, and I was freaked out then – how I’m supposed to make my connection if my flight is cancelled? Now I took the news in stride and started calling JetBlue. It was not easy, as many other customers did the same thing, so the time on hold was very long. To make the long story short, I received a refund from JetBlue and booked a Delta flight at exactly the same time as my JetBlue flight was – 11:40 am. Though this flight is twice more expensive because I bought it in less than 24 hours before departure :(

Anyway, my 5:45 p.m. flight to Vienna by Austrian Airlines is still in the “scheduled” status, so I hope it will stay the same :) This flight arrives to Vienna at 8:40 in the morning, and my next flight to Odessa departs at 11 a.m., so I have about 2.5 hours between the flights. Since Vienna’s airport is relatively small, I hope I’ll be able to make my connection on time. My final flight arrives to Odessa at 2pm Ukrainian time on Tuesday.

This time I’m taking only one suitcase (with empty duffel bag inside for Raisa’s clothes), and not even a carry-on, except for a laptop bag and my purse. Raisa doesn’t have much, so the duffel bag should have enough room for her possessions. I was shopping like crazy these weeks, buying all kinds of clothes, though I’m afraid everything will be too big for her. She’s 10 years old, but very tiny, so she can still fit size 8. I was buying size 10-12, but if that’s too big, I guess it won’t be long before she can wear it.

It was a very busy week for us with my preparations for the trip, and numerous activities with Victoria. We registered her for kindergarten, attended 2 birthday parties for her friends and watched her music class production of “3 Piggy Opera”. I’ll miss the parent-teacher conference at her preschool, but luckily Oleg stays home this time, so he’ll hold the fort for both of us in my absence.

Cell phones in Ukraine

2008-01-07T07:48:00.000-05:00

I’m leaving in 7 days, but this time I’m not stressed at all! I know what to expect, I know what to pack, and, most importantly, there is an end in sight. My packing list is very short – just bare necessities to get me through these couple of weeks in Ukraine.

Many people asked me about the cell phones use in Ukraine, and I’ll be happy to share my observations. People use their cell phones everywhere! Which is not a big deal, right? Everybody in America is doing the same thing, but not quite the same. For example, if my cell phone rings in a middle of the dinner with several people, I would either not take the call, or excuse myself to go outside to talk. Not in Ukraine! People would just answer the phone and start a conversation, oblivious of the other people at the table! Same thing in public transportation – I heard too many loud private conversations in marshrutka bus that I really didn’t care to hear :) Even in official places people don’t stop talking on the phones! Once Oleg and I were in the regional inspector’s office along with several other people. One woman had a phone call – she accepted it and started talking right there! I was mortified! Oleg and I couldn’t understand it – why is it so hard to call back later? But then we finally got it: all incoming calls in Ukraine are free, so if somebody calls you, it’s a free call, and you better take it. Otherwise you’ll have to pay to call back!

There are phone plans, but in most cases people just buy minutes as needed. They are readily available everywhere at the stores, markets, on the street corners from vendors, etc. You can buy phone cards for any amount, I think you can start as low as 15 grivnas or buy as much as 200-300. It’s very easy to check the amount of grivna available: Dial *101# then press the “call" button and wait a few seconds. The amount of grivna will be displayed.

I tried to find out how much is one minute by checking the amount of grivna before and after the call, and then dividing it by an approximate number of minutes I talked, but I still didn’t figure it out :) Here are some observations for those of you ready to go:

- It’s much cheaper to call from one cell phone to another. I would say it’s approximately 0.2 – 0.4 grivna a minute, depends on the provider. Sometimes it’s even cheaper to call if both phones are from the same provider

- It’s more expensive to call from the cell phone to the landline phone – about 0.7 – 1 grivna a minute. But if you still need to call, make sure to dial an area code. For example, if the landline phone in Kiev is 555-5555, then to call from the cell phone, you should dial 8-044-555-5555 (where 044 is Kiev’s area code) Same rules apply when calling from one cell phone to another – you need to dial 8, then area code, then a phone number. The only case when you don’t need to dial the area code is when you call from one landline to another in the same city.

- Calls to USA are about 2 grivna a minute (maybe more).

- As I said before, all incoming calls are free, so it makes sense to give your phone number to friends and family in the States and have them call you.

- You can transfer grivna from one cell phone to another. Dial *150*number*amount of grivna# and press the “send" button. You’ll see the confirmation number on the display. For example, if you’d like to transfer 20 grivnas to the phone number 8-099-555-5555, you should dial the following:

*150*8-099-555-5555*20#

Then to confirm your transaction, dial *150*confirmation number

Cool websites

2008-01-07T07:46:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of cool sites (not adoption-related):

1. www.odnoklassniki.ru. “Odnoklassniki” means classmates in Russian. This website is kind of equivalent of Facebook.com for Russian-speaking users. It was created a year ago, and by now there are more then 7 million users! I found so many classmates whom I haven’t seen in 20 – 30 years – from elementary school to college! It’s way cool! Though I already read an article about it where the author implies that this site is watched by FSB (former KGB :)

2. http://www.ratemyprofessors.com For those of you with kids in college – this is a very cool website where students rate their professors! Good to know whose class not to take :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2008-01-01T19:38:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year my dear friends! New Year’s is the main holiday in our family (we still keep Ukrainian tradition), and we celebrated it in style! We said “Good Bye” to the old year, and gave thanks to all the good things that happened this year. We “met” the New Year (this is a direct translation from Russian) at midnight and danced all night long. We made a wish at exactly 12:00, and it should come true this year! Grandfather Frost came for a visit and left small, but very nice presents for the kids under New Year’s tree. We had a good time celebrating New Year’s, and according to the Russian/Ukrainian superstitions, it means the New Year 2008 – the year of the Golden Mice - will be very good for us!

We also celebrated Victoria’s birthday. I specifically booked her birthday party almost 2 weeks after her actual birthday since we weren’t sure when we are coming home from Ukraine. Even though we came back earlier than expected, I decided not to reschedule and keep the date we had it booked. She had a blast with her friends at the Little Gym:

They jumped up and down:

Played the games:

Had a birthday cake:

and just had a good time:

And finally we asked our friends to take the last picture of us as the family of 4. Very soon we should be able to take a new family picture as a family of 5!

Planning a trip back

2007-12-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

I was really hoping to come back to Odessa when the passport is ready, pick up Raya, go to Kiev, get the visa and fly home, all in less than one week. What a wishful thinking! Apparently, it's not going to happen :( I didn't think we'll have a problem getting a birth certificate - I haven't read one adoption blog yet with the birth certificate problem! But I guess our Ukrainian heritage is doing us a disservice again: the bureaucrats are having a hard time dealing with former Ukrainians, but now "rich" Americans :) Who's rich here? Definitely not us. But in their eyes we are rich - living in our own house (they don’t understand we have 23 years more to pay the mortgage), driving 2 cars (again, no understanding about the car loans), etc. So I'm coming back to start the second part of the process: getting a birth certificate, new ID code, applying for the passport, etc.

This time I've decided to buy a one-way ticket. Since I don't know when I'll be coming back, I don't want the hassle of changing tickets. One-way ticket costs about the same as a half of round-trip ticket plus about $150-200 changing fee, so I feel it makes sense to buy one-way ticket. I used the same online travel engine www.airfarenow.com, it specializes in the tickets to Europe. When I booked our tickets for the first trip to Ukraine, I was very surprised to find out that it was cheaper to buy Aerosvit tickets on this site compare to Aerosvit.com. And not only Aerosvit! After flying by a 2-star airline, I wanted to try something different. Especially because this time I don’t have to go to Kiev first, so I can fly from JFK to Odessa with just one connection. I heard a lot of good things about Austrian Airlines, which is supposedly a 4-star airline, so I booked Austrian Airlines tickets flying from JFK on January 14th, connecting in Vienna and arriving to Odessa on January 15th. And this time I’m flying with one half-empty suitcase :) I would fly with carry-on only, but Raya has some stuff she’d like to take with her, so we’ll share my suitcase!

Just for fun I tried to price the same tickets on Austrian Airlines web page. One-way ticket was almost 4 times more expensive, and a half of round-trip ticket was about 50% more expensive! Buying one-way ticket will also give me more flexibility on the way home, because I’ll have more choices buying tickets for both of us.

Raisa is doing good, though she’s very disappointed she won’t celebrate New Year’s holiday with us. New Year’s is a main holiday in Ukraine with all attributes of Christmas: decorated tree, gifts, Grandfather Frost (Ukrainian version of Santa Claus), etc. School break starts on December 29th and continues until about January 14th. During the break there are many activities for kids that involve Grandfather Frost and his granddaughter “Snegurochka”, so Raya is looking forward to all these activities! Even though we won’t celebrate the holidays together this year, we’ll see each other very soon. Just 3 more weeks…

P.S. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Happy 5th Birthday, Victoria!

2007-12-18T08:07:00.000-05:00

Our youngest daughter turns 5 today! It feels like only yesterday I was pregnant and everybody was wondering what we are thinking having a baby when we have a 14-year old son! And we had to explain that no, it wasn’t an accident, and yes, it was planned :) But the most hilarious comment came from one of my Ukrainian friends from Odessa: “How cool that you’ve decided to have a baby at your old age!” Who would guess that it wasn’t our last baby and 5 years later we would become the parents of three? Though Victoria is still keeping her “baby of the family” status :)

A day before:

7 days old:

5 months old

12 months old - with boyfriend Josh:

First dance recital:

Gymnastics: a perfect bridge!

Halloween with Alex:

Our soccer player:

A big 5-year old!

One week home

2007-12-15T22:04:00.000-05:00

I didn't realize it's been a week since we came home from Ukraine. Thank you, my blogging friends Tina and MoscowMom, for reminding me to post again!

We really enjoy being home with our kids, especially during holidays. It's so nice to be able to take Victoria to her music, dance and gymnastics classes, plan her upcoming birthday party, chat with Alex when he's available, etc. While we were in Ukraine, Alex was taking Victoria to her dance classes, and according to the studio owner, all teenage assistant teachers were lining up to see him come in :) His holiday break from school starts soon, and we are looking forward to spend more time with him. Even though he lives at home, we don't see him often as he's really busy at school. His Computer Engineering program at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) is one of the most rigorous, and he works really hard to earn his good grades!

Today at the music class Victoria just made my day. When her teacher asked her what she wants for Christmas, she said she’s getting a big sister! Isn't it sweet? She also had a visiting day at her dance studio this week, so I took several pictures and sent them to Raisa. She was very surprised to see that the dance class in America looks different :) The girls are not required to wear the same color leotards, the same color tights, the same color ballet shoes, and get this: they are doing the stretching exercises in the circle with the smiling teacher :)

We talk to Raya daily, and she's doing great, though every single time poor kid keeps asking when I'm coming to get her… Our court decree becomes final tomorrow, even though technically it will be Monday, since 10th day falls on the weekend. A new birth certificate can be issued without us, but a new passport is a different story. One of the documents required to apply for the passport is a notarized application signed by both parents. If you read my post about Notaries in Ukraine, you know, I'm not very fond of Ukrainian notaries :) We wanted to do this application while both of us were still in Ukraine, but of course none of the notaries wanted to do it for us until the court decree became final. Our great facilitator has several ideas on how to accomplish this, so hopefully it will work out. If you've been through this kind of situation before (when one parent flies home and the other finishes the paperwork), and you have any ideas, please let me know! I’m going to buy my plane tickets depending on the passport progress. Originally I planned to fly back after the Orthodox Christmas on January 7th, but looks like many offices are still closed until the “Old New Year” on January 13th (this is another Orthodox tradition), so I’ll probably fly the week of January 14th.

P.S. My friend Jim corrected me on my post about Wegmans. Looks like the “Ukrops” grocery store in Virginia has the best customer service in the nation. I’ll have to go to “Ukrops” one day and personally see the difference :) Isn’t it neat that the first 3 letters of “Ukrops” are identical to the first 3 letters of “Ukraine”?

God Bless America!

2007-12-10T18:03:00.000-05:00

Until we spent 3 weeks in Ukraine, we didn’t realize how blessed and fortunate we are, and how much we take for granted. Even though we love our homeland, we are truly American now and couldn’t wait to go home to our beloved America! By the way, the locals in Ukraine couldn’t detect that we are foreigners now! We even gained our Odessa’s accent back according to our friends :)

Our JetBlue plane touched down at the Rochester airport late Friday night. It was soooo good to see Alex waiting for us! He drove us home, and – surprise – he didn’t drive in the wrong lane, didn’t honk at other drivers, made a right turn from the right lane, followed a speed limit, had a seat belt on, etc. It was a nice change compare to Ukrainian drivers :) Victoria was asleep by the time we got home, but the look on her face when she saw us next morning, was priceless, as she didn’t know we were coming!

At home we were able to enjoy very simple things like taking a shower and not holding it by hand (all Ukrainian showers are handheld), having a big cup of coffee, etc. Next morning I drove my own car (yeah!!!) to Wegmans. For those of you who don’t know, Wegmans is a supermarket chain with the headquarters in Rochester. Its customer service is the best in the nation, and for us, Rochesterians, going to Wegmans is not just a grocery shopping, it’s an experience. All out-of-town visitors are getting a tour as a part of the sightseeing! Anyway, Victoria and I went to Wegmans where she gave me a tour in case I forgot something :) “Mama, do you remember where the cookie club is? Let me show you” (cookie club gives the kids a free cookie on each visit to the store). “Mama, do you remember where the kids club is? Let me show you” (the kids club is a free service allowing parents to drop kids off for an hour while they are shopping). So, as you can see, we truly enjoyed our first days home.

We already miss Raya, but luckily she stays with our friend Lena, so we can call her at any time! We already talked to her several times, and she’s doing very good! I’m hoping to fly back to get her in the beginning of January after the Orthodox Christmas.

And here are a couple of pictures we took the last couple of days in Odessa:

It's a girl!

2007-12-07T19:46:00.000-05:00

RACHEL ALICE USACHEV

Born on 12/7/1997
Became our daughter on 12/6/2007

Yes, our dear friends, we had a successful court session yesterday, which was a miracle in itself considering all the issues we were having. We wouldn’t be able to do it without your thoughts and prayers, so we would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

It was a double special day for Raisa since she turned 10 today – what a great way to celebrate a birthday! We decided to change her name so that it’s easier to spell and pronounce it in English. Of course, she’ll still be Raya or Raisa at home, the same way Alex and Victoria have their Russian nicknames we always call them.

But let me start from the beginning. We started our day yesterday by going to the train station to pick up another paper from SDA. The most reliable way to send a package in Ukraine is by train. It’s very easy: pick a train that goes to the destination you need, give your package to the train attendant along with the fee (the ongoing rate is 10 grivna, though once we were charged 20), and call the person who’s supposed to receive your package with the train number and the time of arrival so that he/she can pick it up. Of course, this system is unofficial, but very dependable.

After the train station we went to the airport to change my ticket. Our original return tickets were for December 7th, and we planned for Oleg to fly home on that date and for me to change my ticket and stay in Odessa to finish the paperwork. When we found out that the court session is on December 6th, we were very relieved that Oleg can go home. I planned to get the final court decree after the 10 days mandatory wait on December 17th, get a new birth certificate and passport in a couple of days, be in Kiev on December 19th, have a medical for Raisa, get a visa at the Embassy and fly home on December 21st. We knew that getting passport can take as long as 10 days if not more, but we were promised our passport will be ready by the 19th. So yesterday morning we paid the penalty fee of $150 and changed my ticket from December 7th to December 21st. Then we went to the passport office to fill out some paperwork. And found out that the source, who promised to get us a passport in a couple of days, can’t fulfill his obligations. That was not a good news. But off we went as it was a time for the court session.

Our court session was at 12:30. I didn’t expect it to start promptly, as I read on many other adoption blogs how everybody is late in Ukraine. However, we were called in at 12:45, just 15 minutes late. But the inspector of the region wasn’t there, so the judge told us to get her and come back at 2:00. We went to get the inspector, and our court session finally started at 2:30. The judge’s room was very small, totally unlike our courtrooms in the States. Both Oleg and I were asked to stand, say our names, dates of birth, citizenship and address. Then inspector of the region and Raya’s legal guardian (our friend Lena) were asked to say their opinions in the matter, and after a couple of minutes we were done! The judge never smiled, even after the session, but I guess it’s normal for Ukraine.

After the court we didn’t have time to celebrate as we needed to go to a couple of more places to find out whether or not we’ll be able to finish the paperwork by the 19th. It was very important because the US Embassy closes for the holidays after December 21st, and if we don’t have the passport by then, we won’t be able to get an American Visa for Raisa until beginning of January. So we went to the birth certificate office and another office only to find out that it is indeed impossible to finish the paperwork before the holidays. And we made the decision to fly home for both of us. By this time it’s 6:00 pm, the rush hour traffic is bumper to bumper, we need to go to the airport again to change my ticket back to the 7th, and make it to the train station by 10:30 pm to take the train to Kiev. It took us a long time to find a taxi, but we made it to the airport, changed my ticket back to the original December 7th for another $150, raced to our apartment, packed in 15 minutes, and made it to the train station in a nick of time. Luckily we bought the whole cabin (4 bunks) for Oleg ahead of time, so I didn’t have to buy another ticket for myself.

The train tickets are a whole different story. The trains are the main way of transportation between different parts of Ukraine. They are always on time, and if the arrival time is 8:48, the train will definitely arrive at 8:48. But the tickets are often sold out. It’s hard to understand because if there is a demand for more tickets, why is it so hard to create additional routes? I guess they still operate in a soviet mode. So even several days before the departure we were told that there are no tickets available. But a little envelope always works a magic, so we had our tickets with no problems :)

The train was even better than the last time. It was a newer model, very clean, and we actually enjoyed our trip!

We arrived to Kiev at 7:30 in the morning today and went to the US Embassy. There are 2 adoption documents that must be signed by both parents in person under oath, so Oleg needed to sign these papers because he won’t be coming back. There was a big line in front of the Embassy, but our American passports worked in our favor and we were allowed to go in immediately. For those of you waiting to go, make sure you give all your bags (including purse) to your facilitator before going in. You can’t take anything with you except for the passports and the paperwork. But you can leave your belongings in a special room for just 10 grivna :)

All workers we saw at the Embassy were Ukrainians, but they were speaking English. We showed our paperwork to a very nice woman, and she called the Consul to administer the oath. The Consul was of course American, and as soon as we saw his genuine American smile, our hearts melted! It was so nice to see a friendly face! We quickly signed the papers and left. We saw another American couple there, Valerie and Richard, who also had a court date yesterday in a different region, and were flying home. But Valerie is coming back after the 10 days wait as in their region it’s possible to get the passport by the 18th.

And finally we boarded the Aerosvit flight and flew back to New York. Even though we were disappointed not to get Raya home in time for the holidays, we were very happy to finally go home! I’ll come back by myself to get Raisa after the holidays, so all of us will be together very soon!

From Prosperity to Despair

2007-12-04T08:44:00.000-05:00

Ukraine is a country of social contrasts. There are ultra-rich people who drive Bentleys and buy $1000 neckties. And there are people who are struggling every day to make the ends meet. There is almost no middle class. Our friends are the perfect example – some of them are very wealthy, and the others are not sure whether they’ll have a dinner on the table every night.

There are lots of beggars on the streets. Unfortunately, it became a lucrative business, and very often mothers with infants asking for money, are not real mothers – they are just renting the babies for work. There are disabled people, who in many cases are not disabled, but are made up to look like disabled. And there are old people. These old women singing with mezzo-soprano voices for money, or old men, veterans of Great Patriotic War, playing the accordion, just break our hearts, and we always give them money. It’s very hard for the average Ukrainians to make the ends meet. The groceries prices in Odessa are very similar to ours. The prices for clothes are astronomical, I’m not even talking about the boutiques in downtown – they are always empty, I don’t know how they stay in business. I went to the children’s store, which was not the most expensive. Do you know how much is highchair? $260. Car seat? $350. Snowsuit? How about $330? It’s no wonder there are so many orphans in Ukraine – poverty is everywhere.

Despite the amount of money changing hands everywhere, Ukraine is still very much a cash society. People are getting their paycheck in cash, paying bills in person in cash, and of course using cash in the stores on the daily basis. Everybody seems to be very proficient when calculating money :) For example, if my purchase in the grocery store comes to 14.30 grivna, and I’m about to pay with the 20-grivna bill, the cashier will always ask me to give 30 additional kopiyka coins so that she can give me 6 grivna even as a change. In some cases it’s not as easy! For example, yesterday I bought something for 15.90 grivna. I was asked to give 1.15 grivna more in addition to my 20 grivna bill so that she could give me one bill of 5 grivna and one coin of 25 kopiyka back!

Here are a couple of other observations I made:

Everybody smokes in Ukraine. And they are smoking inside in their own apartments! Every time we are invited for dinner, the hosts are smoking at the dinner table! Though the last time we had dinner with friends, we finally made everybody to go outside to smoke, so at least we were able to inhale a clean air for a change :)

The wedding rings are worn on the right hand. I think it comes from Russian Orthodox Church, though people of all religions wear it on the right hand. The wrong perception there is that only Catholics are wearing their wedding rings on the left hand. When we moved to the States I started wearing my ring on the left hand, as everybody else. Guess what? One of my dear friends finally asked me yesterday: “I apologize, but did you convert to Catholicism?” And I explained that people of all religions wear their wedding rings on the left hand in America, whether they are Jewish, Christian, Catholic or others.

The superstitions are still the same, and even more. I forgot some of the customs I recently wrote about! One of our friends showed me the picture of his 15-year old daughter. Of course I oohed and aahed and said how beautiful his daughter is. He immediately started knocking on the wood and pretending to spit over his left shoulder! I totally forgot that you are not supposed to say good things about the children, even as old as 15 :)

And finally I have a bit of good news. There is a real possibility that we’ll have a court session this week. But I’m afraid to jinx it, so I won’t say anything more :) Stay tuned!

Homesick

2007-12-01T06:27:00.000-05:00

We are homesick. We knew it’s not going to be easy, but we didn’t realize it’s going to be that hard. It doesn’t help that we are having issue after issue and there is no end in sight. At this point we don’t even know when our court date is going to be. We miss our kids - it’s extremely hard to be without them for such a long time. We miss our house and our friends. I’m dreaming of being able to go to Wegmans, drive my own car, have my first morning cup of coffee at work, and even speak English :)

On a more positive note, we are spending a lot of time with Raya. She’s staying with us, so we are taking her to school in the morning, and picking her up in the afternoon. We are learning new things about her every day! She’s a good eater – you wouldn’t believe how much this tiny girl can eat! I think I eat about 4 times less :) I guess it’s common for the kids from orphanages – many adoptive parents shared their observations about it. Raisa loves to watch TV – especially soap operas :) She stayed in a very orthodox religious internat (orphanage) where the kids were not allowed to watch TV, so now she’s ready to watch it 24 by 7. For now I think it’s okay, but when we get home, we’ll have to limit her TV time. She also loves to color. We brought several coloring books for her as well as some kindergarten books I usually work with Victoria. We are using simple “color by number” or “connect the dot” projects as a starting point to learn English. Since we are speaking Russian all the time, her English is not improving very fast, but we are not worried about it. As soon as she immerses in English in school, she’ll pick it up very fast.

We are continuing to explore the city. There are 4 ways to get around in Odessa: trolley bus, tramway, bus or private car. Trolley buses and tramways are the least expensive – only 0.5 grivna (10 cents), but they are always so full, it’s almost impossible to get in. We tried one of each just for fun, but decided that this transportation is not for us. So- called “marshrutka” buses are supposed to be a more luxury means of transportation. They replaced regular buses about 15 years ago, you can read about the history of marshrutkas on this Wikipedia page. The ticket costs 1.25 grivna (25 cents), and there are a little bit less people than in trolley buses or tramways, but they are still very full. If we can’t get into marshrutka, we take the 4th option – a taxi. You can call a taxi by phone, or you can simply raise your hand, and one of the old “lada” cars will definitely stop and take you to your destination (of course people driving Lexus or Mercedes usually don’t stop :) It will be cheaper than taxi, and the drivers will earn some gas money We usually say the price we are willing to pay prior to boarding, so that there is no confusion later.

Here are some pictures:

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers - we really need this court session soon! And thank you SO MUCH to all of you for your comments, messages, calls and prayers. It means A LOT to us to hear from home!

Getting used to the routine

2007-11-28T07:35:00.000-05:00

The culture shock of last week is gone, and we are slowly adjusting to our life in Odessa. Most of the time we remember to say “izvinite” instead of “excuse me”, or not to say “okay” after each sentence. Though it still feels unreal being back in Odessa. Just this morning we were walking the City Garden (Gorsad) and the young couple was walking toward us speaking Russian. We looked at each other and said almost simultaneously: “Did you hear, they are speaking Russian!” And then it downed on us: of course they are speaking Russian, it’s the language spoken in Odessa :)

We have a bit of a good news: our paperwork was accepted at SDA. However, they won’t issue an approval letter until Friday, so we can’t have a court date until next week. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers – we are really hoping for the court session on Monday or Tuesday. We miss our kids terribly and can’t wait to go home.

Though the bureaucracy is taking its toll on us, we are having so much fun seeing old friends. Many of you know that Oleg and I met in the first grade classroom and were classmates for 10 years. And yesterday we saw our 2 classmates who also were in the same class! We are hoping to see more classmates later this week – it will be our version of High School reunion.

We also had a chance to see several sights - our favorite beach "Dolphin" on the Black Sea, and the famous market "Privoz". I'm embarrased to say that I totally forgot about the pick pocketers on Privoz. Though I had most of the money in the inside pocket, I put 8 grivna in the outside pocket, just to make it easier to get it later when paying for the bus. I was very naive :) My 8 grivna were gone immediately!

We don’t really have time to watch TV, but recently we were pleasantly surprised to see “Dancing with the stars” Ukrainian style. The show format and even the music is the same as our American version, I guess they have to follow BBC format. But there are several differences. There are 4 international judges – from Netherlands, Italy, Russia and Ukraine, whose comments are translated live by several interpreters. It’s so cool! I also like the fact that the male host speaks Ukrainian, and female host speaks Russian, it allows people who speak both languages to enjoy the show.

Here are some more pictures from the last couple of days:

Finally - some pictures

2007-11-25T13:48:00.000-05:00

Our apartment has a dial-up connection, so I couldn’t upload the pictures before. But yesterday was the first day when we had some time, so we found a restaurant with free wireless connection and finally uploaded the pictures.

It was a great weekend – we were able to relax for the first time since we flew to Kiev last Sunday. We started Saturday morning by taking Raisa to the dance class. It was an eye-opening experience :) I thought I remember the difference between the teaching styles in former Soviet Union and America, but I did not :) When we came to the States, I was surprised how the dance and gymnastics teachers always say “good job” to the kids even in the cases when they don’t do such a good job. It is different in Ukraine – the praise has to be earned. Well, the dance class started, and the teacher started yelling! I’m not kidding! She yelled for an hour and a half! “You should be ashamed of yourself!”, “Go home if you can’t work hard!”, etc. She looked like a Nazi! I hope this woman is an exception because I have a very warm memories about my own dance teacher and Alex’s dance teacher, and I know that majority of dance teachers in Ukraine are ultimate professionals. Anyway, we told Raya, that her dance teacher in America will be very kind to her :)

After the dance class we went to see the sights. Downtown Odessa looks totally different now – it’s very beautiful and charming, and looks very European. Last year I was on business trip in Toulouse, France, and I think that Odessa is even more beautiful in my biased opinion :)

We saw lots of wedding parties next to the Opera House. I remember seeing pictures of Odessa weddings on Leslie’s blog, and I thought it would be cool to take some more pictures. I already told you that women in Ukraine love boots, but I didn’t know they love them that much to wear with the wedding dress :) Check out the pictures with the bride in blue boots!

Today we finally went down the memory lane – we went to Odessa University first, to the building of “Computer Science – Math” college (mehmat) I graduated from many years ago. Then we took “marshrutka” bus 133 to “Cheremushki” – the region where we grew up. This region didn’t change at all, it just looked different to us – the soviet style 5-stories apartment buildings looked very big when we grew up, but now they looked very small! We went to see our school #51, it was closed on Sunday, but we made some pictures. We also saw some old friends, so overall it was a perfect weekend.

Just some observations for those of you ready to go:

- Dress in layers. Most of the time it was very warm in all these places where we had to wait for the paperwork to be done, so it was very convenient to take off some layers.
- Make sure you wear very comfortable shoes, you’ll be walking a lot! I think we walked more this week than in the last 11 years :) Our leg muscles are screaming!

Here are some pictures from Kiev:

And from our first days in Odessa:

If you’d like to see bigger pictures, double-click the slide-show, and you’ll be able to see the pictures in a different, bigger window.

Fighting with the red tape

2007-11-23T16:37:00.000-05:00

Today we continued to fight with the red tape. SDA received our paperwork this morning, but they didn’t accept it! Two documents out of 12 had incorrect wording. One of the documents states that we had a contact with Raisa. Apparently, this document was supposed to say that we met Raisa, and then had a contact. Tell me, how can you have a contact without meeting someone? The other document listed our social worker’s name, but didn’t have her address! So we had to go back to the inspector’s office, wait for the updated documents, then wait for the head of the region to sign them, etc. The updated paperwork is on its way to Kiev, we are really hoping it will be accepted on Monday so that we can have the approval paper from SDA by Wednesday.

The weather in Odessa is not bad – it’s about 50 degrees. People are dressed up all the time, I kind of forgot about it. The ladies’ uniform is a short skirt and high boots with stiletto heels. For example, our region inspector was wearing a see-through shirt, a very short skirt and white boots with several fur pieces on them

Traffic in Odessa is very bad, though it’s better than in Kiev. We are taking “marshrutka” bus everywhere, it’s 1.25 grivna (25 cents) average. We took taxis a couple of times, but it takes the same amount of time as a bus, so it doesn’t make sense to spend more money (better save it for the envelopes :)

The prices are ridiculous! I don’t know how people with the average salary of $250 a month can live with these prices. We went to the supermarket, and were shocked to see that the grocery prices are almost the same as back home. The clothes boutiques are empty most of the time – I guess majority of people can’t afford them. We saw $300 boots, $250 jacket, $120 purse, etc. So we are planning to go to a famous “7^th km market” to do some shopping soon, we were told the prices are much better there.

Tonight we ordered a take-out “large” pizza, but when it was ready, it was the size of a small single pizza we buy at Wegmans. We noticed the same when ordering coffee. When you order a coffee, ask for “Americana” coffee: it will be less than small size at home. Otherwise they serve coffee expresso style – a very-very-very small cup.

Tomorrow is our day off, and we are finally planning to see our friends. I can’t wait to introduce Raya to them. We got her a digital camera, and she’s constantly taking pictures. She’s such a doll!

Notaries in Ukraine

2007-11-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

I knew that notaries in Ukraine are more like lawyers, but I didn’t realize they behave like royalty. Yesterday we needed to notarize our signatures on 2 letters: one for the inspector, the other for SDA. One would think – what’s the big deal to notarize 2 signatures, right? Wrong! There are 2 types of notaries – private and public. Private ones charge more money, but there are less people waiting in line. We went to the private one first. When she heard that our documents are adoption related, she said she’s not allowed to notarize any adoption documents. According to the law, private notaries can’t notarize adoption documents that go abroad. But in this case they were staying in Ukraine! Didn’t matter – she didn’t want to do it. Then we went to the public notary. It was a stern looking soviet style woman. She looked at our American passports and demanded a translation. Luckily we had an apostilled translation, which was also notarized by a Ukrainian notary in Kiev. She looked at it, looked back at us and started yelling: “What is that? Are you idiots? Why did you put apostilles on the passport copy? Go to a translation agency and bring me a real translation!” We were speechless for a second, and then she dropped another bomb on us. She said that as foreigners we are required to get special ID codes, and without these special codes she’s not allowed notarize anything! Our facilitator immediately looked up the notary law, and found a part where it explains that indeed foreigners are needed these ID codes, but only in cases when they are involved in commercial deals. So, as you can see, this woman was not only rude, but also she had no clue about the law. We moved on. We found another private notary. There were no people waiting in line! It gave us a hope – maybe he’ll want some business? We were in luck. He didn’t demand a passport translation, he didn’t say anything about not being able to notarize adoption documents, and he didn’t even ask about ID codes! Just an hour later we got our letters! It took that long for one of his secretaries to type the letters (the notaries never sign the letters typed by somebody else – they need to approve the wording), for other secretary to write something in a special book, and for us to actually sign it. When we signed in English, the way we usually sign everything – first and last name - they were very surprised because in Ukraine people sign with some kind of abbreviation, just a couple of letters. Then they also asked us to write our last name in Russian! Obviously we could do it, but what if we couldn’t? Anyway, we paid 260 grivna ($52) for the services and left with our 2 treasures. The usual price for the public notary is 3 grivna per document, and for the public is 15 grivna ($3) per document, but of course we didn’t argue and happily paid :)

We were also going to the inspector’s office back and forth several times yesterday and today. Let me tell you: for us speaking Russian is a definite disadvantage. I would rather not understand what’s going on behind the scenes. Of course I knew about the envelopes going back and forth, we were prepared for that. But I was not prepared for all this bureaucracy. I thought our being from Odessa will help us, but it doesn’t help us in any way. The region Raisa is located now (she’s staying with her guardian) doesn’t have any orphanages, so they’ve never had an adoption case involving Americans. And you know the perception about all rich Americans. Especially if our dossier lists our 5-digit income. It doesn’t help that in Russian they use dots and commas in a different way. For example, 10.5 is written 10,5 and there are other differences. The inspector read our income not in thousands, but in millions. She asked – so you have “such and such” millions? We had to explain, that we wish we had so many millions, but no, it’s just thousands. If I could tell you everything, you wouldn’t believe me. Anyway, we have our paperwork for SDA, and we just sent it by train this evening, so the first step is done. As soon as we have SDA permission, we can schedule a court date. I don’t know when it’s going to be, hopefully soon.

But despite the difficulties with the paperwork, we are very happy to be able to spend a lot of time bonding with Raya. She goes to school in the mornings, but in the afternoons we are running around together. She’s such a sweet and good girl, we are very fortunate to have her!

We were really looking forward going to back to Odessa, but with all this paperwork chase going on, we don’t even have time to call our friends! Hopefully after the court we’ll be able to relax and enjoy our time here. But so far it’s no vacation at all. Odessa is beautiful in downtown, but what we really want to see is our old apartment buildings where Oleg and I grew up, the school where we were classmates for 10 years, were both our mothers worked, and where I worked as a math teacher after graduating from university. I think we’ll definitely take a day off from doing paperwork this weekend and take a trip down the memory lane.

I have to confess: I didn’t wear my high-heeled stiletto boots yet. In Kiev all the sidewalks were icy, and I decided I don’t have enough experience to wear the high heels on ice. Here in Odessa we are running around all day long, and it’s not very convenient to do wearing stiletto heels. Though all ladies in Odessa are such a pros walking all day long in them.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!!! We have a lot to be thankful for this year, so we’ll definitely have a belated turkey dinner later this year! Our wonderful friends Lena and Kostya made us a whole chicken, and we celebrated Thanksgiving “chicken” style together.

First day in Odessa

2007-11-21T06:21:00.000-05:00

We are in Odessa! I finally got the Internet access, so it will be a long entry, please bear with me!

Our flight to Kiev was, um, interesting. After spending 10 hours at JFK, we finally boarded the plane, found our seats and tried to get comfortable for the long flight. It was not an easy task since my seat wouldn't recline all the way down, and Oleg's seat wouldn’t recline at all! There were no other available seats, so we had to stick with ours. As soon as our plane started taxiing towards the runway, I felt something strange… I looked up and saw that the water was trickling down from the overhead bin to my seat! We called the flight attendant again telling her that the roof is leaking :) She looked like we need to have our heads examined! After examining my seat and verifying that the water is indeed leaking from somewhere, she called in a consult. Another flight attendant came in, and all of a sudden the leaking magically stopped. Well, it was raining in New York, so I guess the rain has stopped :) After that our flight was fairly uneventful.

Going through the passport control and customs was very straightforward. For those of you about to travel, I don’t think you really need the VIP service, even if you don’t speak Russian. First, you go through the passport control. Make sure to fill out the form you are given on the plane on both sides. I didn’t realize we need to fill out both “Arrival” and “Departure forms. Have your facilitator’s address written down somewhere, so you can specify this address on the immigration form (or even the SDA address – they didn’t care as long as you put any address there). Then go straight ahead to get the luggage. Even if you bypassed the passport line with the VIP service, you’ll still need to wait for the luggage. After that you have a choice to go through the Green corridor (if you don’t have anything to declare, i.e. you have less than $3000 per person), or through the Red corridor where you have to fill out a declaration form. The forms are available next to the luggage carousel in English.

Yesterday was a big day – our SDA appointment. Even though we knew they shouldn’t deny us to adopt Raya, we still felt nervous. But everything worked great! We were greeted by a very nice woman who introduced herself as Zarina. She showed us Raisa’s file, talked to us for a couple of minutes, and that was it! We asked whether it’s possible to come back for the paperwork that same day because we planned to leave for Odessa in the evening, and she agreed! After we were done at SDA, our great facilitator Sergey spent the day taking care of us - sightseeing, shopping, he even took us out to dinner, and then to the train station.

The train was not bad at all! Well, we had an experience riding the trains in Ukraine many years before, but let me tell you: our train was much better than we expected. We bought all 4 bunks in the cabin, so we were very comfortable. Not only we had our privacy, but also we had enough room to put our luggage in! There is very little room for luggage in the cabin, so we used our extra bunks for our bags. We were also told that we need to show our passports to the attendant, but she didn’t ask. The bathrooms were more or less clean, and get this: there was even a toilet paper! Though it took a great skill to actually use the bathroom because the train was swaying all the time. So overall the train experience was okay, even though I wouldn’t call it my favorite way of travel :)

And finally this morning we arrived to Odessa train station at 6:00. Our friends Lena and Kostya were waiting for us – it was so cool to finally see them after 11 years! After a short drive to their apartment, the moment we were waiting for such a long time finally arrived – Raisa was waiting for us! Here is her first picture with us this morning: isn't she precious?

Now it's time to go to the Regional Inspector's office to prepare a lot of paperwork that we have to send back to SDA. More later!

Hello from JFK

2007-11-18T17:21:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone, we are at JFK waiting for our flight to Kiev. While Oleg is checking out all the numerous duty free shops here, I've decided to update the blog. We flew to JFK by JetBlue, and the flight was fabulous – plenty of legroom, individual TVs with dozens of channels, we were very happy customers. We’ve never used JetBlue before, but we’ll definitely fly them again.

After collecting our luggage, we took a cart to put it on, and let me tell you, it was the best $3 we've ever spent :) We took a train to a terminal #4 where Aerosvit is located and found out that our flight is delayed for 4 hours. This is very normal for me :) Every time I fly, at least one of the flights needs to be cancelled or delayed, so I wasn’t even surprised. Then we started looking for the Aerosvit check-in counter, and it was very easy to find: most of the people in line spoke Russian! It was so cool! But the coolest thing was that we've got the meal vouchers from Aerosvit! It's the first time in my experience when the airline gave out the vouchers because of the delay! So now we are about to spend them :) With the delay we are expected to arrive to Kiev at about 4pm their time on Monday. It still gives us enough time to rest before our appointment on Tuesday.

We were very surprised to find out that free Internet connection is not available at JFK. At least we couldn't find it. The only wireless network we could connect to, required a payment, and of course we paid because I'm addicted to the Internet :)

Thank you so much to all of you for the words of support and best wishes! It means a lot to us!

Leaving on Sunday...

2007-11-17T16:02:00.000-05:00

The day has come: we are leaving tomorrow! Suitcases are packed, major items on the "to-do" list are checked off, detailed instructions for Alex, Victoria and my Mom are written down, and I'm ready to wear my high-heeled boots - it will be interesting to see whether I can still blend in... This is it!

Yesterday was a very special last day at work for both Oleg and myself. We received so many good wishes and kind words of support and encouragement that we feel much better knowing how many people keep us in their thoughts and prayers. Of course, Oleg thinks his co-workers are the best. But I’ll tell you a little secret – my co-workers take the first place :) We love you, guys!

Our next post will be from Kiev!

A Mommy Bear (3 days to go)

2007-11-15T08:45:00.000-05:00

I've got this great idea about a Mommy Bear from Shelley, another fellow adoptive parent. Victoria and I went to the Build-a-Bear store and created a Mommy Bear for her to hold on to while I'm in Ukraine! This Mommy Bear can even speak with Mommy's pre-recorded voice :) It was a big hit, so I hope it will make it easier for Victoria to be without me.

Luckily our son doesn't need a Mommy Bear anymore :) Though Oleg and I managed to spend some quality time with him this week, which is not an easy task - he's either at school or at work, or out :)

We are more or less ready to go, just 3 more days... It's a very emotional time for us. Not only we are about to become Raisa's parents, but also we are going back to our homeland for the first time in 11 years. We left Odessa on the cold November day in 1996 with just the clothes on our backs and knowing how to say "Hi", Bye" and "How are you" in English. We found our American dream, and we'll do everything possible to help our new daughter to find hers.

Countdown - 10 days

2007-11-08T08:36:00.000-05:00

10 days to go. Are we ready? Not really :) I sort of gave up on the lists - I won't be able to finish them all. Instead, I'm concentrating on spending time with Victoria and taking it one day at a time. This weekend we went to the mall, and had a little photosession:

I was also thinking about our process in Ukraine. Here it is in a nutshell:

On Sunday, November 18th, we fly to NY by JetBlue, and then to Kiev by Aerosvit (Ukrainian Airlines). We arrive to Kiev on Monday, November 19th and have our appointment at SDA (State Department of Adoption) on Tuesday, November 20th. Then we take a train to Odessa that same evening.

Once we get to Odessa, we meet with the inspector of the region (something like a town in the States), and write an application to adopt Raisa. If inspector is an agreement that we can proceed with adoption, he/she writes an opinion on whether the adoption meets the best interests of the child. This opinion letter along with many other documents is sent back to Kiev for SDA approval. SDA takes 5 business days to review these documents and then hopefully gives us the consent to adopt. The consent is sent back to Odessa and we can schedule a court date (hopefully within the next week or so).

If the court is successfull, we have to wait mandatory 10 calendar days (sometimes more if the 10th day falls on the weekend) to get the court decree. During these 10 days, anyone can appeal the court decision (hopefully not!)

Once we have a court decree, we can apply for a new birth certificate where we listed as the parents, and with the new birth certificate we can apply for the passport. Getting passport can take up to 10 days or more, but very often it takes 2-3 days, depending on the region and on the expediting fees.

With the passport in hand we go back to Kiev for the medical exam and to apply for a visa. This process takes about 3 business days, and after that we can go home! So it's hard to predict when we'll come home, but I really hope it will be before the holidays.

I also wanted to say a huge thank you to my friend and co-worker for your generous gift toward our adoption expenses - I don't have words to describe my appreciation for your kindness. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

16 days

2007-11-02T07:42:00.000-04:00

I'm overwhelmed. Why the "to-do" lists are getting bigger and bigger despite the checking off items daily??? I'm so glad to be able to check with my online friends to make sure I haven't missed anything! Thank you, Tami, for reminding me about the snowplow service (actually you were talking about winterizing, and it triggered my snowplow item :)

So where am I with the lists?

- Call the bank to order the new money. Check.
- Call the credit card company to make sure the card will work in Ukraine. Check.
- Buy money belts and international adapters. Check.
- Sign the Power of Attorney document/Medial Release form. Check.
- Talk to the school district about Raisa's placement. Check.
- Buy furniture for Raisa's bedroom. Check.
- Let Victoria's teachers know we'll be out of country. Check.
- Print out the embassy forms and other paperwork to take with us. Check.
- Write a list of emergency phone numbers and all Victoria's activities for my Mom. Check.

What else is on the list? The big items still need to be checked off are:

- Order snowplowing service
- Schedule Internet Bill Payments until the end of December
- Choose and print out pictures for the photoalbum

Plus I have a thousand smaller items to check off :)

So as you can see, I'm stressed out. But I put off all lists to take Victoria trick-or-treating. I'm biased of course, but I think she was the most adorable ice princess ever :)

The Order of Toasts and 19 days to go

2007-10-30T14:20:00.000-04:00

After I wrote about the customs and superstitions last week, my friend Kelly asked me to write about the order of toasts for gatherings. The following is Odessa's version, so it can be totally different in other parts of Ukraine :)

- Rule #1 - don't drink without toasting! You can be considered an alcoholic!

- The first toast is always for the occasion. If it's a birthday party - drink for the person whose birthday is celebrated.

- The second toast at a birthday party is for the parents of the person whose birthday is celebrated (if they are still alive)

- The third toast varies. Most of the time it's for the women present at the party. You can say in Russian "Za prisutstvuyuschih zdes dam"

- Then it's a good idea to toast relatives - you can separately drink for siblings of the person giving the party, his kids, grandparents, etc. - depends on the situation

- After all relatives are taken care of, people usually toast for friendship

- At some point of time, usually at the end of the party, the hosts will toast all guests. Sometimes it means the party is over, but not necessarily.

- If you are asked to give a toast, make sure you toast the health of the hosts.

If you don't want to drink, sometimes the hosts can be offended. There are a couple of good excuses not to drink: being a designated driver, or you can say that you are taking medications that can't be mixed with alcohol.

On the adoption front we have 19 days to go and I'm totally terrified. Hopefully I'll be able to survive these remaining days :)

Russian Customs and Superstitions

2007-10-23T08:15:00.000-04:00

My friend Melissa asked me about Ukrainian customs, and I decided to brush up my memory on some of the customs and superstitions (couldn't remember them all though). After living in the States for 11 years, we no longer believe in many of them, though some still rule on our household :)

Customs

- Only an odd number of flowers can be given as a gift. The even numbers are usually brought to the funerals. I still enjoy getting 3-5-7 roses, but the dozen doesn't shock me anymore.

- Men usually shake hands, but women never do.

- When you are invited to someone else's house, you should bring a gift. Usually it's a dessert, a bottle of wine (or vodka :), flowers, etc.

- Don't drink without a toast! You must propose a toast! The glass can't be put back on the table between the time a toast proposed and the time you drink.

- The drinks are usually served at the time of dinner, so you need to be able to eat and drink at the same time.

- Sit quietly for several seconds before leaving on a long trip. Usually we load the luggage in the car, return to the house, and do it :)

- It's believed that to avoid colds in the winter, you have to keep your body warm at all times. Poor kids are usually dressed in so many layers, they end up sweating and catch a cold anyway. So having compared the way I dressed Alex in Ukraine and Victoria here, I can say that American way is much better :) But keep in mind that dressing your child lightly will be considered neglect in Ukraine, so make sure to follow the rule over there!

Superstitions:

- Do not whistle indoors - you won't have any money! Victoria is not allowed to whistle in our house :)

- If you step on your somebody elses's toes by accident, you have to let the other person step on your shoe, or you will have a conflict.

- If you forgot something after your left the house, you can't go back - it's a bad luck.

- Though some people say it's OK as long as you look in the mirror when you return to the house to retrieve your item.

- Don't show newborn baby to other people until the baby is 1 month old. The only exception is immediate family - parents, siblings, etc. We broke this rule and went to our friends house when Victoria was 7 days old. It was okay!

- Don't buy anything for the baby while pregnant. Baby shower is a foreign concept in
Ukraine. I totally broke this rule while pregnant with Victoria :)

- Don't celebrate a birthday early.

- Don't demonstrate somebody else's wound or surgery on yourself, it's a bad luck.

- When you see somebody on the street with a full water bucket, it's a good luck. Empty buckets - bad luck. I haven't seen anybody in America with a bucket yet, so I guess this rule doesn't count.

- If you are not married - don't sit at the corner of the table, otherwise you won't marry for another 7 years.

- Black cat is a sign of bad luck. If you see a black cat on the street, try to take another route :)

- Knock on wood and spit three times over your left shoulder for good luck. If someone praises you, or your kids, make sure to knock on the wood 3 times, and pretend to spit three times over your left shoulder. This is done so that you are not jinxed by the comment. When you see someone's baby, don't ever say "what a beautiful baby" - parents will be afraid you'll jinx it. Instead say something like "what a bad baby", then proceed to knock and spit, so the parents will see you actually were taken with the baby, but you are afraid that your positive comment will jinx it. I'm serious! Don't laugh!

- Do not shake hands or kiss over the threshold of a door.

- Don't look into the broken mirror.

- Don't ever put your keys on the table.

- If you spilled salt, you'll have a conflict with someone.

- If your nose itches, it means you'll be drinking soon :)

- If you by mistake put your clothes on inside out, it means somebody will beat you up :) People should point this out, wait for you to fix the clothes and then pretend to beat you, so that nobody else can really beat you after that :)

One month to go

2007-10-18T08:24:00.000-04:00

It's October 18th, and we are leaving in one month on November 18th. And you know what? I'm getting really nervous. What if something goes wrong? What if we won't be able to have the court in a reasonable amount of time? What if somebody appeals the court decision? What if we won't be able to get her passport on time? What if we get mugged? I really hope it's just my imagination, and everything will be all right!

We are almost decided on what we should pack, thanks to everyone for the great advice! We'll be taking 2 medium-sized wheeled suitcases, and 1 medium-sized wheeled duffel bag as a checked luggage. For the carry-on we'll take a laptop bag, a small duffel bag and my purse (I can't live without one!). I'm not very clear on Aerosvit restrictions for the carry-on. Here is what I found on their website:

- Carry-on luggage for economy and business-class passengers that travel on flights lasting up to four hours must be 5kg or less and the maximum dimensions must be 55x40x20cm or smaller.

- Carry-on luggage for business class passengers that travel on flights lasting over four hours may be up to 10kg. However, only one such item is allowed.

It doesn't say anything about the economy class passengers traveling on flights over four hours, I hope it's a typo, and we'll be allowed to take 10kg (about 22lbs) instead of just 5 kg (about 11lbs)

I also called the school district and spoke with the registrar about registering Raya (that's Raisa's nick name) for school. She said the process is very easy, I just need to bring her birth certificate and immunization record, and that's it! She'll be assigned an ESL teacher to help her learn English. We've been through this before with Alex, and he picked up language really fast. He started school in December, had ESL through the rest of the school year, and next September he didn't need ESL anymore! It was not as fast for Oleg and me, it took us much longer to learn English :) But it's easy for the kids - the younger they are, the easier they can learn a new language. Alex was 8 when we came to the States, and Raya will be 10, so I hope she'll start speaking soon.

My little baby is 19 today!

2007-10-12T07:36:00.001-04:00

Where did the time go?

Going home from the hospital:

6 months old:

6 years old:

Ballroom dance competition:

Playing Beethoven:

NY State soccer champions:

Prom:

Senior picture:

High School Graduation:

Dancing with Mom:

Sending parcels to Ukraine

2007-10-03T08:16:00.000-04:00

We have a lot of friends in Ukraine, and every now and then we try to send them a little something. Several years ago I used USPS a couple of times, and the parcels were lost. Then I found a great Ukrainian-American company called "Meest", which has several services such as sending parcels, money, courier delivery, etc. They are based in Toronto, but have offices in many American cities, Europe, etc. We have a local Ukrainian store, which works with Meest, so it's very easy to send a parcel from there. We've done it many times, and we are very happy with the service. It takes about 6 weeks for the parcel to get to Ukraine, but it's delivered directly into the hands of recipients! The cost is not bad either - 99 cents per pound plus $15 per parcel. Recently I logged on to their website www.meest.net, and found out that they now deliver food packages! You just pick a package from the catalog, pay for it, and it's delivered! A lot of people I know (especially senior citizens) live below the poverty line, so these packages will be great gifts for them.

On the adoption front we are in the middle of buying different travel essentials such as luggage (our suitcases are way too large for Ukraine), money belts, adapters, travel pillows, high-heeled boots (that's essential for me :), etc. My adoption expenses are going up every day :)

Packing lists

2007-09-25T21:35:00.000-04:00

To pack or not to pack: that is the question. I already mentioned that I want to make sure I can keep up with Ukrainian fashion. Well, if I could've packed my entire wardrobe, maybe I would be able to accomplish that. But I doubt my husband would be very thrilled with this idea. So I guess I won't be as glamorous as I want to be. Maybe just 2 pairs of high-heeled boots/shoes will do?

All kidding aside, the packing list is a big deal in our family :) I know I need to pack light. But how light? Here is a list of things I compiled from reading various blogs and boards:

- Travel pack of toilet paper (some public restrooms in Ukraine don't have TP)
- A small bottle of antibacterial soap (for example, Purell)
- Wipes
- Small umbrella
- Ziploc bags (a lot of people say it's a life saver)
- Grocery bags (the supermarkets in Ukraine don't give out grocery bags)
- Adapters
- Feebreze (in case we'll need to wear the same clothes twice or more. It's acceptable in Ukraine :)
- Small alarm clock (not to oversleep SDA appointment :)
- Small gift bags (they make great gifts with the card and some money)
- Tape measure (easier to buy clothes for kids because the sizes in Ukraine are totally different from American)
- Flashlight (in case there is no electricity)
- Pen and paper (just in case you need to write something down, and you don't have time to go buy it)
- Peanut butter (we don't eat it, so we won't be taking it with us, but many people reported that peanut butter is expensive and hard to find)
- Books! Oleg and I are addicted to books, but we should be able to find plenty of books there as we read Russian. I don't think English books are readily available.
- Movies on DVDs to pass the time. Again, it's not the case for us, we'll be happy with Russian TV, but people report that being able to watch movies in English is a life saver.

The list goes on and on and on. If you can recommend something else that's essential for the travel, please let me know!

We've got the tickets!

2007-09-16T20:57:00.000-04:00

We finally made a decision about the tickets. Oleg will go back home after the court, and I will most likely stay in Odessa to finish the process (unless the wait for the passports is too long). With that in mind we bought a round-trip tickets from JFK to Kiev, hoping that Oleg will use them to fly back and I'll only need to change my return ticket. We are flying by Aerosvit (Ukrainian Airlines), and the penalty to change a ticket is $150. We also bought one-way tickets from Rochester to JFK by JetBlue. Their prices for one-way ticket are exactly twice cheaper than roundtrip, so it makes sense to buy the return tickets later and not pay the $45 penalty fee (not a big fee, but why pay it?) We could've bought a little bit less expensive tickets (about $50 less each) if buying all flights together. But in this case we would have to fly through Detroit, or some other hub, have 3 flights rather than 2, and we were not comfortable with that. Not only it would be more complicated to change the tickets for 3 legs, but also there is a chance that the flight out of Rochester is cancelled (it happens from time to time). Since we live relatively close to New York (6 hours drive or 1 hour flight), we can always drive to New York to get to our flight to Kiev.

Originally we called Lonnie Rowland from the Rowland Enterprises, who was recommended by many people from the FRUA board. He gave us several very good quotes, but they were in line with what I found online, so I decided to buy the tickets without his help. Lonnie also provides a VIP service in the Kiev Borispol Airport. Since we speak Russian, we don't need this service, but many people used it and were very happy. Just last week Sean and Tracey O'Hara used the VIP service and were very happy they did! Not only their baggage was delayed and they had to fill out the forms in Russian at the airport, but also their SDA appointment was at the same day! They are currently in Odessa adopting their 2 beautiful daughters. Please keep them in your prayers as they are hoping to have a court date later next week.

What's next?

2007-09-11T13:15:00.000-04:00

So we've got our travel date. It means we can now start making plans, right? But there are so many things to decide. Do we go for 2 trips vs 1 trip? Or maybe one of us goes home and the other stays to finish the process? Do we buy roundtrip tickets and pay penalties when changing return dates, or do we buy adoption fare tickets, which are more expensive, but don't have the penalties? It's hard to decide.

Other than the tickets, there are a lot of other things we have to take care of:

- Sign the Power of Attorney document for my Mom, making her Victoria's temporary guardian.

- Talk to Victoria's teachers (at preschool, gymnastics, dance and music) and let them know we'll be out of the country.

- Buy money belts. Apparently it's not safe to use the ATM machines over there, so it's better to take cash.

- Start making packing lists. Everybody says we should pack lightly, but Ukranians usually dress very nicely, and I don't want to look bad, so it means I need to take a lot of clothes. My old friends won't understand if I won't show up on high heels in designer clothes :)

- Get all the paperwork together, for example, the embassy forms, maybe the copy of our dossier, etc.

- BUY GIFTS!!! We have a lot friends in Odessa, so it's probably impossible to buy gifts for all of them, but we'll try our best. It also doesn't help when they automatically think that all Americans are rich.

- Talk to the school district about Raisa's placement in school.

- Talk to the Human Resources about adding another child to the Medical/Dental policy.

- Buy furniture for Raisa's bedroom.

And the list goes on and on... Oh well, we still have more than 2 months before our travel date, so I guess we have enough time to take care of everything!

WE'VE... GOT... THE... DATE!!!

2007-09-04T10:03:00.000-04:00

Yup, we did! And it's NOVEMBER 20th!!! Oh my God, now it all begins. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to continue working today...

It will be almost exactly 11 years to the date since we left Ukraine on November 26, 1996.

Day 21 - no date yet

2007-08-29T08:52:00.000-04:00

We don't have a travel date yet, but I didn't really expect to hear anything this week. I heard from my facilitator today, he told me the invitations are issued by SDA on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yesterday they were announcing the dates for the dossiers that were submitted up to July 14th (we were submitted on the 30th). So my online friends who were submitted on the 16th should hear something really soon!

It's hard to believe that the summer is almost over, and Labor Day weekend is in a couple of days. Alex starts his sophomore year at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) on Labor Day (!!!) and Victoria starts preschool 2 weeks later.

We've got some pictures from our friends' daughter's wedding we recently attended. The bride was the most beautiful I've ever seen:

And Oleg and I had a great time:

The Russian parties are a lot of fun. I tried to explain to my friends what does that mean to party like Russians (Ukrainians, or any other people from former Soviet Union), but I couldn't find the right words. But yesterday I found a very humorous essay on the subject (please don't be offended by the first sentence :)

http://www.columbia.edu/~ip71/w116/2006/06/partying-with-russians_29.html

So if you are happened to be in New York, Toronto or Los Angeles, go to the Russian restaurant, you'll have the time of your life!

Birthday Parties

2007-08-21T18:51:00.000-04:00

This weekend Victoria attended 2 birthday parties. She painted the pottery masterpiece:

and had fun meeting the clown, doing the face painting, etc:

That got me thinking about her incoming birthday. It's not until December, but I thought I should plan something now, before we go to Ukraine. A friend of mine is opening The Little Gym franchise, and I think it's a good idea to have Victoria's birthday party there. And thinking about her birthday made me realize that if everything goes well, Raisa will celebrate her 10th birthday on the US soil! Her birthday is also in December, so (I keep my fingers crossed) if everything works the way we want, we'll have a busy end of the year!

Today marks 16 business days since our dossier was submitted to SDA. This Friday is a holiday in Ukraine (Constitution day), so our 20 business days will fall on Tuesday, August 28th. Most of the time it takes much more than 20 business days to receive an appointment date, so I'm not really hoping to get it next week. But it would be nice to finally have a date, start planning, get tickets, etc.

Additional days in Ukraine

2007-08-14T08:17:00.000-04:00

It looks like the number of days we need to spend in Ukraine is increasing in geometric progression. Well, maybe in arithmetic, not in geometric (it's the former math teacher in me talking :) Yesterday the American Embassy in Kiev announced that the procedure to get the visa for adopted children has changed. Previously the process was to have the medical exam and the visa interview in one day (most of the time). Sometimes the visa was ready at the same day, sometimes the next business day. Now the process is the following:

"Parents must drop off all required documents at the Consulate no later than 12:00 noon on the business day prior to day of the actual visa interview. No appointment is required to submit documents. Visa interviews will take place at 2:00 pm on the day designated, and can only take place if we have already received all the required documents. We will make every effort to issue the visa on the next working day. However, it is important to note that additional checks are required by law if the adopted child is 16 years or older. These checks delay visa issuance by up to 72 hours. Please plan your travel accordingly."

So it's one business days to drop off the documents, second day for the visa interview, third day (hopefully!) to get the visa, and on the fourth business day people can finally leave the country. Basically another week. On a top of 10 days mandatory wait for the court degree plus 10 days wait for the passport plus unknown number of days while waiting for the court date, it comes to a long time. If in the past adoptive parents stayed in Ukraine approximately 4-5 weeks, now it's more like 6-7-8 weeks. We are definitely thinking about 2 trips now, it will be much easier financially (less days without a paycheck) and emotionally (less days without our kids).

Today is 11th business days since our dossier was submitted. Hopefully we'll know our appointment date in a couple of weeks!

The passport situation in Ukraine

2007-08-07T14:44:00.000-04:00

The Ukrainian government recently decided to start issuing the new type of passports. Supposedly it was done to fight the corruption since all the new passports will be issued in Kiev and sent to the regions. Of course, THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH new passports! Some regions still have old passport blanks and people are still gettings passports. Some people are not as lucky. I know of several adoptive families who are currently waiting for 4+ weeks after receiving the court decree because the newly adopted kids cannot leave the country without a passport. A couple of days ago American Embassy released a notice where it says that in addition to the mandatory 10 day wait after the court, it's now necessary to wait 10 MORE days to get the passport. And the problem is that it could be more than 10 extra days to get a passport. So how long do we have to stay in Ukraine? Looks like instead of 4-5 weeks it could be 6-7 weeks or more.

I think in this case the best idea would be to do 2 trips to Ukraine. The first trip will be for the SDA appointment and court, then back home while waiting for the 20 mandatory days, and after that the second trip to finish the paperwork. Oh well, why is it getting harder and harder all the time?

We are on our 6th business waiting for the appointment date. I know of one family who was submitted on July 9th and received the word today about their appointment date on October 16th. They waited exactly 20 business days, as promised, so I hope we'll find out what our travel date is in another 14 business days, on August 28.

OUR DOSSIER HAS BEEN SUBMITTED!!!

2007-07-31T10:58:00.000-04:00

It's hard to believe, but our dossier has finally been submitted! It was in our facilitator's hands since May 14, and he estimated it would be submitted sometime in July. He was actually right - it was submitted during "American hours" on Monday, July 30! Now the Department of Adoptions has 20 working days to go over our dossier and get back to us with either approval letter and a travel date, or rejection letter. Sometimes paperwork gets rejected by several reasons, but I really hope we will be approved. Lately the 20 working days are more like 30 working days, so I'm thinking we'll find out in about 6 weeks what our travel date will be. Usually it's approximately 3 months from the day of submission, so looks like it will be end of October - beginning of November.

A new picture

2007-07-18T13:12:00.000-04:00

Here is Raisa on Deribasovskaya Street in Odessa:

Still no news

2007-07-16T15:25:00.000-04:00

We are still waiting for the submission. I'm reading about the other families getting submitted, getting appointment dates, etc., so the process is working, we just need to wait a little bit longer. Per our facilitator, it should happen very soon. In this case we'll be traveling to Ukraine in the mid-October - mid-November.

In the meanwhile, here is a new picture of me and my firstborn:

Waiting for submission

2007-06-28T10:14:00.000-04:00

Waiting, waiting, waiting. Our facilitator is hoping to submit our dossier in the early July - we are really hoping it will be the case! And our situation is not that bad. We know who we are going to adopt and sooner or later it will happen.

For some people it's not that easy. Since Ukraine adoption laws don't allow preselection, the families are usually presented with several profiles during their appointment in Kiev. But sometimes there are no healthy young children available on that day, so the families must make a decision - either accept a referral for the older child, or wait for another appointment. Currently, about 50 families are in Kiev waiting for 2nd or even 3rd appointments. Can you imagine how hard it is? One would ask: there are so many orphans in Ukraine, why they are not available for adoption? In order to be available for International adoption, the kids should be placed on the adoption registry: one month on the local level, one month on the regional level and one year on the national level. In theory, the children should be available in 14 months after they first were added to the local registry. But in the real life it's much more than that! For some unknown reason, it takes more than a month to transfer from one registry to another. I don't know why - it's just the Ukrainian way. So it's more like 16 - 17 months. Also, many children are lost in the system and are not registered at all! So while we are waiting for our appointment, we really hope the waiting families will find their kids and the waiting kids will find their parents soon.

Raisa on vacation

2007-06-22T09:37:00.000-04:00

My friend Lena, who's Raya's legal guardian, took her to the Carpathian Mountains for a weeklong vacation. I'm so fortunate to have Lena - I don't know what we would do without her. Here are a couple of pictures from that place:

This is a lake next to the hotel:

This is a hotel where they are staying:

Adoption blogs

2007-06-19T08:09:00.001-04:00

As a PAP (acronym for prospective adoptive parents) I spend a lot of time reading adoption blogs of people who already completed their adoption, are in Ukraine now or still in the paperwork stage. It helps me to find a lot of valuable information, get answers to many questions and prepare for our own upcoming trip to Ukraine. Some blogs are quite entertaining as their authors have natural writing talent, some just describe the facts, I love to read them all. But there is one blog, which just took my heart.

Jim and Dana Hale are in Odessa now adopting their two beautiful teenage daughters. Somehow they were able to capture the essense of Odessa and its people in their blog - not only it reads like a book, but it's also written from the bottom of their hearts. They talk about my hometown with such love, you would never guess they weren't born there :) Thank you very much from the native "odessit" for letting the world know about Odessa - The Pearl Of The Black Sea.

Waiting

2007-06-12T08:21:00.000-04:00

Nothing new on the adoption front. I heard the SDA isn't accepting any new dossiers from Americans until July 2nd - they already met their quota for the second quarter. There is a number of dossiers for each country that can be submitted to SDA. It's 558 for USA in 2007, and 280 dossiers have already been submitted for American citizens.

I have a very cute picture to share. This is Victoria and Alex just before Victoria's dance recital:

No news

2007-05-31T08:42:00.000-04:00

We are still waiting for our dossier to be submitted to the State Department of Adoptions. It's hard not knowing when we'll be going to Ukraine. In most cases people get an appointment date in about 3 months after dossier was submitted. For example, one family submitted on April 30th and found yesterday that their appointment is July 26th. However, another family submitted on February 19th, and also found out yesterday that their appointment is at the end of July. So we'll wait and see.

Adoption process in Ukraine

2007-05-23T09:07:00.000-04:00

The process to adopt from Ukraine is very long, tedious and nerve-wrecking. It involves many steps, a lot of paperwork and a lot of red tape. One of the frequent posters on the FRUA (Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoptions) chat board wrote her own humorous version of the process and gave her permission to use it in my blog. Thank you, Beth2!

Here it is:

- First, you have a homestudy done and do a lot of paperwork to get approval from your state.

- Then you do a lot of paperwork that costs a lot of money and takes a ridiculously long time to get approval from our federal government.

- Then you send a bunch of paperwork to Ukraine to get translated and you wait for it to get submitted to the Ukrainian adoption officials in Kiev.

- When it finally gets submitted, you wait for your initial approval in Ukraine. If you get that approval, you get an appointment to come to Kiev. You have to go when they tell you to go. You don't get to decide the appointment time.

- At your appointment, you get a referral for a child or a sibling group of children according to your homestudy. You go to the region where the kids are and seek local approval to adopt them, praying for a court date within the near future.

- If all goes well in court, you wait 10 more days and do more paperwork within the Ukrainian system. When that's done, you go back to Kiev, get medical exams for the kids for our government and give our government even more money to get visas allowing you to bring the kids home.

Then you come home and the real adventure begins.

The waiting game

2007-05-18T14:31:00.001-04:00

Now that our dossier is in Ukraine, we just have to wait until our facilitator is able to submit it to the State Department of Adoptions. During the last several weeks they accepted only 5-7 dossiers a week from American families. Knowing that there are more than 200 families waiting in line to submit, it may be a long time to get to the front of the line. Most facilitators have multiple places in line. Some of them don't even have the dossiers to submit yet, but they are trying to be proactive so that by the time they get to the front of the line they will have a dossier to submit. Some of them already have a dossier ready, but the place in line is far from the front. So it varies in each individual case. Our facilitator has several places in line (I don't know the numbers though), so I really hope he'll be able to submit it soon before our documents start to expire. This past Monday several people pushed their way ahead of the line and submitted the dossiers out of order. There was even a physical confrontation there!

Also, I heard that a director of SDA was finally appointed yesterday. The previous director resigned 2 months ago, and since then SDA was operating with interim director and understaffed. I feel optimistic that the new director is the good news for all prospective adoptive parents :)

Delivered!

2007-05-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

Dossier in Paris

2007-05-11T08:35:00.000-04:00

It's so neat to be able to track the Fedex package. This morning our dossier departed the Fedex location in Paris, France. I wish I was there too...

What's next?

2007-05-09T15:04:00.000-04:00

Now we wait. And wait. And wait again. Basically once our facilitator receives our dossier, he should submit it to SDA. This sounds easy, but it's not - as I mentioned in my previous posts, there is a line for each country in order to submit a dossier. One facilitator can only submit one dossier at a time, the only day when they allow submission for American citizens is Monday, and only from 2 to 4 pm. Last several weeks they accepted anywhere from 5 to 7 dossiers a week, so the line is moving very slowly.

Once this step is done, the SDA begins the review process. If everything is in order, we'll get an appointment date to come to Kiev and meet with the head of adoption department. Officially it takes 20 working days to get an appointment date, and the date used to be about 3 months from the date of submission. But lately it's more like 30-40 working days to review the dossier, and the appointment date about 4 - 4.5 months from the date of submission. For example, people who submitted in January were notified in February about their April appointment. I heard about one family who submitted on March 5th, and found out yesterday, May 8th, that they have an appointment on July 17th, which is 4.5 months after submission.

We were planning for a May submission and August travel date, but looks like we'll be traveling later. This is both good and bad news. The good news is that the airfare goes down dramatically in September. The bad news is that Raisa won't be able to start the school year from the beginning. Also, we won't be able to swim in the Black Sea :)

During appointment at SDA people are usually given several profiles of kids available for adoption. In our case we know who we are adopting, but the rules are the same. Raisa should be available for adoption (i.e. be on the national adoption registry), and we have to physically come to SDA for the interview. After the interview we get our paperwork back (with more stamps :) and go to Odessa to start preparations for the court. This step is not easy either. It requires more paperwork, which should go from Odessa to Kiev to get the approval of SDA and then back to Odessa.

After the court we wait mandatory 10 days during which time appeals to the court decision can be filed. If nobody files the appeal (hopefully not!) we get the court decree, race to get a new birth certificate and a passport for Raisa and go to US Embassy in Kiev to get the visa. Then the three of us we'll fly home!

Dossier is on its way to Ukraine!!!

2007-05-08T12:33:00.000-04:00

We ended up driving to Albany again as we needed 2 more apostilles, but didn't have time to do it by mail. But as of today our paperwork is in the hands of Fedex and should be in Kiev by May 15th. I still can't believe it :) I expected the postage to cost about $50, but since our dossier's weight was a little bit over 1 lb, it cost me $95 :( Oh well, it's nothing compare to our overall costs :) We'll survive!

Paperwork - continued

2007-04-26T13:49:00.000-04:00

After I overnighted all documents to Albany on Tuesday, I thought I'll get them back in a couple of days since I included pre-paid envelope for overnight services. In the reality, it takes 2-4 business days to process them. When we drove to Albany to put the apostilles on the original set of documents, it took 15 minutes to get the apostilles. Apparently, when you send it by mail, the timing is different. We were hoping to send the dossier to Ukraine with very good friends of ours who are going to Kiev this coming Sunday. But if we don't get the paperwork by then, we'll just send it by FedEx.

I'm also waiting for another document. As I mentioned in the previous post, NY state refers to all licenses as "Registration Certificates", and it's not very clear to SDA. So, in addition of getting a separate notarized copy of my social worker's "Registration Certificate", aka "License", I requested a separate letter from the Office of the Profession from the NYS Department of Education. This letter will state that she's indeed licensed in the NY State.

If everything works as expected, our facilitator hopes to submit our dossier at the end of May. Then we'll wait until SDA processes it (takes about about 6 weeks), and gets us an appointment date, approximately in August/September.

The paperwork nightmare

2007-04-24T22:36:00.000-04:00

Well, the good news is that our facilitator (who we really like) is very meticulous and wants to make sure all documents in our dossier are in order so that SDA (State Department of Adoptions) can't reject them. The bad news is that we had to make corrections to several documents. Of course it's not that bad, it's just another cycle of the paperwork: notarize, certify at the County Clerk's office, send to Albany to apostille. Sergey (0ur facilitator in Kiev) helped us to rewrite our cover letter, made changes to the Power of Attorney documents, found an incorrect birth date in the Home Study and asked to submit a separate copy of our social worker's license. Apparently, NY State issues a so-called "Registration Certificate" for all professions (doctors, nurses, social workers, etc). It really means "license", which is clear to us, but not clear to bureaucrats at SDA. Luckily, my social worker was very cooperative and gave me the notarized copy immediately. I certified all 6 new/updated documents in the Country Clerk office today after work and raced to the post office to send them overnight to the Albany in order to get the apostilles. Hopefully they'll process them soon, so we'll be able to send everything to Ukraine (so far they worked with our scanned documents only).

It's interesting how everything is more expensive in NY State, even document certification. It costs $3 to certify a notary signature at the Country Clerk's office, and $10 to issue an apostille at the Department of State. All our documents but one were issued in NY State. The only document out of state is Oleg's employment letter, since the consulting company he works for is located in Michigan. Guess what? There is no need to certify a notary signature at the Country Clerk's office, and the cost for the apostille is only $1, which is 13 times cheaper than in NY State :)

One step further

2007-04-18T08:36:00.000-04:00

We are making progress!!! We signed a contract with the law firm in Kiev, which specializes in the adoption law. They'll take care of all legal matters, including but not limited to translating and submitting our dossier, getting an appointment date at SDA, helping to prepare the court documents, etc. They work with adoption agencies in USA and Italy and have a lot of experience helping families with the adoption process. I really like the way they do business - very professionally with the top-notch customer service. They sure know how to work with American citizens :) Currently they are reviewing our paperwork. If everything is in order, we hope to send our dossier to Ukraine next week!

The line

2007-04-11T08:59:00.000-04:00

I talked to a very nice woman in Kiev who might be able to submit our dossier. The problem is, the virtual line to submit the dossiers is about 200 people, and SDA (State Department of Adoptions) accepts only about 8-9 dossiers a week from american citizens. It means that by the time we get to the beginning of the line, all our documents will expire and we'll have to re-do all paperwork again :( I'm still hoping my girlfriend (and Raisa's guardian) in Odessa will be able to come up with the faster (though more expensive) solution.

Dossier is ready

2007-04-06T21:20:00.000-04:00

Looks like we finally have our dossier ready: today we went to Albany to put the apostilles on all the documents. All U.S. documents submitted to the Ukrainian government must be authenticated. It means that all notaries signatures first need to be authenticated at the Country Clerks Office and then apostilled at the Department of State at Albany. On Tuesday I went to the Country Clerks Office to authenticate the signatures of all the notaries on our documents, and today we drove to Albany to get the apostilles. We could've sent them by mail, but I was really afraid to send all my 16 original documents, so we've decided to go and do it in person. It's just over 3 hours drive, so it was not too bad. We were expecting to wait a long time, but as with every other stop for our other adoption paper, it was short and smooth, the workers there were very nice.

Now the big question remains - who will submit our dossier! The State Department of Adoption in Ukraine changes rules almost daily. There is a quota of 558 dossiers a year from American citizens, and the only day and time to submit a dossier is Monday from 2 to 4. There is a huge line of people wanting to submit it, and the facilitators (people hired by prospective adoptive parents to help them with paperwork in Ukraine) have to check in with this unofficial line twice a week. To make the matters worse, SDA is not accepting any new dossiers from foreign citizens this week and next week due to staff resignations there, including director, deputy directors, and others. So for now we are just waiting while my girlfriend in Odessa is trying very hard to find somebody to help us.

Paperwork almost done!

2007-03-30T11:39:00.000-04:00

We finally received the last piece of our paperwork - the Immigration approval. We are approved to bring 1 child to the U.S., and this approval is valid until August 2008, 15 months after our fingerprints were taken. Many people on the adoption board reported a very bad experience with the USCIS (US citizenship and immigration service), but I can't say anything but good about the Buffalo office. The officer in charge of adoption personally called us to tell the good news about our approval.

Our next step is to have the notary's signatures on all our documents certified at the county clerk's office where the notary is qualified, and then go to Albany to have the documents apostilled at the Department of State.

And then the million dollars question - who will submit our dossier to the State Department of Adoptions in Kiev? We are still trying to find the connections to help us there. Stay tuned!

New pictures

2007-03-16T15:22:00.000-04:00

On the first picture Raya is proudly displaying her new winter coat. The second one is from the New Year's party (the Santa Claus is the element of the New Year's celebration in Ukraine). And on the last one Raechka is posing in Lena's (her guardian) classroom.