We're off

We’re officially off. I can’t believe it. After a crazy week of tying to anticipate everything we could possibly need for an extended stay in Ukraine. One of us will stay for close to three weeks the other will stay about five. Wendy and Amy, our friends also adopting, have been very helpful in this regard. If all goes well we will be bringing home with us a ten-year old girl, Liuba.
Liuba is on the left.

For those of you who don’t know… Last fall our family participated with the Save a Child Foundation. This organization brings orphans from the Ukraine to stay with host families for a two-week period, “unofficially” hoping to find families to adopt them. We did not host but spent much of this time with our friends who were asked last minute to host two girls, ten-year old Liuba and eleven-year old Lena. I agreed to help. Through out the two weeks the Foundation had all kinds of activities planned with the grand finale being a benefit concert.

Somehow during the midst of this Dave and I had that feeling that sometimes you love and sometimes you dread. You know the one, when you feel a quiet and joyful peace in one sublime moment and then a “what and why are we doing this,” scared to death one in the next? Yep. It happened and it’s been sort of a whirlwind since.

Dave initiated it, believe it or not. His dad was adopted from an orphanage when he was a baby and Dave has always had a soft spot in his heart for adoption. He would talk about the possibility when we were older and had had all of our children. I just didn’t expect it would happen now when our children were still small, that we would adopt one older than our children, or that we would be in the process of still having our own. Life has a way of throwing you curve balls.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up. We fell in love with these girls right off. They didn’t speak English and when we all realized that repeating things more slowly and loudly didn’t work the unofficial language of pantomime and grunts commenced. We all became quite efficient and found ourselves talking to each other that way when the girls left.

The Rast’s had decided to adopt Lena and we felt an affinity for Liuba. She is a spunky little sprite with little if any inhibitions. She would talk at anybody acting like they could understand her but not caring if they couldn’t.

One of the kisses Preston wasn’t happy about

She loved to talk on the phone and what better time to let her than when a sales-person called? I don’t think I ever heard from them again :} Emi and Luke loved her and were a little afraid of her. They weren’t sure what to do with her abrupt nature. But she and Preston hit it right off. They wrestled and teased back and forth although Preston was not fond of her constant, hard and slobbery kisses on the cheek. The night before Liuba went back we asked her, through a translator, what her favorite thing was here. She said, “Preston, I love him.”

On that night, too, we told Liuba we loved her and wanted to be her mom and dad and the kids wanted her for a sister. She beamed and said she wanted that, too. Thus, our adventure commenced. And now after five months of whirlwind, and a couple of tornadoes for that matter, here we are.

We were told initially it would take six months in the best of circumstances and most likely a year to make this trip. For some reason this year Ukraine is moving much more quickly with international adoptions, perhaps it’s the economy. Who knows? Every time we talk to Liuba the first things she asks is when we are coming. I called her the other morning and this time I had an answer. She was very excited. I asked her if there was something she wanted us to bring. That may have been a mistake… She really, really wants a schishkabob {I don’t know how to spell that and spell check isn’t helping}, an onion and tomato. Maybe when we get home.

As I said this happened much sooner than we had anticipated. Our original date was March 26 {Ukraine “invites” you for your SDA appointment}. When we got that date it was less than three weeks away. We applied for a change of date to April 13, and after three trips to the Apostille office and then to fedex, each ringing in at one hundred and seventy dollars {my numbers keys aren’t working, argh} we were approved.

Still, I was a little perplexed, to say the least, about the timing. You see we had a surprise a few weeks before, happy yes, but still a surprise. You catch my drift. The kids were overjoyed to learn they were going to acquire not just one, but two siblings in this year. Yep, I’m expecting and feeling a little under the weather. {Surprise, to those of you who this is also a surprise} Food is not my friend right now, especially strange and stinky food. So, I’ve had a little anxiety about this trip. Thank heaven for modern drugs and Priesthood blessings at a time like this. However, all my glorious plans for purging and detoxifying my house as well as getting the girl’s new bedroom ready were foiled. Thankfully my beautiful and wonderful friend Becky and my too-good-to-be-true sisters have graciously agreed to do that for me while I’m gone {hint, hint, wink, wink ;}.

I dropped my cute kids off at my mom’s last night. The boys were busy watching a movie and couldn’t have cared less. A quick hug and a kiss and they were good, as long as I wasn’t interrupting their view of the TV. Emi, being my sweet and sentimental oldest, was little more upset. But I reassured her that we would come home alive. I think Luke frightened her earlier when he said that maybe we wouldn’t come back at all.

We left this morning, I guess it’s actually now yesterday morning, at 4:30 a.m. It’s midnight at home for all of you and eight a.m. here in Frankfurt where we are waiting to catch our flight to Kiev. We’re sitting on the floor right now trying to figure out what gate we are supposed to be at, as it isn’t yet posted. After being in cramped and crowded quarters for the last seventeen hours I’m wishing for a comfortable bed, maybe in a few more hours. There’s no guarantee it will be comfortable but I’m hoping for clean and quiet at the least. We’ll keep you posted.