This is the blog I began on the night of my miscarriage.

Another day of waiting. I seriously questioned whether I would survive. We started at seven, driving to Novomoskov, an hour away. Strangely, the driving doesn’t even bother me anymore. There were several times Lena, my interpreter, screamed. I wasn’t even phased.

We waited only a few minutes for Liuba’s birth certificate. Ocsana made a trip to the City registers office yesterday so we had a head start. I thought it would be an all day process so this gave me hope we would finish sooner than I expected.

Bad expectation. After Novomoskov, Lena and I switched drivers leaving Ocsana with George to do other work. We then drove to Tomakivkov for Karina’s Certificate. I asked Lena as we walked in if we would be long. “No.” She said.

Thus, I wasn’t prepared for the four-hour wait. They had never done an adoption before. The worst part was after thirty minutes the only thing we were waiting for was the register person to figure out how to align the words on the document. The words were printing below the line and this wasn’t acceptable.

I could tell by the size of the town this was not a place I wanted to use the restroom. I was determined to wait but after three hours I thought I couldn’t. I asked for the toilet and was directed outside. “You have got to be kidding me.” I thought. An outhouse. And not only that, it was a squatter to boot. Turns out I could wait, after all.

We waited for another hour. Lena turned to me and said, “civilization hasn’t touched this part of the Ukraine.” Finally they figured out how to make their computer align and we were off to Dnipropotrovsk.

At this point I was told that Ocsana had made arrangements for me to start the girl’s passports today if we could make it to the office. This meant I wouldn’t have to wait over the weekend and holiday and I would be three days closer. Our chances were next to none because we took hours longer than we expected in Tomakivkov. To make matter worse we got stuck in a traffic jam in Dnipro. We met George and Ocsana with only minutes to spare. George raced to the office {he’s really good at that}. Ocsana barely waited for him to come to a stop before she took off.

Have you ever seen a woman sprint at full speed in four-inch heels, in the rain, over a Ukrainian sidewalk? It was a sight to behold. I never cease to be amazed by this red-headed fireball. My stomach turned as I waited. Would she make it? She came back with a victorious look on her face. She explained earlier someone told her if she got there by six they would help her, even though they closed at five. She said the door was locked when she got there but it was only two minutes to six so she pounded on the door and was finally let in. What she won’t do.