A New Day

Usually, it's darkest just before it goes pitch black. The heavens have opened up and given us light to see by. As you know, there was another couple in the exact same position with the same facilitator. There has been lots of confusion, lack of communication and plain old lying by the facilitator. Through this confusion, it looked as though our Ukrainian journey was taking a bad twist and we even considered that, though our hearts were there, that this country wasn't meant to be for us. Through perseverance, prayer and dumb luck, we are still in with Ukraine.

We actually have a date of July 23rd to submit our dossier. This is wholly workable for us and we can even enjoy our vacation :). We already have some appointments and will be making more in the very near future. I now don't see any roadblocks for us regarding or dossier submission. We have to have some faith that this is actually our date and when the submission sheet comes out, we'll ask a favor of someone to actually check it. We'll deal with that when the time comes; one step at a time. I need to preserve what sanity I have left.

We've been looking into Hungary and like the process there as well. It can take a long time but we would hope that with our broad requirements that it would not take quite as long. We are still going to pursue this avenue as a secondary route. It's a long stay in country, but you spend the time with the child/ren getting to know them. Essentially, you foster them for a month over there before the adoption becomes final. That's a rather nice thought; getting to take them places over there. I view it as a kind of vacation with potential children.

I don't know if many of you have found our requirements, but we are looking for a sibling group of 2 between the ages of 2 - 12 yrs old and at least one a girl. Healthy is preferable, but moderate issues are workable depending on what they are. As you can see, we are open to a rather large range. We are a childless couple, not by choice, and really love having children around. We hate having to give our nephews and nieces back when they visit.

Sorry for the long post, but we are in better spirits. We love roller coasters. Though things are looking brighter than they were several days ago, we are ready to get off this ride. Enough is enough, but we will be here though it all. This may sound selfish, but the children deserve it and so do we; let's get this done.

Once again, we thank you all for your prayers, thoughts and advice. We may be contacting some of you in the near future as we evaluate our options.

Thanks Again,
Chris and Virginia

Update on our options

First, we want to say thank you all for your prayers, thoughts and advice.

Just so you know, we are not giving up by any means. Money is the least considered factor, but we still need to keep it in mind (not rich, just saved awhile to afford this). We've looked at our options realistically. We contacted Washoe County Child Protection Services about an update for the HS. No fees for this, but we need to do another background check which takes about 10 days. Ouch. The state background checks take 2 weeks on a good day and that is expedited. Redoing the medicals could be done probably without any problems. Then, if we got the dossier there on time, it still needs to be translated which I imagine could be expedited as well. The most significant factor is whether we actually have a June 4th appointment. There is a translator which is going to check on this today (Wed Ukraine time).

We are giving our current facilitator one chance to keep us and that's to get us a date with the existing dossier. The date would have to be verified by the letter from the SDA. We are also looking for another facilitator that will take us and hopefully has a submittal date for later this year. As I said before, we aren't giving up.

One other option we are looking into is changing countries (we have one in mind). This is an option we can pursue now to see the viability. I only see Ukraine becoming harder next year with more uncertainties, but that didn't prevent us this last year. We still have options and are not closing any doors. I know many of you have had similar problems that you've overcome. With prayers, tenacity and some luck, we will overcome this as others have.

Thank you everyone for putting up with my rants and vents. I think I'm done with that and hope to get back to posting positive forward movement soon. Thank you again :-).

Decision making time - Venting

Well, I wish I had received better news than this. We have a June 4th submission date. Wait a minute, didn't I tell you all our dossier was submitted in February. Well, that's what was told to our agency and that's what we were told. Now, the facilitator comes back today and says we have a this new date.

OK, so what's that problem, we now have a date. Well, our entire dossier will have to be redone because the last updates were in January. This means that I need to get an updated HS done, physicals done again along with lab tests, everything re-notarized and apostilled.

So again I say, what's the problem. Nevada apostilles take 7-10 working days but I can get them expedited. I've spent over $1K getting documents expedited and nothing to show for it. I would have to spend at least another $600 to get these expedited and could cost more depending on how long everything else takes.

So, I think that this could be possible if I dropped everything else. I run my own business and this week is filled with critical timing for my clients so now I have a further dilema, loose my clients and pursue the adoption (no way to now pay for it) or look at other options. I no longer trust our facilitator to get the job done so that leaves me with finding another facilitator who could submit us this year. I could let him submit it then try and change facilitators, but the atmosphere in Ukraine, I feel, is rather hostile right now to IA. This adoption is at the top of our priority list, but we still have to be reasonable about our decisions.

So tonight, Virginia and I are going to look at the options and decide. We may choose another country and cut our losses here. My heart has been in Ukraine for several years now, why I don't understand. Though it is still there, we may end up going to a different country. We may stay the route and see if we can get a later submission date. No matter what way we go, we will have to redo our complete dossier.

We need to take some time and decide what is the best possible way to go. This will be a hard decision. :( It seems that all I've been doing lately is venting but there is an upside. Virginia's brother and family are going to Mexico in June for a vacation. It's a wonderful place on the Carribean side that we've been to before and love. They've been hounding us to come along and we've been in limbo since we didn't know when we would be traveling. Well, it's now decided; we need a vacation and time away so we are going. We get to hang with a wonderful family and this should rejuvenate us for whatever is coming next.

Starting to get frustrated!!

Still not a word from our facilitator. Our agency has been in constant contact with us on this and have been great. We are not sure what the issue is, but we are starting to get worried. There is another couple that got submitted on the same day as us and their dossier had not been given a date yet either. Well, just before the holidays last week, the SDA did a search and finally found their dossier. It seems that theirs was misplaced by them and we are hoping that ours can be found in the same place. We don't know if ours is lost or not and are waiting to hear word from the facilitator.

I've taken the Ukrainian holiday week off of blogging just to try and clear my mind. I'll remotivate once I hear something, hopefully it'll be positive.

OK, I've vented for now. I hope those of you who are in the process are going along smoothly. For those of you already home, I hope the same for your family.

Cheers to you all :)