Count to 10

Dearest Dema,

OK, trying to calm down - taking deep breaths and counting to 10! We just got our immigration letter in - so I guess my appeals worked, but days too late! Why toy with us I ask the almighty? Either give us the form in time or make it good and late so I can complain, fuss, and generally blame everyone else for my misery in not having you now!

Anyway, in other news, Amanda got her braces off today and is sooo happy. I told the orthodontist to get ready for you Dema. I know you won't be happy to hear this, but you are in for some major dental work. I showed them your photo - so they will be expecting you in the spring!

I keep showing your photo off to everyone - I keep it with me in my purse so that I can whip it out and brag on you. Sorry to embarrass you before you are even ours - but I am a mom and just can't help it.

Love,

Bethany, Amanda, G3, & G4

Keeping our Cool

Dearest Dema,

I feel like we are going back to the beginning of all the paperwork here. We finally got the immigration paperwork in and were able to go get fingerprints done (for the 4th time!) We had an appointment for November the 8th but everyone told us to go in early. So, G3 took time off from work and in we drove. We went to the office and had to go through the equivalent of airport security to get to the reception desk. We were questioned about an appointment. When we told them that we had one for next week, we got quite the look as they explained that the office was moving and consolidating and would be at that location next week, but as of that day, was still at their old location about 30 miles away. And, just for the frosting on top, it was added that probably the machines would be turned off in anticipation of the move. 

So we jump back into the car and hightail to the old office. We screeched to a halt, jumped out and raced into the office. This was very low security compared to their new office. This was just a few middle-aged women in an office in a strip mall! They listened to our sob story and nicely agreed to fingerprint us. So we got accomplished what we needed to that morning and felt vastly superior!

Well, that superior feeling dissipated quickly over the next few days as we tried to get the final immigration letter pushed through. I called every day for about a week and kept nicely asking but kept getting put off. Then a week before Thanksgiving finally got through to an officer and now felt absolutely awful! The case had been initially assigned to someone that was now leaving immigration. The new officer that was reassigned to the case put all the other new cases at the bottom of her stack! And, even though I gave the whole sob story, was unmoved.

It took me a while to recover from this blow. We were hoping to get the paperwork off to Ukraine by the end of November to be able to get the first appointment in February. Now, we are looking at not being able to submit the paperwork until February and then maybe not getting an appointment to come get you until April or May. This makes me so furious - I have already decided in my mind that you are my son and as you come to know me, you will realize that I can't let anyone else get in the way of one of my children!

But, neither can I move governmental agencies any faster, so I will just have to relax and hope that nothing else will go bad. I am trying to find the good in all of this and have come up with the fact that it will be warmer in the spring and you will get another year of schooling complete before I come to get you. This are pitiful positives but positives nonetheless.

But, we will persevere and continue until we finally can bring you home!

Love, 

Bethany, Amanda, G3, & G4

At last we speak

Dearest Dema,

I have so much to update you on that I can't even remember what. So, I will start with us trying to get in touch with you. We got the phone number of the orphanage and tried calling several times without any luck. I think we were calling to close to the evening and were missing everyone in the office. Then we tried calling in the morning your time and finally got someone in the office. Here is where it started to go downhill. I thought my Russian was better that it actually is - well, I got a comedown pretty fast! I realized pretty quick that I can only count to 20, say colors, and identify pieces of clothing! That does not make for an easy conversation with someone who doesn't speak English. Anyway, I think I got from the conversation that someone would be back at 10:00 that spoke English but then I fell asleep because it was the middle of the night.

We were getting discouraged and kept trying, but kept getting no answer. So, I got the brilliant idea to ask a neighbor to call that speaks Russian. So I called her up and begged her to help us and thank goodness that she agreed to help out. So I ran over an international calling card, the phone number to the orphanage and a list a questions to ask you.

We didn't hear anything back for several days and I was beginning to get anxious, but lo and behold - she called and left a message this morning that she had heard from you!!!! We were so excited. She said that you were doing well and sent us you love. You didn't want anything specifically but were anxiously awaiting us. I am so happy that you are still looking forward to being a part of our family. I was worried that as a teenager, you would rather be with your friends and not with some strangers! Maybe that is a crazy worry, but trust me, I know that teenagers can be crazy sometimes.

I will be calling her back later to squeeze every detail out of her about your conversation, but as of now I am basking in the knowledge that you are ok and are still waiting for us.

Love,

Bethany, Amanda, G3, & G4

Just one more thing

Dearest Dema,

Well, since I last wrote to you I have learned a lesson in humility. After our home study was done and the immigration paperwork sent off, I was feeling very superior. I was thinking, "This adoption paperwork isn't that hard - we are most of the way done and it hasn't been too bad." This was accompanied by many slaps on the back and expressions of job well done and aren't I just the thing!

Well Dema, remember in life there is always just one more thing. And this one more thing was 17 more documents that needed to be obtained, notarized, and apostilled in the state capitol. So I quickly deflated and went back to work. This next set of documents is for Ukraine and composed of certified marriage licenses, powers of attorney, employment letters, pictures of the house, etc. Oh, and before I forget, MORE fingerprints. We have gotten most of the documents together and are waiting on a few stragglers that will hopefully be tied up before the immigration paperwork comes back.

Amanda is doing well. She competed in the Pan-Am games in 4 events: board breaking, forms, demo team, and sparring. She won 4 medals - gold in board breaking, silver in forms, gold in demo team, and silver in sparring. She is going to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in 2 weeks to compete in the Rocky Mountain Open and then the very next weekend is the Utah Open Games.

G4 is also doing well. He is getting A's in all of his classes and is working about 10 hours a week in the tutoring center, tutoring chemistry. He is still working on his model railroad - finally most of the trees are done. He was working on part of it last weekend and wanted to model an area where there were forest fires, so he got the brilliant idea to make model trees and burn them. Let's just say that the house spelled like burnt plaster for the rest of the day and we were deaf from having to listen to the smoke alarm go off - but it actually turned out pretty convincing looking.

G3 is out of town again for business. Sometimes I feel like he just passes through the house, never staying too long. But the one benefit of that is that he is able to rack up those frequent flier miles so we will hopefully be able to fly first class back and forth to Ukraine. It's a really long trip and having those few extra amenities will make the trip all the easier.

I am starting to have worries that we will not get to you by your birthday. I really want you to have this next birthday with us. But I have to remain positive and realize you will be ours for the rest of your life so a few weeks shouldn't matter - except it does. I hate to be separated from you. I want to start making you part of our family, learning from you and in turn being able to teach you. I am normally pretty patient, but I have to confess that my patience if wearing thin. And I am not the only one - G4 and Amanda talk about you almost every day. They are getting anxious too.

Anyway, we will keep our fingers crossed that everything will work out for the best. If for some reason it looks like the paperwork will be delayed - I have asked G3 if we can go over the Ukraine over the holidays. I don't want you to forget us!

Love,
Bethany, G3, G4, and Amanda

Half way done is as just begun

Dearest Dema,

Well, it has been a while since I last wrote you and a lot has happened. We had our home study and passed! Yea! So, at least from the US standpoint, we are ready for you. We are now busy starting to get together all the documents for the Ukrainian government. But I can't leave you without a blow by blow account of the home study, can I?

So, to begin with, we are now having our grass cut by Eric, the boy who lives next door. I was going to ask him to cut the grass just before the home study so that it would look good, but I know he goes to school and we had the study scheduled faster than I thought it would be able to be done. So I just thought - oh well, no big deal - if the grass is a little tall it won't matter. But I came home Thursday night with Amanda from TKD to see that the front yard had been half mown! Yikes, tall was ok, cut was ok, but how was I going to explain half-done? But it was late at night and the next day was a school day, so I knew that Eric couldn't fix it in time, so I just devoted myself to cleaning inside. I thought I will dazzle her with the inside cleanliness and maybe she will forget about the state of the lawn!

So we scurried around, cleaning and picking up all Thursday night and Friday morning. The home study lady was due to arrive at 9:00 am so I went outside about 10 minutes before to make sure there was no dog poop, etc. that would cause a problem, when I saw Eric's mom outside preparing to take her baby for a morning walk. I laughingly told her about the situation of the home study being that morning, and she was so worried about the lawn, she said, "Don't worry, I will just finish the front lawn up right now." She turned and went back into her garage to get the mower, with me chasing after her ineffectually saying, "Really, don't worry about it! She will be here any moment and it's no big deal." Well, I wasn't being listened to and she got her mower and was mowing the lawn when who shows up - you guessed it - the home study lady! ACK! So she gets out of her car and Eric's mom looks up and says, "Hi, I am just their neighbor." So the home study lady turns to me and asks, "Your neighbors do you lawn for you?" What could I do but smile sickly and say, "No, no. See her son didn't finish last night…" Seeing her look, I just trailed off and weakly asked her inside. What a way to get started. Now I was going to have to convince her that we do not make our neighbors pay homage to us in exchange for not eating their firstborn!

Thank goodness, things picked up from there. It was a good session. She asked a lot of questions about our parenting technique (superior of course), personalities (untouchable), and attitude toward adoption (unparalleled). Even G4 and Amanda were well-behaved and well-spoken.

We got the rough draft in the mail and looked it over - it was very complimentary and should be accepted well by the Ukrainian government. So, back to the paperwork drills. So for now, it id just paperwork and probably back to the post office again.

Things are pretty much the same around here. Amanda is preparing to compete at the Pan Am games next week and is spending hours each day at the studio. G4 is still doing well in college. He has A's in all of his classes so far this semester. My book continues to sell well. It has been picked up by the Follett Book Group for library distribution, so hopefully I will have a lot of sales generated by that. G3 is busy at work. he has some travel coming up this fall for work.

I hope you have received our package by now. I will try to call you in the next few weeks or so. We miss you a lot.

Love,

Bethany, Amanda, G3, & G4

The Doctor is in

Dearest Dema,

Ok, option #1 didn't work out so well from last blog. Everything sat out for a day or two, then got stuffed back into the closet. I did manage to clean out two boxes, which is a start. I got together a couple of boxes of craft stuff that is still good but that I won't ever use and loaded it in the back of my car to give away at the next Girl Scout Service Unit Meeting which was conveniently scheduled for the next day. But, alas, it was canceled. So my great closet clean out has netted me 2 boxes vomiting full of craft supplies to give away heaven knows when taking up room in the back of my car (spilling contents out every time I go around a corner), and a slightly less stuffed full closet. I really can't win!

So, onto the topic for today's letter - the post office again, or I guess to be more accurate, the doctor's office and then the post office. I am guessing the post office will be a prominent figure in this process; maybe I should get a job there….

Anyway, we have gotten most of the forms together for the home study. We have assembled birth certificates, driver's licenses, copies of tax returns, proof of medical insurance, fingerprint cards. You name it and I have copied it and put it in the mail. The last item on the list was the doctor's evaluation of our health. So, knowing that this was going to take a long time (our doctor usually has over a month wait for a physical) I called to make an appointment. I had to leave a message, so in the mean time, I realized that there were two sets of forms that had to be done by the doctor. There is one set from the local authorities for the home study and then there is another set for the Ukrainian government. Well, patting myself on the back for quick thinking and resourcefulness (I was only going to have to go to the doctor once instead of twice), I called to get these forms set to me, with the addendum, "Don't worry. No rush. Just please send them when convenient."

Thinking I was just the guru of organization, I sat down to congratulate myself when the phone rang. It was the doctor's office letting me know they had an opening for the NEXT DAY! This is unheard of, but probably was cosmically arranged to teach me a lesson about timeliness. So, after scrambling and apologizing, I finally was able to get the forms set to me by email. No problem I thought, I will just print them out and off we go. Well, 4 hours later, I am trying to reformat the forms to look pretty on my computer and cursing and swearing because nothing is working. Basically, I have to recreate the forms myself and then I look at the email again, which states the forms need to be printed out on the doctor's letterhead. ACK!!! I don't know if they have letterhead, how easy it will be to print the forms out on their letterhead, or if they will even do it for me. So, ever the problem solver, and because I was getting really cranky at this point, I decided to make up letterhead for the doctor myself. And if I do say so myself, it looked really good. So, I stumble off to bed, not looking forward to the next morning as we have to get up early as the appointments that were available we of course the first appointments of the morning - more evidence of cosmic punishment for being me.

At the doctors office the next morning, still wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I was valiantly trying to sort out the forms, as two were being sent to the state (simply physicals) directly by the doctor after signing and the two for Ukraine (requiring 17 vials of blood to be drawn and tested for every known disease) need to be signed in front of a notary. And of course after questioning, no, there is not a notary in their office, we will have to arrange for one to come out to the doctor's office and notarize the documents there. It was enough to reduce one to tears, especially when I do not handle blood-draws very well and hadn't had breakfast because it was so early in the morning. But everything was done, and thank goodness, all the tests were normal. And finally, we have been declared physically fit to adopt. Of course, mentally fit - that is another state that will have to be evaluated after this whole process…..

So off to the post office again (5th time in seven days) to mail more documents off. I am beginning to become known there - embarrassing - and can now help other people in line find appropriate documents, etc. Surprise, surprise, I walk into the post office and there is NOBODY in line. Unbelievable I know, but I was in and out of there in two minutes. I know that this will never happen again so I will bask in the glow of efficiency now.

But, Dema, I did send off your first package to you. Just some pictures and some small gifts. We will try to send you things every month or so. We are just anxiously awaiting the next steps. Can't wait!

Love,

Bethany, Amanda, G3, & G4

You can't win - no matter what!

Dearest Dema,

Hope you are doing well. As I told you last time, we have started the paperwork chase to get all of the forms filled out and papers signed. I am sure people that have adopted before will laugh and say that we are not even in the thick of things yet, but I feel already like this has been going on forever!

One place that I will not miss after this is the post office. After the marathon session there the other day, I found myself back there today. After running all kinds of errands, here and there, that was the last one. Actually, I shouldn't even have had to go. Usually G3 can FedEx things from his office cheaply and expediently, so all I have to do is to get papers together and then give them to him. But on this day, he noticed the address I was supposed to send the papers to was a PO Box and FedEx won't deliver to one. So back to the post office I went, dreading the experience.

As usual the line was huge, so I settled in for a wait. I made some phone calls and figured I would be able to at least get some business accomplished in my wait. Well, wouldn't you know - the one time I come prepared to spend some time, the line zipped right along, and before I knew it, it was my turn at the front and I was getting dirty looks from everyone as I tried to get off the phone to get the papers mailed. Oh well, you can't win… And as I am writing this, I just remembered one thing I forgot to include in the papers, a copy of G3's driver's license. Arghh - back to the post office tomorrow with that!

I also have started cleaning out closets in preparation for shuffling some things around to make room for you. It's amazing how much stuff you can find hidden back in the recesses of a dark closet. It's also kind of frightening since none of the closets in our house have lights in them, so you never really know exactly what you are going to find. Today, it was the craft and game closet. I was able to clean out bags and bags of bits of fabric, googly eyes, dried out glue sticks, and old, stiff paint brushes. I figure at 13, you probably aren't going to want to play with arts and crafts!

The problem with starting a task like this is that it always takes more time than you have allotted to accomplish it. Or even in the unlikely event you have allotted enough time for the task, life in the form of children will interfere. Like, they need to be fed, they need clean clothes, etc. Either way, I promise you, that you will be pulled away from the task before you are done. Then you face a decision. Either leave all the items out until you can come back and finish later, or do part of the job and come back and finish the other part later. The problem with the second solution is that if things are put away nicely, there is very little impetus to go back and continue the job. You pretty much mentally wipe that task out of you brain with a little imaginary check and then later when you go back to the closet, thinking that it was cleaned out already, you get a nasty shock finding it very different than you were expecting. Then you have an unexpected amount of work to do extra at the last moment, which tends to induce panic attacks.

The first solution, sounds better - doesn't it. But after consideration, you realize that this isn't too much better. It leaves everything in a big mess. And once other people start coming around, inevitably there are two things that will happen. The first is that people will accuse you of doing nothing but a big mess, and the second is that the system you were using will deteriorate as things get picked up and exclaimed over.

Anyway, I opted for the first method and left everything out. I am sure I will hear about it later when I come home….

Love,

Bethany, Amanda, G3, & G4