March 26, 2009 Thursday

Something you should know about this process. When you think something is going to happen, it probably won't and when you think there is no way it could happen, it just might. If there is any kind of advice, we would give a couple that is coming to Ukraine to adopt, it would be….

Understand and prepare yourself before you ever get to Ukraine. Understand that there is no set time schedule. Even if you have been told that there is…it will vary. Realize that you are going to spend a lot of time waiting for the different steps of the process to fall into place. A healthier attitude would be to think….

"I'm going to Ukraine to spend a lot of time getting to know our new children, and then at some point, we will be taking our children home. We don't know when we will be taking them home, but it will happen and when it finally does, we will have the rest of our lives to spend together."

Even with this attitude, you will probably get frustrated. Your frustration is guaranteed if you have a specific time that you have set to start your journey home or, if your personality depends on everything happening in a specific way and time. However it is during this process that you may leave receiving two of the best gifts you could have ever hoped for other than the children you bring home.

These gifts are the gift of trusting in God and the gift of patience. It is really quite simple. You have little control over this process. In fact, probably the only control you have is to say, "I've decided not to adopt and I'm going home." All other decisions are in someone's hands other than yours. And if the truth be known, there are probably more hands than you can count that are controlling your life throughout this process. So, the sooner you can learn to "trust God with ALL our heart"…the more of your sanity you will keep.

So how sane were Paul and I, this morning? NYET SANE!!!!

The call came as Paul had predicted for days that the court would not be held today. In fact, even though we are told that it will be tomorrow afternoon we are optimistically skeptical. Not because we have no hope, but because we still do not have a court time set. And this is all depending on one person's signature that we have been awaiting for 3 days.

So you see…we are still waiting!

Even with the news we didn't receive we had wonderful "visits" with the children and just long for the day when the only goodbye being said is from our family to the two orphanages as we head out to the next step of the journey. Caleb wanted so badly to go outside (as usual) but the weather wasn't cooperating, so we played a number of games and did puzzles together. He really is quite a joyful boy and we just cherish every moment with him.

After our morning visit we went clothes shopping downtown, first going to a few stores and then hitting the open air market. So much of what we look at would be very "busy" by American clothing standards so we really try to find stuff more on the plain side. The upside is the clothes are especially inexpensive in the open air market and after several hours of serious shopping we now have at least two full outfits for both kids plus coats, hats, etc.

With her new clothes in hand, we visited "D" in the afternoon. Despite shopping with just a tape measure and "D's" measurements everything we'd gotten fit just right. Just like mama she absolutely loved her pink sweats for sleeping and lounging around. The pink and white gym shoes, all of $7.50, were also a big hit. Evan, you'd especially like all my Project runway style commentary when "D" tries stuff on but I may just push your mom over the brink! We hung out for a while and then a game sprung up from Darla tossing her rolled up gloves to "D"; she quickly discovered walking up to within 5 feet of papa and firing the "ball" was great fun. I got her to back up (finally) and she displayed quite an arm! All you Czeropski's out there - get the football ready we may need to head to a field to see who can toss the pigskin farthest.

Our time with her ended, we returned to the CC for a feast of sausage and cheese with fried spaghetti in butter - where are you dad when we need you? Despite Darla's repeated "I think Evan said this movie isn't that good" we watched "Mirrors"….Evan, if you did say it you were right on - it had a few moments but all in all the Siskel and Ebert of Ukraine gave it two stars at best. Oh well, another nearly two hours of waiting engaged doing something. I remember reading the blog of a NC couple, Nick & Nancy, who adopted from here earlier this year and had every season of "24" loaded on their laptop. Nick - you inspired me!