Day 48 – Started to pack

Lisa and I took some time this morning to buy most of the last minute stuff we will need for the long journey home and actually started to pack all of the our stuff up. It does not look so bad; 2 huge suitcases and a sports bag for check-in and 3 small bags and a stroller to carry-on. I think we even managed to shed some weight from the trip here (mostly because we eat all the food we brought).

At 9:00 am tomorrow, we pick-up our facilitator and then don’t expect to stop running around until late. If tomorrow and Tuesday go well, then things will be awesome. Wish us luck!

Day 47 – 6 days left in the wakie

It has been a slow week here. On Monday, Sophia’s group was closed and divided up into other groups within the orphanage. Luckily Sophia was moved into a small group with three of her old friends. New the group now has 12 children and the caregivers are all much younger. Sophia has had a little bit of trouble adjusting to her new surroundings, caregivers and friends. She seems to have regressed slightly in her walking and talking. We think this is an indication of what it will be like when we get her home.

We spent the day touring some of the wonders of Svaliava. We went for some more of the famous mineral water, visited the 800 year old all wooden church (another famous site) and then went up into the mountains where we caught our own “forrae” a unique fish (related to the salmon family) which only lives in pure moving water and had it cooked for us on the roadside. This was probably the best fish we had ever eaten.

We have added some more pictures below of Sophia and our day.

Day 44 - Drinks with the chief

The countdown has begun. We have booked our flight home. We depart Ukraine the afternoon of 5 December. We are 9 more sleeps until the big trip back over the pond.

Last night we found out our landlord is leaving on vacation and he invited us into one of the private rooms at the hotel for a celebratory drink. We found out last Friday what Ukrainians call a "drink". It really means the glass keeps getting filled until the bottle(s) are gone. Lisa did not take part as she was still recovering from the "drink" we had on Friday night. Yuri, our landlord introduced us tot he Chief of Police for the region. They asked what was left for us to do, and once they found out, they started calling all department heads we will need to speak to, to make sure all goes smoothly for us. We are now formally known by Police, city officials, passport office and records as " the couple form Canada; he speaks Ukrainian, and she only speaks English". If we have any problems, the chief gave us his personal phone number.

We now know the in Ukraine it is not what you know, but who you know.

Day 41 - The Waiting Game

Now that court is done, we must wait for an additional 10 calendar days for the Judge’s decision to take effect. We are told this is when all the third parties are given time to review all the documents and ensure all is in order. We are confident this is the case so all we can do is wait. We are planning to receive the final court decree on Monday 1 December and then spend the next four days getting a new birth certificate, passport and Canadian visa. If all goes as planned, we have leave Ukraine on 5 December. We will add a new post every couple of days for this week, as we do not think much will happen here.

Winter has finally arrived and the town looks beautiful in white. Last Friday was Saint Michael’s Day, so to all people named after him happy namesake! Saturday evening, Lisa and I noticed candles burning in almost everyone’s windows. We asked some friends what this meant, and they explained it was the 75th anniversary of “The Holodomor” or Great Famine where the Soviets murdered (through starvation) almost 5,000,000 Ukrainians. It was a noticeably sombre evening around town.

Day 39 - Court complete...Success

Well today has been a whirlwind. We arrived at court this morning, to hear that our facilitator was on a train which arrived 35 minutes after court was due to start. As we waited, the power went out in the building, and it did not turn back on until 8:45 (maybe there is hope he will make it). No such luck, the orphanage lawyer informed the judge that our facilitator was not here. We were told that if we need him, court will be rescheduled for one week later. That was not going to happen, I told them we will proceed without the facilitator. After about 20 minutes answering the judges questions, he stood up, said he awards Halina, now to be named Sophia, to us and this judgement takes effect in 10 days. He then quickly walked out and Lisa and I stood there looking at each other thinking, is that it? After some handshakes from the orphanage lawyer and the director of juvenile services, we were now parents. We went out to the street to wait for our facilitator (because he had brought with him the last important document needed from Kiev). When he arrived, we told him court was done, give the document to the orphanage lawyer and Lisa proceeded to go up one side of him and down the other. I was so proud of her, I just stood there and cheered her on.

We spent the rest of the day going around to the various governement departments to find out exactly how things work in this oblast for getting the rest of the documents we need. We will take the weekend to plan our exit stradegy, but our hope is to be flying out on 5 December.

The moment you have all been waiting for......

Introducing...Sophia Halina Hrycajkiw

Day 38 -Our last post about Halina

We have slowly gotten to know Halina and her personality. Here are just a few of her traits: independent, head strong, very impatient, (when she wants it, she means NOW) bright (likes to be shown something once and then figure it out on her own), loves music and likes to show off. Oh….did I mention the shoe fettish.? Sounds like a couple of people we know!

We look forward to announcing her new name and posting her picture tomorrow after court.

Day 37 - Halina's first steps

Yesterday during our walk to the orphanage we noticed snow on the mountains tops. Today Lisa and I woke to dark clouds. Just as we arrived at the orphanage, the flurries started and it snowed all day. We enclosed a couple of pictures.

Today during our afternoon visit, Halina took her own first steps. She was with one of the caregivers, and decided to let go of her and walk about 4 feet into Lisa’s arms. We were all shocked. So we tried it again and again. By the time I figured out to go and grad the camera, Halina decided she would rather sit down and play with some cubes. Things seem to be getting better by the day, we are definitely starting to feel Halina is missing us. She gets so excited when we arrive and when we start to leave she reaches for us and starts to cry. We just can’t wait to bring her home.

We spoke to Victor and he will be arriving in Svaliava Friday mourning at 4:45 am. This is actually our choice because flying him in is just too expensive.

Day 36 - Pictures of our daily walk to the orphanage

Day 34 – Another quiet day

Lisa and I took the morning off again today to go visit the local monastery. We got there in time for Sunday mass. Churches here (at least the Orthodox ones) do not have pews, everyone stands. Those which cannot find room inside, stand outside and look in through the doors and listen to the service through speakers on the outside of the church. The grounds are beautiful and it made for a very pleasant morning. We enclosed a couple of pictures.

Day 33 – A visit to the Sanatorium

After a long day yesterday we decided to take the morning off and visit one of the local sanatoriums. Our intent was to pamper ourselves for a few hours at the spa but soon found out it is closed on the weekends. So, we spent a couple of hours walking the grounds and went to have some lunch (we posted some pictures). A change scenery was much needed.

Day 32 - Court date

After the run around today we finally received notice of our court date. It is Friday November 21st at 8:30am. The procedure usually takes about 15 minutes and then Halina will officially be ours. Well, after the 10 day waiting period. After court we will post some pictures and announce her new full name. Finally!!!!

Day 30 - SDA approval received

Today we recieved a call from Victor our facilitator. He had our approval from Kiev and he was sending it on the Ukrainain fedex tonight. We will recieve it tomorrow morning and delivery it directly to the orphanage lawyer. He has told us he will take it to the the judge tomorrow and inquire about our court date. At least it's another small step completed.

Day 29 – Anxiously waiting for our court date

Well the last couple of days have been extremely slow. Lisa and I took a moment to observe Remembrance Day this morning, but it was very hard in a room full of screaming children. The weather is starting to turn. Today we woke to clouds and 4 degrees, but by afternoon the sun came out and made for a pleasant day.

We have been visiting Halina twice daily. The rash on her cheek cleared up and the doctor is letting us feed her bananas and yogurt again. She let us know this morning how impressed she is with Halina’s development (walking and talking). The caregivers let us know that Halina now starts to act up at 10:00 am and 4:00pm because she now understands when we are arriving. Hopefully this means she is starting to miss us!

The orphanage lawyer has not yet received word from the courts as to when our court date will be, and Victor has not yet received the approval documents from Kiev. All we can do is wait. Today for lunch we sat down at the restaurant and ordered without the menu. We no longer need it as we have it memorized.

Day 27 - Tourists for a Day

We went to visit with Halina again this morning. The rash on one of her cheeks was still there, so we just assumed we would not be allowed to feed her. We played with her for an hour and a half until it was clear food was all she wanted. We pretty much let the caregivers take over and get her ready for lunch.

Lisa and I knew the afternoon would not be pleasant, so we decided that today would be a good day to visit some of the local sights. We spent the afternoon in Mukachavo a beautiful old city about 25 km south of Svaliava. We have enclosed some pictures of the city center and old fortress.

On our way to Mukachavo, we stopped at an old well on the side of the highway. The locals come here to fill water bottles of the famous mineral water of the Carpathian’s. We should have taken a picture but we will next time, but basically we stuck a well used cup down the well, drew water and drank it. It was very hazy and tasted kind of like Perrier.

Day 25 - Shopping at the Bazaar

Well today was another beautiful day in Svaliava. The sun is out, blue skies and light cool breeze. During our morning visit with Halina, one of the orphanage doctors asked us about the rash on Halina cheeks. She though were might be feeding her some juice, but when we told her we only feed her bananas, and yogurt and some other fruits, she said that she gets all those things already, and does not know what the rash is from. She asked us to only give her chai until the rash clears up (a day or two). Boy, Halina was cranky this afternoon.

We went shopping at the bazaar this afternoon and found Halina a new pair of shoes, as she has almost outgrown the ones we gave her were a couple of weeks ago. On our way to the hotel, we stopped in at a restaurant for lunch. The varenike (perogies) were delicious but still not like baba makes.

We are now waiting to hear when our court date is, and then wait for it to come. The next few days are going to be pretty boring (except for our visits with Halina).

Day 25 - The Caregivers

Today after our morning visit with Halina, we realised that not all of her caregivers are the same. Today’s crew was the cranky crew. There techniques were not as entertaining for the children. We took Halina out for our daily walk and on our return entered a room filled with silence. The care givers had sat them all down, gave them no toys and told them to be quiet. One caregiver stood in the corner snacking and watching a soap opera while the other was making notes in the daily log. Luckily Halina started to sing and laugh. We brought her some toys and all the kids started to play.

It is funny how some of the ladies are so helpful, while others are not. One of the cranky ladies asked me what we are feeding her to cause the rash on her cheeks? We told some banana, yogurt and other fruits. She then told us that she eats all that already and we don’t need to give her anymore. I challenged her on what we were told by the doctors and then asked her what we should feed her, and she said bananas and yogurt are alright (we assume she probably does not like the extra diaper changes Halina will reqr). We left smiling and politely told the ladies to pound salt.

Day 24 - Another Great Day.

Today was a big day. We found out that the last of Halina's blood work came back and it was all negitive and the X-rays came back as normal. The orphanage lawyer had us sign our petition for the courts and then took our dossier to the judge and had it filled. We are now waiting for our court date which we think should be in the next 2 weeks. The count down to comming home will be on soon......

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing and feeding Halina. What a great time we had. She is really responding well to us and is so exsited to see us arrive. What a feeling it is to have a little one squeal when you walk in the room.

A friend in need

Ulrika, a friend I have known for about 7 years is having complications with her pregnancy. She will be undergoing an emergency C-section today. All your thoughts and prayers have been helping us so much, we ask that you take a moment and say a little prayer for her and her ‘jellybean”.

Day 23 - What a Morning.

Today a doctor from Kiev conducted her medical examination of Halina. Lisa and I sat in a room by ourselves for over 2 hours waiting for the results. This was so stressful. Finally we met with the doctor for our debrief. Our course English is not her primary language, and we could not really get a straight answer from her. Finally after about 25 minutes (and my repeated attempts to get her to tell us what her recommendation to Vienna will be, Lisa blurted out “IS SHE ADOPTABLE?” The doctor looked at us and said “of course”, she is healthier them most children she sees. This was great news. Now we did not mind listening to her ramblings about diseases in various parts of the world.

There were two major concerns she had with Halina 1) the repeated bouts with her respiratory illness (which she believes was pneumonia but could have been tuberculosis) as a precaution we took Halina for a chest x-ray to rule TB out. The preliminary results were negative. 2) Her delays in walking and talking (which are probably related to the first concern). She informed us of a bunch of minor little things but all so minor, they are not worth mentioning. She could tell that Halina has started to blossom and thinks she will be a healthy normal child. What a relief!

Day 22 - Starting a Routine

Well Lisa and I have been working hard to figure out how we can work ourselves into Halina's day. I think Lisa has figured it all out. Today we put our plan into effect and it worked out beautifully. Halina is happy in the morning and miserable in the afternoon. We believe this is because of the gap in her meal times between lunch and dinner. So today we had a small treat in the morning and a big snack (a banana, kids yogurt and treat) as soon as we arived in the afternoon. She was so happy all day. We followed up our afternoon play session with chai (which all the kids drink here) and she was good to go. She was a little sad when we started to wave good-bye for the night.

We are totally hooked.

Tonight we are expecting the doctor from Kiev to arrive, so that she can do the immigration in the morning. All the things seem like they are progressing, just not as fast as we hoped.

Day 21 - More Paperwork

This morning Lisa and I had to go to the Government offices to meet with the Juvenile Services. They informed us that the paperwork we are expecting to pick-up will be ready at 3:00pm this afternoon. This freed up some time so we hopped in a taxi and went to see Halina. Again she was very happy to see us but seems a little cranky again. We played for about an hour, and at 11:20 (like clock work) she had had enough. So started her tantrums, but we knew that it was lunch time so we sat her down and let the care givers go through their lunch routine.

On our way back to our room, we received a call from the immigration doctor in Kiev. She wanted to know details about coming complete the immigration medical. So we tracked down the orphanage director and found out the remaining blood tests we had ordered would not be ready until Wednesday. We are going to try to arrange her to travel here for Thursday morning, complete the medical and send her home on Thursday night. We also found out that Victor was at the Canadian Embassy this morning to pick-up the necessary paperwork for the immigration medical. Two big steps being completed simultaneously, gotta like that. Things may be slow, but at least we had some progress.

Day 20 - "Little Miss Cranky Pants"

This weekend was absolutley beautiful. We have been in T-shirts and eating outside. We tried to create a new post yesterday from our hotel room. Unfortunately we had a couple of bad settings in our cell phone and as a result our prepaid card was sucked dry within 5 minutes. Oh well, we went to see the guy who helped set it all up and another 25 Gryvnas later, we found the problem. We will try it out again tonight.

Halina, which is now how we call her (coincidentally Andrew's mother's name). It took a while to figure out that Ukrainians do not have a G in their alphabet (actually they do, but it a long story). They say the cerillic "G" as an "H", thus Galina to the Russians is really Halina to all her Ukrainian caregivers and little friends at the orphanage.

Yesterday, we think Halina was cutting in teeth and she was a "liitle miss cranky pants" for both of our visits. Not much we could but listen to her tantrums.

Today is her 19 month birthday and it was a great day. We spent over 4 hours with her and she was in such a great mood. She gets very excited when she sees us and did not want us to leave (until some food was placed in front of her that is). We are working on geting her to stand on her own and take her first steps. We think this will happen before we leave Ukraine.