Almost Home

After 2 ½ days of traveling (by car and plane), we arrived home at our wonderful house, with a great bed and wonderful greasy food!!!! It is amazing how much we all as Americans take for granted (like light in hallways).

Last Wednesday, we met Kol, the translator, the orphanage director and child services lady at the orphanage. They dressed Kol in a cute little shirt and pants and explained the process to him. He seemed to understand everything and was so excited to be at this point in the process. During court, the judge asked Maury, me, the director and other people several questions about our financial and living status, our children (Kyle and Karmon) and wanted to really get to the reason we wanted to adopt. After our interrogation, she asked Kol to come up and talk to her. In a very nice voice, she asked him a few questions. Through a translator, we were able to understand the questions. She asked; what is your name – which he said, “Kolya”. She asked him what is birth date is, which he said, “I don’t know”. She asked him how old he was, which he said, “I don’t know”. She pointed Maury and I out and asked him who those two people are, which he said, “THAT IS MY MAMA AND PAPA!!” Those were the best words that could have ever come out of his mouth. I think everyone in the room started to cry – of course, I was the most emotional!!

After court, we returned to orphanage and said our quick goodbyes. It was so difficult leaving all the other children knowing that I would never see them again and knowing that we could provide at least one more of them with a good home but wasn’t able to do that… It was hard leaving Vera and Elizabeth – we had grown so close to them in such a short time. Mostly, it was hard leaving Kol knowing he would be by himself again – without seeing his Mama and Papa. Elizabeth promised to visit, Vera gave us some chocolate, a Christmas ornament and a Ukrainian figurine – they promised to take care of Kol until we returned and that they would mark off the calendar each day to let him know that we would be back. My heart breaks thinking about how he must feel during this long waiting game.

After traveling back to Kiev then changing planes three times, we arrived back home Friday evening. We both could not believe that three weeks had gone by so fast and so slow at the same time. We didn’t miss a thing about Sumy, other than Kol of course, and counted our blessings for everything that we have (family, friends, jobs, food, etc…).

Maury was scheduled to leave for the Ukraine this Saturday. However, we were informed that the US embassy will be closed for the Christmas holiday and will not reopen until after January 7. Our facilitator suggested that we do not travel back to the UKR until after the 7th. We have not told Kol this horrible news. I am so sad that he will not be here for Christmas and that he has to wait one more day than he would normally have to wait to get out of that place.

We will continue to update this blog until the journey home is complete (maybe just not as often until Maury is back in the Ukraine). We started this as a way to share our experience with our family and friends. So many of you have commented on the contents – we hope you have enjoyed this journey as much as we have.

We love you all,
Maury and Kim