Day 2 SDA Appointment

Last night I set two travel alarm clocks and our cell phone alarm because I was so worried about oversleeping and being late for our SDA appointment.  I shouldn’t have worried about it because I didn’t sleep well at all.  I was awake several times an hour checking the clock.  I finally got up at 7:00 and got ready.  Our apartment is about a 5-10 minute walk from the SDA and our driver, Nico, walked us there.  I had some concerns about whether or not Dasha would be available due to several factors.  International adoptions are on shakey ground right now in Ukraine and lots of changes are about to take place.  We met with Serge (our facilitator) right before walking into the SDA and he lead us up to the office.  We sat on a little couch and he introduced us to the psychologist.  I could see she had Dasha’s “file”, which was several pieces of paper inside a sheet protector.  There was a picture of her stapled on the back.  They asked if we came for Daria's referral and we said yes.  I felt so much relief at this moment because I knew this all meant that she was cleared for international adoption.  The psychologist wanted us to tell a bit about ourselves and why we wanted to adopt.  Then she started reading Dasha’s file and told us about her health status, her personality, and her family.  We found out she has two older brothers who are in the custody of their grandmother.  This little girl was destined to have brothers and lots of them!  That was pretty much the appointment.  All total, it took 5 minutes.  We walked outside and Nico was still there, so Norm and his new BFF stood and talked for a long time.  Oh, one other thing.  They gave us the picture they had of Dasha in her SDA file.  I didn’t even have to ask.  They just pulled it out, shoved it at me and yelled at me to hide it.   I wasn’t expecting it but certainly didn’t argue. 

We headed home to email and let everyone know about our appointment, but the electricity in our apartment was out.  Apparently there was a city wide power outage.    We decided to take a walking tour of Kiev.  We found a company online who does free tours of the city in English (http://www.freetours.kiev.ua).  Our tour guide was a college student who was super knowledgeable about the city.   She took us all through ancient Kiev.  One thing that struck me was how many churches this city has.  There are something like 300 of them.  The government has spent so much money rebuilding or restoring many of them to their original condition.  I can’t help but wonder why when this country has so many social problems the government chooses to spend its money fixing up old churches so tourists can walk through them.  Doesn’t make a lot of sense.   There were two other guys on the tour with us.  One was from Argentina so he and Norm had a lot to talk about (Norm’s family is Argentinean).  Once the tour ended we went to lunch with the tour guide and the two others at a Ukrainian buffet.  We weren’t that hungry so we only had pierogies and some bread, but it was good.  I love how all the English speaking Ukrainians pronounce buffet like Jimmy Buffet.  Believe me, I am not making fun of them.  English speaking Ukrainians are my very favorite people right now!  J

After lunch we headed home and took a nap.  I never take naps, so it was kind of nice.  I don’t think I’m caught up on sleep yet, especially since I didn’t sleep that great last night.  I think I’m going to take something tonight to help with that problem. 

We have to go back to the SDA tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 pm to pick up Dasha’s referral.  After that, we’re going to buy our train tickets for the 12 hour trip to her region on Sunday night.  She’s in Donetsk, which is in southeast Ukraine.  The region borders Russia. Serge said he’s going to see if they’ll let us come a day early, in which case we’ll be traveling on Saturday night.  I doubt that happens, but we’ll see.  In the meantime, we’re going to spend the next few days checking out Kiev. 

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us to have a successful appointment today.  I am so grateful things are going well and working out as we hoped.  I really feel in my heart that this little girl was meant to be in our family and we are literally counting the hours until we get to meet her.