1/6 Posting

Been a few days since we’ve updated the blog. A lot of motion, but as it turns out, and at the risk of sounding negative, not much progress.

On Thursday we did the orphanage tour and then had our driver take us into Kiev where we had reserved an apartment. It was very nice, large and comfy, but the internet we had been promised, and which was the basis for our choosing this apartment, was, surprise, not available. The rental agency promised to move us to a new place on Friday.

It’s funny how when we first visited Kiev (now five weeks ago!) we found it somewhat provincial. This time around, after 32 days in Zhitomer, it seemed like the most cosmopolitan city in the world! Lights, cafes, boutiques, theaters, crowds, sophisticated crowds of people! We had a great evening walking up and down Kryschatik Street, the main downtown boulevard. Found our first decaf coffee in a month and had some amazing pastries. Received a transfusion of cash through Western Union and watched our backs as we melted into the crowd in the streets outside the bank. The winter air seemed warmer to us than last time, but that’s probably just because we’ve acclimated by now. It was a great evening, highlighted by a phone conversation we had with our adoption agency’s representative who’s been coordinating the effort for us here. He told us that everything was taken care of with the orphanages and that we’d be getting our children on Monday!

Lauren began to plan our first meal together, and we were finally able to schedule our flights home. We went to an internet center to correspond with work, and we wrote to Beverly (Lauren’s mom who’s literally managed our life back home while we’ve been gone). We asked her to check on availability of flights on Friday and Saturday next week. If the seats were filling up she should go ahead and book us on Saturday, otherwise we thought we’d wait to see how things went on Monday and maybe book for Friday. The travel agent had told us last week that things were wide open at this time of year and not to worry.

Friday we moved to a very nice old apartment that turned out to be on the fourth floor of the building where I buy cigars here. It seemed that fortune was smiling on us. They hooked up the internet broadband connection and it actually worked! We were surfing, receiving e-mail and video chatting with the office for the first time in the comfort of our own living room!

We wrote to Beverly and told her to get ready to go into the office on Monday to see the kids live over the internet. Lauren and I sat down for a nice homemade meal of pasta, and then I went back to the computer to let my folks know they could see the kids online Monday. That’s when we ran into the first of a number of new disappointments.

First of all the internet was down. I was able to decode the Ukrainian message that I received well enough to gather that someone needed to make a payment to keep us online. This couldn’t possibly mean that we were on a bandwidth ration. Or could it? I picked up the phone to call our agent. No dice. My phone had run out of money (all the cell plans here are prepaid). I tried the house phone, but couldn’t get it to dial out. Back down to the street to find a phone card vendor to reload my phone. Called the agent who told me to call her back while she investigated.

On the walk home, we got a call from Lauren’s mom. More bad news. The flights were fully booked through the weekend. The earliest possibility was Monday night, with a 12 hour layover in Paris! A 24 hour trip before we would get to Miami.

This wasn’t happening… De Gaulle airport is in my experience the most inadequate international terminal I have ever seen. Not one comfortable chair to sit in. I had to sleep under a stairwell on our way over here… And this time we would have two kids with us. And besides that, we would be useless till Wednesday. Losing most of another week at work!

Then the rental agent called. She was in disbelief at how much data transfer we had used. More than twice what she had provided for. We were only online for a couple of hours I said! OK, whatever. Load me up. I’ll pay whatever it costs. We need to be online. Sorry, she said. She would have to go to the bank to pay the charges tomorrow. No more internet tonight…

We went back to the apartment, feeling like we were sinking back into the abyss we had earlier felt we were finally escaping.

This morning (Saturday) — after discovering that there’s no hot water in the morning in our apartment — we navigated the Metro to Zhitomerskaya bus terminal and got on a mini-bus for Radomischle. Trusty Vanya picked us up and shuttled us out to visit Nastia. We had a great visit that cheered us up. Oh well, if we had to stay longer, at least we would have our kids with us. We played cards and kicked a little ball around with her. Hugged and laughed. Hung out with her adorable little friend Marina who couldn’t get enough hugs and kisses from us.

Two more days, we assured Nastia. Then we’d be together forever. And Sasha too, she reminded us. Sasha too.

We also had a great time with Sasha at his orphanage. We weren’t sure if he understood, but we reassured him also that we were going to take him home on Monday.

Back to the bus station for the ride back to Kiev. Lauren had planned out our Monday night family dinner and we were going shopping tonight because we weren’t sure if the stores would be open tomorrow, which is Christmas day here.

On the ride home I called Greg with the adoption agency just to confirm our plans for Monday. Here comes the biggest disappointment of all. He began to backtrack on his assurance that we’d have the kids on Monday. It seems that they hadn’t actually spoken to the director of Sasha’s orphanage! No, it turns out that Svieta, our translator had spoken with Tatiana, the director of Nastia’s orphanage, and asked her to call Radomischle orphanage. She’d had no further word whether this conversation had actually taken place.

At my insistence, Greg had her call Tatiana again to find out what transpired. This time we learned that the director had told Tatiana that IF she came into work on Monday (a holiday) we could have Sasha. And Greg wasn’t optimistic that she’d actually be coming in. Worst of all, it didn’t seem to bother him one bit that Svieta’s irresponsible behavior in reporting back that everything was resolved for Monday had led us down a rosy path and that we’d gotten the kids’ hopes up.

He told Lauren that we should understand that Monday was a holiday and that things might not work out. Then why did you tell us we’d have the kids on Monday!? No answer that made any sense.

So here we were again, our future in the hands of our 22 year old translator without a clue.

One more unpleasant surprise in the conversation with Greg. He wasn’t even optimistic that the lady in the birth certificate office would show up as promised on Monday. No birth certificate, no Nastia either.

But don’t worry says Greg. We have the judge’s order. The school cannot interfere with us taking Sasha. Greg, I said, I’ve been here long enough to know what the law means here. They make it up as they go along. If she wants to delay, she’ll delay, and nobody can stop her. What if she doesn’t show up on Tuesday either? You have to trust me, he says…

Like everything else about this saga, anticlimax trumps resolution. Our expected 3 to at most 5 week process will now stretch into 7 weeks plus.

We did our shopping in the hope we’ll have Nastia with us on Monday – we can’t even bring ourselves to plan on the possibility of having Sasha with us too.

The good news for today is that the ten day waiting period is over. What this means is that the judge’s order is final and that the children are officially Anastacia Irina and Alexander Isaac Gold. That’s huge and we acknowledge it with great happiness!

Also the internet is back online. For how long we don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.