Ukraine Maps & Facts: We wanted to add some information about Ukraine so everyone will have a little background info on the country of our child's heritage. We are also going to try to add a map so that when we are in country you will be able to see what region we are traveling too to meet our child. We will try to add some more fun facts about Ukraine culture soon also. (You should be able to click on the map to enlarge it.)

Ukraine History. During the latter part of the 18th century, most Ukrainian ethnographic territory was absorbed by the Russian Empire. Following the collapse of czarist Russia in 1917, Ukraine was able to bring about a short-lived period of independence (1917-20), but was reconquered and forced to endure a brutal Soviet rule that engineered two artificial famines (1921-22 and 1932-33) in which over 8 million died. In World War II, German and Soviet armies were responsible for some 7 to 8 million more deaths. Although final independence for Ukraine was achieved in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, democracy remained elusive as the legacy of state control and endemic corruption stalled efforts at economic reform, privatization, and civil liberties. A peaceful mass protest "Orange Revolution" in the closing months of 2004 forced the authorities to overturn a rigged presidential election and to allow a new internationally monitored vote that swept into power a reformist slate under Viktor YUSHCHENKO. The new government presents its citizens with hope that the country may at last attain true freedom and prosperity.


Flag description:
Two equal horizontal bands of azure (top) and golden yellow represent grainfields under a blue sky.


Religions:
Ukrainian Orthodox - Kiev Patriarchate 19%, Orthodox (no particular jurisdiction) 16%, Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate 9%, Ukrainian Greek Catholic 6%, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox 1.7%, Protestant, Jewish, none 38% (2004 est.)

Languages:
Ukrainian (official) 67%, Russian 24%; small Romanian-, Polish-, and Hungarian-speaking minorities .


Ethnic groups:
Ukrainian 77.8%, Russian 17.3%, Belarusian 0.6%, Moldovan 0.5%, Crimean Tatar 0.5%, Bulgarian 0.4%, Hungarian 0.3%, Romanian 0.3%, Polish 0.3%, Jewish 0.2%, other 1.8%


Population:
47,425,336 (July 2005 est.)


Where in the world is Ukraine?
Eastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea, between Poland, Romania, and Moldova in the west and Russia in the east. Across the Black Sea to the south is Turkey.

How big is Ukraine? Ukraine is just a little bit smaller than the state of Texas.


Environment - current issues:
Inadequate supplies of potable water; air and water pollution; deforestation; radiation contamination in the northeast from 1986 accident at Chornobyl' Nuclear Power Plant.

The Waiting Game: Part 1. Here we are approaching the end of another month. Since our dossier was submitted it seems like time has almost come to a stand-still. Days seem to pass so much slower now and the waiting is getting harder. I had thought that once our dossier was "in the door" I'd be able to rest so much easier and the waiting would be bearable. Instead, it has given me a hunger to move forward. With childbirth, at least you can control some things, even if it's as small as what you eat that day to keep your baby healthy. With adoption, we are totally at the mercy of the Ukrainian system and God. Time is so precious and I want to cherish every day...but I also want it to pass by quickly until our child is finally home.

We've been trying to educate ourselves on the medical conditions we may be faced with in this adoption. Based on stories from families that have traveled recently, I was getting very worried that we may not be able to find a healthy child when we finally get to Ukraine. We expect some correctable medical conditions but Ukraine officials often show you the sickest children first in hopes of finding them homes so they have a chance at survival. The idea of having to search through binders and "choose" just one child to meet is intimidating also. I mean come on, sometimes I can't even pick out a pair of shoes, and we're going to choose a child??

After praying and stressing about this for a few weeks, one morning I woke up with a sense of peace on the matter. Of all the men in the world I could have ended up with, God connected me to the perfect match for me, the one he had chosen for me. Despite the thousands of miles that divided John and I and the nearly impossible odds of us ever crossing paths, we ended up together. I know that God will also lead us to our child. God does not call on the qualified, he qualifies the ones he calls on. So, I'll prepare myself the best I can and leave the rest to our creator.

As of today there are still no updates as to when our registration letter will arrive. Many families have been given estimates of 20-45 days so hopefully we'll fall somewhere in that window. We are hoping that we can travel in January still. John is possibly up for promotion to officer this year and we'll learn those results in October. If he does get picked up he will have to attend a 3 month training starting in late Feb or early March. During that time he won't be able to take any leave so if we don't get a date in Jan or early Feb we may have a serious schedule conflict. We'll cross that bridge when we get there but we do appreciate your prayers on the matter of timing.

Also, we love to read your comments so please leave us a note when you visit here. You can post comments by registering or by just selecting anonymous for your name. We will be updating again soon with some fun facts on Ukraine. We love and miss you all.
-Janine

One more poem: I'm surprised at how quickly this year is going by. I can't believe it is already nearing the middle of August. The kids are going back to school and I can reclaim the swimming pool our subdivision shares :-) It's an awesome thought to know that next year I may be preparing my own child for pre/school. Wow!

My wonderful mother will be celebrating her birthday this week. Happy Birthday Mom! She has touched so many lives and I just wanted to take a moment to celebrate her here! I wish I could be home in Kentucky to celebrate with you all!

Now back to the adoption business. There are no knew updates today regarding us. John and I are trying to read books on adoptive parenting. We will also be taking on online course soon to help us prepare for the extra issues that come along with being adoptive parents. It's good that we still have a lot to do. It helps the waiting go by faster. I have a tendency to do things last minute. Not because I like to procrastinate, but because waiting gets harder towards the end and I like to have lots to keep me busy then. I've always worked well under pressure, probably a results of the chaos of growing up with six brothers!

I don't want to overload you all with poetry but there are two that really touched my heart right from the start. One I shared with you already: the other I wanted to share with you today. When we first started our journey to adopt we wanted to adopt the youngest child possible. As we got farther into the process though we started to see things in a different light. Children of all ages are in need, not just babies. We are willing to accept a child up to five years old. I wanted to share this with you so maybe you can see things through the children's eyes.

The Waiting Child
by Debbie Bodie

I saw you meet your child today
You kissed your baby joyfully
And as you walked away with her
I played pretend you'd chosen me.

I'm happy for the baby, yet
Inside I"m aching miserably
I want to plead as you go by,
Does no-one want a child of three?"

I saw you meet your child today
In love with her before you met
And as I watched you take her out
I knew it wasn't my turn yet.

I recognize you from last year!
I knew I'd seen your face before!
But you came for a second babe.
Does no-one want a child of four?

I saw you meet your child today
But this time there was something new
A nurse came in and took MY hand
And then she gave my hand to you.

Can this be true?I'm almost six!
And there are infants here you see?
But then you kissed me and I knew
The child you chose this time was me.

Waiting: Okay so we all know that waiting is the hardest part of adoption. There's so much of it! Being a military spouse I've learned a lot of patience, but nothing can really help make this "wait" easy. I'm counting the days until its logical for me to start stalking the mailman. I'm going to try not to start "expecting" our first letter from Ukraine for at least 3 weeks since that is the earliest it could possibly be, though it's very unlikely to come that early.

This morning a family in our subdivision was having a yard sale and I saw the coolest race car bed. I didn't stop to look at the price but debated on my drive to work if we should buy it or not. Since we don't know if we'll have a boy or a girl its hard to buy things in advance to have a room ready for our little one. I doubt a daughter would be so thrilled to have a red race car in her room to go along with the baby dolls and Disney Princess sheets she'd surely acquire later. It kind of puts a kink in planning a baby shower :-) We'll have to get creative with that idea.
One thing I'm so thankful for is adoption support boards. How did adoptive parents survive before the internet? It's very comforting to be able to read other families stories as they work through this maze and finally to be able to see their happy endings. So for all adoptive parents who will be reading this message, I wanted to post this joke on here to lighten your day a little as you "wait." I'm sure everyone else will enjoy it too but you can only really appreciate this if you're going through the process.

Note: I-171-H = Immigration approval
I-600A = Immigration application.

The Accidental Adoption
Have you ever noticed that you hear all the time about "accidental"pregnancies, but never about couples who experience "accidental" adoptions?
Can you imagine: Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.
What is it? Well, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just come out with it. I went out to the mailbox today and ... well, we got an I-171H.

A what?!?

An I-171H? As in, we're going to have a baby?!?

It looks that way.

But how? We've been so careful! I put away all the blank I-600 A forms. Didn't you hide our homestudy update?

Of course I did. But don't forget, there was that one night...

What night? (pauses) Ohhh, that night. But it was only once. We were just messing around. I didn't print clearly. I didn't even use ink! (pauses again) But it was kind of fun. (giggles)

It was, wasn't it? I'll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints.

So now we've got our I-171H, eh? But that doesn't always mean you'll adopt, does it? I mean, shouldn't you see the agency or something, make sure everything's okay?

I already did.
And? I'm five documents along.

Five documents! And they're all notarized, certified and authenticated okay?
Just great. There was one small scare when the agency couldn't see the Notary's middle initial, but it showed up just fine under the magnifying glass.
Thank God.
And you, honey? Are you feeling okay? I'm feeling fine. As long as I know you're happy about this. Happy? I'm thrilled! It's always a shock at first when something like this happens, but of course I'm happy.

Legacy of An Adopted Child

Once there were two women,
Who never met each other.
One you do not remember,
The other you call mother.

Two different lives, Shaped to make your one.
One became your guiding star,
The other became you sun.
The first gave you life,
And the second taught you to live in it.
The first gave you a need for love,
And the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality,
The other gave you a name.
One gave you a seed of talent,
The other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions,
The other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile.
The other dried your tears.

One gave you up,
It was all that she could do,
The other prayed for a child,
And God led her straight to you.
And now you ask me through your tears,
The age old question through the years;
Heredity or enviornment
Which are you the product of?
Neither my darling, neither,
Just two different kinds of love.

-Author unknown

Time Line: We have decided to publish a timeline so that everyone can be up to date on everything we've done so far.

December 2004- We finally decided to take the leap and started gathering material from agencies and doing our research. We took our time and prayed a lot to see where God would lead us with our decision. We were split between India and Ukraine. In the end we felt we drawn to Ukraine a little more and felt like this is where our child was waiting for us. We also found a great agency that we felt we could really trust.

February 2005- We decided to start our homestudy since that can take a few months to complete. This is where the MOUNTAIN of paper work began. We wrote autobiographies, had criminal background checks, 2 home inspections and interviews each, and far too much more to mention.

We also filed our I-600A which is the application for Citizenship and Immigrations Services.

March 2, 2005 - We were notified to be fingerprinted for Citizenship and Immigration Service. Now we just wait for our approval letter to have our child immigrate. This usually takes 90 days.

April 2005- We had our last interview with our social worker. We were very lucky to get a GREAT social worker. We were very comfortable with her and it made the process go much smoother.

A draft of our homestudy report was given to us to read and approve. This is a report that details our life together and our plans for our children. A copy was translated and included in our dossier.

(Dossier= a package of legal documents submitted to Ukraine to gain approval for adoption.)

We also started gathering legal documents having them notarized, and then apostilled by the Sec of State. This is part of completing our dossier. We both had to have very thorough physicals including blood work. We started our hepatitis shots too because they take 6 months.

May 5, 2005- Our homestudy in completed. The final draft gets forwarded to SC Dept. of Social Services for approval and then it gets forwarded again to Citizenship and Immigration for their approval. We are still waiting for our I-171-H (immigration approval) which is the final form we need to complete our dossier.

Waiting....PAPERWORK ...Waiting...PAPERWORK....Waiting...

Trying to scrape pennies here and there to fund our adoption.

More waiting....MORE PAPERWORK.....Waiting.....


June 14, 2004- The I-171-H Citizenship and Immigration approval finally arrives. By this time I have all the other documents completed and apostilled for our dossier. This was the last thing. The next morning I'll drive to Columbia, SC to the Sec of State office to get the seal put on this form.

June 15, 2005- Our dossier is complete!! I rush to Fed Ex to get it in the mail. I'm on cloud nine nothing can bring us down! The end to months of paperwork.

Later that evening I get a call from my agency..... Ukraine has announced they will "temporarily" stop accepting dossiers hopefully only for a period of 2-6 months. They are making changes to their adoption system to help the system favor the children more. This could mean that by the time they re-open some of our paperwork will expire and/or they will change the requirements for paperwork and we'll have to re-do some of it anyway. All families whose dossier are already accepted will proceed as normal. We've just missed the deadline by a matter of days.

June 25, 2005- We learn that the National adoption center in Ukraine (NAC) is not ready to completely stop accepting dossier yet. They will continue to accept VERY LIMITED NUMBERS of dossiers one day a week. This will require a miracle to get our submitted.

Waiting.....Waiting.....Waiting...

Lots of praying...praying...praying..

July passes and we learn that its looking hopeful but no promises are made. We continue to pray that our facilitator in Ukraine will be able to get our dossier submitted.

August 2, 2005- Today is the day! Our dossier is submitted to the NAC in Ukraine. We are so thankful to God. We would like to thank everyone that has helped us get this far. We thank everyone for their prayers. This is a gift from God and we feel very blessed. Now we're on our way.

Our next steps:

In the next few weeks attorneys and staff at the NAC will review our paperwork. If they find that everything is correct they will deem us "canidates for adoption" and give us a registration number. This will be mailed to us and could take weeks or months.

Once we have our registration number we'll be given a range of dates to request an appointment in. We'll send a letter to Ukraine to request a date. If all goes well they will respond with our travel date and appointment time. This process could also take a couple of weeks or a couple of months. There is no way to predict.

Once we have our date we will prepare to travel to Ukraine. At our appointment we will be shown profiles of children available for adoption. We will select a child to meet and then travel to their city. We will then decide if we want to proceed or request a second appointment with the NAC.

After we find our child court can take up to three weeks. The judge can decided to waive or impose a 30 day in country waiting period for us to spend with our child. Hopefully, this will be waived and we can return home in 3-4 weeks time.

We will continue to update this time line as we make progress. We are still hoping to travel sometime in Jan or Feb. We know that God will put us there when our child is available. We're at his mercy.

John and Janine Hawaii 2005 

Dossier Submitted. Today I feel like we have actually achieved a milestone. The past seven months of researching agencies, countries, and doing tons of paperwork, it all felt like an uphill climb. I could see the top but the path way up had many boulders blocking the road. Finally though, we are nearing the top of the peak, the day when we first lay eyes on the child/ren that God has chosen for us.

August 2, 2005... Our dossier was submitted to the National Adoption Center in Kiev, Ukraine. This to me is a miracle of itself. In reality its only been a little over five weeks or so since our dossier reached Ukraine for submission. It felt like a year though of waiting on edge to see if we would "get in the door" before the real close down happened. Five weeks of not knowing if all the work I had done to complete our dossier would have to be changed because Ukraine is temporarily closing its doors to adoption until the changes proposed by their newly elected president could be implemented. If we could only get our foot in the door before the close down, our case would be processed as normal like the other families in progress. If only.....and we did :-).

Now we exist in Ukraine's eyes, we're a thick pile of paper on someone's desk and soon we'll be a number, waiting for our letter to request a date. But to John and I its something more...today we are parents...... almost.