Our Adoption Story from Ukraine No Worries Catering 1848 E. Rosemeade Parkway Carrollton, Texas 75007 Office: 972-899-6600 Store: 972-492-3999 FAX: 972-899-3301 Mobile E-mail: nwcatering@yahoo.com

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Janet and Brad departed for Kyiv, Ukraine on August 15th and returned to Dallas on September 7, 2002. We adopted an incredible little 22 month old girl, and are so happy to have Analisa in our family. We have added some new pictures of our little girl right below this paragraph. To see our travel "adventure" jump down to the story starting with August 2, 2002. To contact us regarding this adoption you may e-mail us at: nwcatering@yahoo.com In March of 2006 we met Andrew Kelly, who is in charge of "Jeremiah's Hope" in Ukraine. His organization provides a home for children that have been abandoned by their families and the normal government channels. Typically a child can stay in an orphanage until around 14 years of age, and then there is no place for them to go but the streets. Please go to this website for more information. Jeremiah's Hope is doing a wonderful thing for these young people, and I am sure that any contributions that you can make will be appreceiated!

"Jeremiah's Hope"

Analisa 2006

Analisa 2002

August 2, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. We just received our travel date! We will be heading out on August 15th, and will arrive in Kyiv, Ukraine a few days prior to our meeting at the National Adoption Center (NAC) on August 20th. The NAC will then tell us what region we will be traveling to. We will be carrying a GSM mobile phone, and also hope we will be able to use our laptop computer to keep in touch with everyone during the entire trip. We have requested that our little girl would be between the ages of 12 to 18 months, but we will not know until we arrive what is available. Her first name will be Analisa, and her middle name will be Jeffords after Janet's maiden name. We have a few pictures of her new room posted below. We were really excited that Randal Thompson painted Analisa's name on the wall for us while visiting us last week with his daughter Elizabeth. Packing for this trip has been an adventure in itself with all of the hardware required for connectivity in that part of the world, and the huge scary part is wondering if we can keep in touch with everyone via computer for such a long trip. We hope to be stateside by September 5th, but much of that is determined by whichever Ukraine judge we have to work with.

August 9, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. We are getting down to the wire. I am still waiting for the GSM phone to arrive by Fed Ex. We are still waiting for our Visas to arrive from the Ukraine embassy, which are also very late due to "paper work" problems. They are also arriving by Fed Ex. I have decided to stop chasing the Fed Ex truck down the street. It annoys the driver, and besides, he assures me he knows our address. Janet is working on last minute details on the cakes and flower orders for the next month. I am working out the last minute details on rental items and "Dusk til Dawn DJ" (the name fits well, he is nocturnal) issues with our son Josh. Needless to say all of the activity around here is not much different than if we were scheduling a trip to deliver at Trinity Medical! We just completed the purchase, staining and finishing of Analisa's new high chair. Everything is coming together, except we are still agonizing over where to store all of this lead crystal! Janet trashed all of my Sea Ray and Porsche literature this week. I think Josh pulled the Porsche brochure back out, I saw it on the coffee table this morning.... We spoke with Viktoria (Vicka) Veligodskaya (she lives in the Zaporozhye region, Ukraine) and she is looking forward to visiting with us during our stay in Ukraine. She was an exchange student this past year but is back home preparing to go to the university. She was hosted by our friends (Carol and Chuck Summers) this past year and we really enjoyed meeting her. We had many countries to choose from for our adoption, and Vicka truly inspired us to choose Ukraine. We have included a couple of pictures of Vicka and Maria (who was an exchange student from Russia) from our trip to New York City a few months ago. We stayed in Times Square and travelled all over Manhattan for three days with them and had so much fun. One night we ate at an authentic Ukrainian restaurant, and it was really good!

August 14, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. We are down to less than 24 hours to head out. We have met with all of our No Worries Catering team leaders, and have prepared and ordered everything we can think of. We have packed, unpacked and repacked. Normally when we travel we pack about three hours before we are supposed to be at the airport. We have received many e-mails from other adoptive parents who have recently returned from Ukraine, which are very encouraging and we are definitely getting excited. Janet's mom has agreed to come down and run all of our day to day stuff, including all of the business calls we receive. This is a lot to ask, and we are very grateful that she was willing to do this for us. We also could not have made this trip without all of the hard work of Cindy Greer, Jason Ellison, Lori Luckey and all of the dedicated people that make it all happen at No Worries Catering.

August 17, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. We left Dallas DFW airport around 2:00 pm on Thursday the 15th and arrived in Zurich, Switzerland around 7:30 am the 16th. After a three hour lay over in Zurich we flew on to Kyiv, Ukraine and arrived around 2:30 pm. Our flight on Swiss Air was one of the best flights we have ever been on. We arrived right on schedule and it took us about one hour to clear through the passport official and to stand in the line for customs. We were lucky, they did not ask us to open our bags, show our money or anything like the stories we have heard. When we passed into the main waiting lobby where people are met by friends and family it was like a wild mob. It was also very hot, loud and confusing. Nobody spoke English. We looked about frantically for our contact with a sign that would have our names on it, attached to a person who spoke English. Our first hurdle: no one was there. We used our GSM phone to get in touch with our agency in Houston because one of the local numbers did not work, and the other number was answered by someone who spoke only Russian. After about three hours of searching for our driver, we were asked to leave the airport by the police. We are now sitting on a bench outside of the Kyiv airport, no one speaks English, I need to use the restroom, and Janet is tired. Four and a half hours after our arrival it is getting dark, we are still sitting on a bench, there are no restrooms, and we have been up for 27 hours with no sleep. I felt like we were at home at the end of a typical catering weekend! Anyway, we finally accepted the offer of a private individual (not a licensed cab driver) to take us to the main part of Kyiv to a hotel. We are in transit to the hotel when we finally hear from Svetlana, who is a local translator. We ask her to meet us at the Hotel Dnipro (nee-pro), which is in the center of Kyiv. There is a picture of Janet sitting by the umbrellas outside the hotel. Yes, it was definitely happy hour in Kyiv!

We went to dinner with Svetlana at a very good Ukrainian restaurant, and the food is excellent. Janet had the traditional varaneke dumplings (like Chinese pot-stickers), we both had the traditional soup which is called borscht. We shared the pate' and also an order of a Ukrainian beef stew. Everything was excellent. The bread is also very good. We went straight to our flat after the meal and crashed around 11:00 pm Kyiv time, about 30 hours into our trip. The flat was very clean and the owner was very nice. The flat was probably 400 square feet, with one bedroom, small kitchenette (which had the only sink), shower and separate water closet (toilet). In the morning we realized we were on the East side of the river Dnipro, which is where the old soviet era apartment buildings were constructed. The West side of the river has all of the businesses and nicer residential areas, which are all high rise flats. The building that we are staying in for the first few days is at least 50 years old, and has only one or two light bulbs working per floor, and you feel around to find the keyhole to unlock the door. It is a nasty building, and smells of urine. We do not bother to ask to see the elevator inspection and maintenance records. You can see a couple of pictures from our window, and of the kitchenette. The building must have been built in the 1950's and was in a scary neighborhood. On Saturday (the 17th) we met our driver, Serge (sir-gay) who was our translators brother. He spoke some English and was very nice. He drove a 1993 Audi mini station wagon which was very clean and looked new. He drove us everywhere and we had a great time. The city has some ancient (9th through 11th century) churches, and many old buildings from the 1700's through the late 1800's. Kyiv is very clean, and a very beautiful place, and the people are very nice. We purchased a wide variety of keepsakes for Analisa, which were very unusual and unique to Ukraine. We had another excellent meal. Overall we would consider coming here on a vacation to see more of the historic sites because our experience has been very positive.

August 18, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. When we got back to our flat we stopped at the very small local market to pick up some bottled water and food items. We were once again pleasantly surprised to find the market had everything we needed. It even had a small but very nice bakery and deli with cheeses and selection of dried meats. So I would say our first day in Kiev was just great. We met our new translator today (Luda) and met our attorney (Galena) who will be processing our adoption. We toured the city with Serge and viewed some of the ancient churches up close. They look like Wedgwood china, and are just amazing. We stopped at a local cafeteria, and had a large meal for about $3.00 each. The local currency exchange rate is around $5.25 to the US dollar. An average meal is about $5.00 per person, and an average hotel around $60.00 a night. You can hire a driver all day for around $3 to $5 per hour, or hire a taxi for about $2 per trip. The average monthly income in Ukraine is about the equivalent of $30 US.

August 19, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. We are up early this fine Monday morning. Brad has figured out how to use the coffee appliance we bought. The local coffee is super espresso, and is too strong. We wait around the apartment and about 1:00 receive a phone call from Galena. We will be going to the National Adoption Center (NAC) today. Serge and Luda stopped by around 3:00 pm to take us to our first appointment. From the street you would not have any idea what the building is used for. There is a big grey iron gate and small iron doorway. You walk into the paved driveway next to the building and see the door into the NAC, which Janet is standing next to below.

Once you enter the NAC, you have to be admitted by the guard behind a glass window. You climb up four flights of stairs in a 1900 era building, which is dimly lit, and has no air conditioning. You arrive at the end of this long hall way, which receives between 50 and 100 visitors per week. The director of the agency is a woman named Mrs. Kunko, and she is the gatekeeper for every adoption in Ukraine. We wait for over 2 hours, and Mrs. Kunko admits us into her office around 5:30. Within 30 seconds of our entering her office, she is speaking something in Ukrainian, and waiving her hands in dismissal. Just like in the Wizard of Oz, we are told to come back tomorrow. Ok, we are in Ukraine, have a sense of humor. The adventure of the day is not over. We are told on our drive back to the flat, that they are moving us. When we arrive, the lady that owns the place is frantic to move us out. We have stuff everywhere. Well as much everywhere that you can in a 400 square foot typical one bedroom soviet era flat. So we hurriedly pack and prepare to move. We take our luggage to the elevators. Both elevators are broken. We are on the 5th floor, with aforementioned 500 pounds of luggage. Janet is muttering something about her fondness of the bell boy at the Princess Hotel in Scottsdale and I am using the few Russian curse words I have picked up. Finally, they get the small elevator working, which permits a small person and one bag to go down at a time. Charming.

We arrive at our new flat in Kyiv, which is located near the middle of the city. It is in a much safer and more modern part of town, and has wide streets and wide sidewalks. Everyone walks here. It appears that less then 5% of the people own cars, and it is definitely a luxury. A few of the cars are late model Mercedes, Audi, Volvo, Mazda and BMW. The rest of the cars on the road are a mixture of Russian Lada and Volga's, and French built Peugeot, and Fiats built in the 1950's through 1970's. Needless to say, in Ukraine there are only about 3% who are very wealthy, and the rest live in abject poverty. Back to our moving story. We are now on the 12th floor in a completely refurbished flat. The building was probably built in the late 1960's. Our driver, Serge, offers to go to dinner with us. He takes us to an Irish Pub, and we have some really good lamb chops, and a traditional Ukraine salad (mainly tomato with cucumbers, with a splash of olive oil and sprinkled with cheese). None of their salads have lettuce, and many are an odd mixture of meats (liver and heart) or seafood items (boiled squid and clams). We head home to get to bed early because we are going to be picked up at 8:15 in the morning for our second trip to the NAC.

August 20, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. We arrive at the NAC bright and early. The hallway at the NAC consists of a series of about 7 doors all on one side of the hallway, with the furthest one down the hall belonging to Mrs. Kunko, the director. We have begun to notice that these doors are opened frequently, and slammed loudly. I do not know if this is to prevent homeless people from congregating and sleeping in this hallway, but I do know that it is amusing for the first several hours of waiting... After about two hours of waiting we are admitted into Mrs. Kunko's office. Similar to our scenario yesterday she waives her hands in dismissal, but this time we are told that we will wait in the hallway to see the psychologist. So, we are told for the fifteenth time "sit" and we wait. After about two hours we are abruptly told to "hurry" and enter the psychologists office, which is full of people. We are allowed to look at books full of sick little children. None of these photos are of children the age we want, and most of them have Downes syndrome or far more severe handicaps. Our translator keeps asking us what we want to do. At this point I think she has had a lobotomy. It should be pretty evident what we want to do. Janet is getting very upset. I am still trying to figure out why our key people, whoever they are, are not in here with us. The psychologist only asks us if we have other children, and what ages they are. We are once again told to leave and come back again because the NAC is going to lunch. When we walk out of the NAC we arrive back on the street and find Galena. We are becoming agitated because she has not been in any of our meetings, and her daughter Anna we have not met at all and she is supposed to be ultimately responsible for our adoption. No one can tell us what the big picture is. Galena tells us we need to come back at 3:00 for our third trip to the NAC to see if we can find a baby. We asked Galena why we paid for their services if we if we have to find the baby ourselves. None of this is making sense. We go to lunch at Mcdonald's, which was our drivers choice. Good call on his part because mentally we are both about ready to head back home. We also were getting mad that we bought so many things that will be "useless" souvenirs if we do not obtain a baby. We arrive back at the NAC at around 2:55 and now Galena tells us we are not going back into the NAC. Instead, she asks if we can come back in a few months, or if we can take an older child. Now we are getting very upset. When the advocate you have hired asks you these kinds of questions, you appear to have a problem. Janet tells her no way, read our dossier. We were explicit about taking a girl under 24 months of age for many reasons. Brad told her that we are prepared to pack and go to Russia, where we should have gone in the first place. We told her she had 24 hours to find a baby that met our criteria or we were going home, and we would not come back to Ukraine. Galena then assures us she will make some phone calls. This entire trip up until this point has been goofy. We are told 100 times everything is normal, trust us. I think my dad used to use the military acronym, SNAFU. Don't ask. We asked our driver to stop at the internet cafe on the way back to our flat, which was around 4:00 pm Kyiv time and about 8:00 am Houston time. We wrote a very pointed and detailed e-mail back to our contact at Los Ninos. We would soon find out that this e-mail was the cure. As we arrive at our flat about 20 minutes later my mobile phone is already ringing and it is the agency on the other end of the line. I gave the phone to Janet while I payed the driver. Apparently Kyiv had made no reports to the agency. Cheryl Adamson at Los Ninos immediately worked on the problem. That evening we took a very long walk for several miles through the city. We ate dinner at an outdoor Turkish cafe (Antalya) and enjoyed the evening as much as we could. We did not want to go back to our flat. These people had no idea what they had been putting us through. We did not know what to do. We arrive back in our flat around 10:00 pm and answer the telephone, which apparently had been ringing for quite awhile. Our second translator, Luda, is on the phone and she is panicking. She wants us to go back for our fourth trip to the NAC tomorrow.

August 21, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. The phone rings around 8:15 this morning, and we are now speaking with our third new translator. Her name is Alexandra, or Sasha as they call her. She tells us she has no idea where Luda is when we ask. Galena had hired Alexandra the night before at around 10:00 pm. Does Ukraine ship people to Siberia or was that only with the USSR? She tells us that Galena will pick us up at 10:30 for an 11:00 appointment at the NAC. So we finish getting ready, and partially pack our stuff because who knows what the master plan is with this group. We go down stairs and wait for Galena to arrive at her requested 10:30 time. Just like clock work, Galena arrives around 11:30. She does not have a car, she has no interpreter, and she had to take a taxi. We arrive for the fourth visit to the NAC. Alexandra gets us into the psychologist office, but because Galena was so late arriving we have no time to get into the books and look once again for a baby. It is time for the staff to go to lunch. Alexandra tells us to please be patient, we will come back at 3:00 and get some things done. We arrive back at the NAC at 3:00 for our fifth visit, and Alexandra conducts a series of private meetings. Alexandra was the key. She knew the people at the NAC and knew how to work with them. Around 6:00 pm Alexandra comes out of a meeting and she tells us we need to go pack our stuff and buy train tickets, we are headed to Odessa later that evening. She could not give us many details, but she has a referral. We pack our stuff and are boarding the train by 9:00 pm.

August 22, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. It is now 8:00 am and we have arrived in Odessa after an eleven hour train ride, accompanied by our attorney and no translator. We are met at the train station by our fourth translator in six days, our third driver and our attorneys daughter, Anna. Anna is the one we have heard is in charge of our adoption process, although we have never spoken with her. We are now being asked to immediately board a van and leave the train station. We have traveled all night, have had no coffee, and had no way to clean up. We said "nyet" at this point. We were "permitted" to walk over to a Mcdonald's and have coffee, but we needed to depart by 8:30 for our "two hour ride" to the town of Izmayil which is our actual destination. For those of you not intimately familiar with this part of the world, Izmayil is as far as you can travel and still be in Ukraine. It is on the Black Sea, south of Odessa, and is on the Romanian border. We soon figured out that no one from this group had ever been to Izmayil, and that is why they estimated it to be a two hour drive. Another major observation: Brad has noticed that not one person on the entire team wears a watch! How do you schedule anything if no one wears a watch? Interesting. We also found out that this team has never worked with Americans before. Maybe that is why the sheets have not been turned down at night and there were no chocolate dipped strawberries on the pillow! Instead of a two hour ride, we enjoyed a four hour and fifteen minute adventure in a 1970 era van with no air conditioning, no seat belts, driver who constantly smokes, and no shocks. The van would weave all over the road, and the driver had a quest to pass anything that got within 50 miles of his view. We passed oncoming huge trucks on one lane bridges. These drivers are fearless. We arrive in Izmayil, and the attorney insists that we go right away to the orphanage. Once again we protest. It is now 12:30, we have not eaten since the night before, have not showered or brushed our teeth in 30 hours, and we said "nyet." We checked into the second hotel we stopped at. The attorney had decided that if we did not find a baby we would go back immediately the way we came, and there was no reason for her to locate a hotel. Good plan. I told her that if we did not find a baby, we would shower, eat a meal, sleep, and return to Kyiv the next day. You have to be very blunt with the Ukrainian people, they are tough! So, while our attorney and her daughter paced back and forth yelling at each other on the street, we cleaned up and changed clothes for the ride that would hopefully result in our finding our special little baby.

We are now driving around Izmayil in circles for about 45 minutes, with Galena screaming at Anna, and Anna is screaming back. The driver stops several times, asks for directions, and makes it evident no one has been this far South before. We are now driving through an area that looks similar to what I imagine the worst part of Beirut is like, and we come to a stop. Once again we receive orders to quickly unload the van. We approach this big metal gate which allows entrance to a very tall cement gray wall that surrounds some type of compound. Like many of the buildings we have seen, there is no address or sign age visible from the road. Once inside, we are definitely in Ukraine's version of Oz. The grounds are beautiful, with grape vines, flowers everywhere, and completely refurbished buildings. I asked the interpreter what the sign inside the gate says, and she explains that is is the "special orphan house." Compared to most of the buildings in Ukraine, this must be the local country club. The grounds are very nicely cared for, the people that work here all seem to be very concerned and caring, and the equipment is all new. The buildings appear to be from an old hospital or sanitarium, but everything has been freshly painted. The orphanage has been occupied for about a year. After several hours of formalities, and meeting the Director of the hospital named Viktor, we wait in a room to meet our little girl. The primary care giver is named Valentina, and she brings in our little girl. She is so cute. She has excellent motor skills, and she is very alert. Her name is Nadia at the orphanage, and she responds well to her care givers requests in Russian. We were only allowed to spend about 10 minutes with her, but we knew we wanted her in our family. We were asked to leave Analisa and go to the directors office. We asked questions about her medical record, and then we spoke with Alexandra back in Kyiv to interpret for us. Alexandra is a medical doctor, and we also trusted her. Analisa had no medical problems, and we were glad to hear that. We told Galena we definitely wanted her. We headed back to the hotel, and prepared for Friday morning, which is when we would prepare many of the legal documents. Our team headed back to Odessa for the evening.

August 23, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. Our team arrived back at our hotel at 9:00 am, ready to take us to see our little girl. This time we are allowed to spend much more time with her. At first she was scared, but we worked with her and slowly won her confidence. We fed her apple jacks and gold fish, and played with toys. We went outside and walked with her, and she held onto Janet's finger. She makes a lot of eye contact, and really is alert. She is rather impatient. When she pushes her little finger at the buttons, she wants the music to play "right now," and will keep jabbing at the buttons until she gets what she wants. Oh goodie, my mother in law, my wife and now my daughter are all impatient! We have had a great day with Analisa, and we got to spend about an hour and a half with her, and we know she will be so much fun. We met with Viktor, the director, and he gave us more information about Analisa. She was born in a city named Reni, which is literally on the Romanian and Moldova border about 30 miles from where we are. Reni is a town of around 40,000 people. Her mothers name was Anna (born 3/62), and her fathers name was Viktor (born in Reni, 2/1960). Nadia is the name the mother gave her at birth. She was the fourth live birth, but we have no history on her sibling at this time. Her mother and father took her home with them, but returned her to the hospital in February 2001 when she had the flu. They could not afford to pay the hospital bill, and allowed her to remain. She was transferred to the special orphanage May 5, 2001.

August 24, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. Our immune systems have taken a toll. No one has air conditioning in their cars or apartments, so we have been driving on dusty roads with open windows, and sleeping with open windows. Everyone smokes every place you go. We both have very bad sinus infections and have broken out the Cipro antibiotic. We will not be able to visit Analisa today because we do not want to be around her with this stuff. We visited some local scenic sites today with our new driver, Max. Today is Ukraine independence day. It is a special time to be here to adopt our baby. The local people are proud and have a lot of heart. We have observed in every city how hard people work to keep what little they may have clean and in order. No one is lazy here. At dinner tonight at our hotel, the room was filled with local people dressed in their finest evening wear, and they sang and danced late into the night.

August 24, 2002 Move your mouse over pictures to read the captions. We had a great visit with Viktoria, she is such a neat girl, and everyone back home has been writing asking how our visit went with her. We even had the opportunity to take her with us into the courtroom when the judge declared Analisa our baby! After court, all of us went to the orphan house for the last time, and Analisa was ours! While Vicka, Analisa and Janet went to the hotel, I went with our driver and attorney to the birth city of our baby to obtain her birth certificate. The road on the way to the town of Reni has a road block with an armed guard. Our driver explains that only recently has this road been opened up, they are afraid people will escape across the border. We drive for many miles on a two lane road, and to our left (West side) we see a five foot high barbed wire electric fence, which is still kept "juiced up." This is the Romanian border. A few feet beyond the fence is the Danube river which defines the border between Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. We are told that the Moldova border has similar guards and electric fencing, which we will unknowingly get to experience the next morning. The first picture below was taken our first evening with our baby at our hotel in Izmayil, and it depicts one of Analisa's preferred sleeping positions. She is a healthy little girl, and we are already observing progress with her motor and verbal skills. She is not crying as much as when we were seeing her at the orphanage, and she no longer cries when we take her picture. The next morning at 7:00 am we headed out of Izmayil with both of our Ukraine princesses and drove for 4 hours until we arrived in Odessa. Our driver chose to take a short cut through Moldova, which made all of us nervous. We approached an armed guard post with road blocks and "treadles" and our driver says "everyone, do not speak." We all sit still while the armed military guard looks us over and then hands our driver a little scrap of paper. About 10 miles later we come to a similar road block as we leave Moldova and our driver hands the paper back. We have "illegally" gone into Moldova, so I am going to ask George and Norma Keistler if we are allowed to add that to one of our countries we have visited! We gave the driver a big tip for the extra country adventure. The other pictures below are of Analisa with her first visit to a Mcdonald's (there were none in Izmayil)! This one is located next to the train station in Odessa. Sadly (and abruptly, like everything here) after lunch we put Vicka on her train, and then headed off to do more paperwork.

The pictures below are of a very typical Ukraine "flat" or apartment. The entrance has a foyer with a 4 x 4 entry. To the left is a combo toilet and shower, which is about 5 ft 5 in height and also 4 x 4. You enter the kitchen, and it is about 12 x 9. The main room is about 15 x 18. Analisa is sleeping on the bed, which is behind the fan in the 4th photo. The flat is located in the center of Odessa in a very old building. I was really concerned about carrying Analisa up and down the rotted 100 year old wooden stairs. They spiraled straight down and were about 6 inches wide with no rail to hold onto except a vertical (broken in several places) 2 x 4 board. Our insurance agent would cancel our policies if he knew we traveled here! We stayed in the flat with Analisa for a few hours while we took turns going to different government buildings and completing more paperwork. This trip is not for the weak of heart. It is truly amazing. Yes, in the third photo that is a 1983 era PC-XT.

In the first picture below, we have just completed our 11 hour train ride from Odessa, and are arriving back in Kyiv at 7:15 am. Analisa did real good for so many changes in her life! Some of her firsts: in a car (since she was 6 months old), ate at Mcdonald's, had dinner at a street cafe, been to a big city with all the lights, rode in a train, watched TV. The middle picture is of the proud new mommy with her bundle of joy in the park next to our flat in Kyiv. We are staying in a "ritzy" area if Kyiv, and it is very nice. In the afternoon after arriving at our flat, we took Analisa for a walk in another park (around the corner at our favorite Turkish place, Antalya) and she chased pigeons and just squealed when they flew away. In the last picture she is watching TV for probably the first time. None of the orphanage rooms have TV except the visitation room where you meet the baby for the first time. Every time Analisa came to the room she just stared at the TV on the Doctors desk.

This picture was taken Sunday 9/1 at 12:15 Kyiv time (4:15 am Dallas time). Analisa has giggled non-stop, and is really doing very well. She has learned more things every day, and is like a sponge. She is 100% potty trained, which has made mommy very happy. She hates taking a bath! I think she had her first "traditional style" bath yesterday with us, and we gave her one again this morning. She is just the coolest little kid!

We have been very busy the past few days trying to get out of Ukraine early. On Monday night we had dinner with Melonie and Clifford Varnell, who live about 30 miles from our home back in Texas. It is so funny to meet people for the first time 12,000 miles from Texas that live so close to you back home. Melonie and Clifford were telling us their horror stories, and then the other couple that joined us (from Jacksonville, Florida) were telling us their stories. Melonie and her husband adopted a very pretty (and gentle natured) little girl, and the couple from Florida adopted her little brother, who is also just adorable. Their children were very healthy, and very beautiful kids. The couple from Florida were going to travel by train from Kyiv to Warsaw. It is an 18 hour journey, and according to the wife (I did not get her name, the husbands name was Val) part of the delay is due to the different track gauge, and they have to change the wheels on the train. After having dinner, we decided we would try to get out of Ukraine earlier, rather than sit around "stuck" in our flat for 4 days of doing nothing. We had already gone to the airlines once, and they said they could not pull our flights up and we would have to wait until Friday. Nyet. We spent $600 more and we got tickets, and we would be able to fly on Wednesday afternoon. The catch was that we had to get Analisa in for a physical, get to the embassy in Kyiv, and get the final documents signed off by over 500 Ukrainian officials (or so it seems). Our attorney was able get everything pulled up a couple of days on the finalization of our legal documents on Tuesday morning. We also were able to get Analisa into the American Medical Center in Kyiv for her required physical at 9:00 am Tuesday. The doctors confirmed our assessment, her lungs are extremely healthy, which she demonstrates when she does not get her way in a timely fashion! We also got into the US Embassy in Kyiv at 3:00 pm, where they checked all of our documents (for the 32nd time it seems). We now had to rush over to the travel agency, and after an hour or so we secured plane tickets for 11:50 am departure on Wednesday. Boy were we happy! We are over touring the city, we are tired of the sitting around in our 400 square foot flat, etc. We arrive at the airport, and discover that although we paid for business class for all of our tickets, only one was actually business class. They would not sell us an upgrade for the other seat when we offered to pay more. Interesting, Janet had an empty seat next to her for the flight, and there were also a couple of other empty seats in this class. We got through customs just fine, and headed for the business lounge to wait the "scheduled" final forty minutes for departure. The lounge refused to admit us since my business class pass only admitted one "guest." I told them I gave the pass to my wife, and we were traveling together. Nyet! I decided I just wanted to get out of this country. No one here knows how to say thank you, and we have been told at least 50 times "you must pay right now." They want our money but do not want to provide the service. Oh, we began boarding the plane 30 minutes after the scheduled departure time, for no apparent reason. So, we are now standing around in the airport terminal, and we are gathering other English speaking people around us with little babies. We are all sharing our stories, and to varying degrees they are the same story. We all agreed that Ukraine was in many ways a beautiful country, but with the present economic conditions, corruption at every level (you pay $100 to $3000 US to open every door), and police scrutiny, we have rescued these little children from a dreary and very rough life. One of our drivers, Serge, was stopped at least once every day, and every time he gave the police a few dollars they let him go. It appeared that he had not done anything wrong, but he had a nice car. At the airport, we met a police officer from the Philly area and he and his wife adopted a little 3 year old girl. While in Ukraine customs, he was taken to a small room and interrogated. He was told "you have broken Ukraine law, what should we do with you?" Apparently, upon arrival in the country some microcephalic customs agent had not stamped one of his forms correctly, and this poor guy is now a criminal. They made him sign some forms in Ukrainian (probably preventing him from coming back to this place, ha) and they let him go. He was terrified because they had his passports. One couple we met at the airport we felt very sorry for. They have spent two weeks over here, gone to 4 orphanages (using an agency) and had gone home empty handed. Another couple had come back for a second trip because the judge arbitrarily imposed the thirty day waiting period. We met at least seven other American couples here this week, and six were going home with healthy little babies. The youngest little girl we met was 14 months old, our Analisa was the second youngest at 22 months, one little girl was 27 months old (she weighed 35 pounds and the parents have spent 30 days here, and looked at 28 children to find her), and others were 3 years to 5.5 years old.

We used the Los Ninos adoption agency Click on logo for Los Ninos website

The pictures above were taken at our "wonderful Sheraton Warsaw," which is a very nice property. We went for a long walk after dinner last night, and it is in a nice area. We are a short walk to the US Embassy, where we have an appointment at 10:15 am September 5th. We fly out this Saturday the 7th, so from August 19th (the day prior to our first meeting at the NAC) until departure we are at 20 days to complete the process. We will actually have been here 23 days. Would we come back to Ukraine? Probably not. The people are nice that we have met, but there are far too many silly rules, and the government is oppressive and does not make it easy for anyone to travel through the country. If someone is going to adopt from Ukraine, please use a good agency like Los Ninos. We had problems with our initial team of people here, and we e-mailed our agency back home. Within one hour of our e-mail, Cheryl Adamson had them replace several of the players. There is a particular contact in Kyiv that we give 90% of the credit to for our successful adoption story, and to Sasha we will always be grateful. If you wish to adopt, we would strongly suggest that you consider Russia, we understand that they are much more accommodating. We met a very nice Italian family while waiting at the NAC and they were so frustrated they were going to go home and not return. Just about every person we have spoken with this past week has agreed that they would not recommend Ukraine for adoption. On a happy note, if you go to Warsaw, definitely stay at the Sheraton. And, one block North of the Sheraton is a fantastic four star quality restaraunt called "Rubikon." Please tell the owner that Brad and Janet sent you, he will know who we are, we raved over the quality of his food. His presentation and food quality is on par with the Mansion at Turtle Creek!

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