Iraq was Safer Than This Trip

We both agree, Iraqi was safer than this trip. At 0800 Friday we felt doomed, the Director of the Orphanage had been fighting us tooth and nail for 6 weeks. She had asked for the city prosecutors office to prepare an appeal to the court order granting the adoption.

We got to the City Prosecutor before he made up his mind. He called her into his office to chewed her out. Then on the last day of the 10 day waiting period, she turns in an intent to appeal letter she had done by a private lawyer.

Thursday night, we left our lawyers with grim news about any fancy footwork. The Director would not budge and we had a letter of intent to appeal, a twenty day delay and when they delivered the appeal, it would drag the fight out 3-6 months and no confidence of success. We were exhausted, low or out of leave, broke and almost broken.

We had been told that Friday morning, a special meeting was to be held with a delegation from Lugansk, the regional capitol. The Local Inspector was told this was a fact finding mission about the case.

We woke up Friday morning, the day we would normally have picked up the kids. We read the last day, day 40, of the Love Dare. (Its a couples devotional we brought with us on the trip, based on the Film "Fireproof"). Then we found we both had the same thought: Lets go back by the City Prosecutor's Office. Max, our facilitator, was going to the Inspector's Office and Vova, our translator and Friend, joined us on our desperate mission.


We waited outside the Prosecutors office for twenty minutes, no appointment, no citizenship. He agreed to meet us and we were seated at in front of his desk at 0930. He is in his late 40s, in a suit this time (Last meeting was on a Saturday), with two Deputy Prosecutors standing by. He told us he had heard about the appeal and had made a few calls. He had just talked to the Director and found out she was trying to get Press at the meeting and her good Friends where some of the Inspectors coming. During this discussion, I got a text message from Max saying that we would meet up in front of the Orphanage at 1130 for the meeting. It was planed to be a trap, and we were the target!

The City Prosecutor did what he does best, he got mad. He asked us if we would file a complaint, and called the Militia (law enforcement) for some information. About 10 minutes later a uniformed Militia Officer came in with a report. 65 runaway cases in the city last year and 54 of them from the Internaugt. He was going to launch several investigations!

He was moving fast now, he called the press and turned off any planed coverage (I think) and we went to the Deputy Prosecutor's office who handles Family court where Max joined us and we started writing. At 1115 we were escorted by her and the Deputy Prosecutor who represented the state in our hearing into two cabs (Russlan and Aleg at the wheel) and we got to the Internaut at 1125.

"High Noon," at 1130, as we walked to the front door, the Prosecutors had gotten ahead of us and were heading upstairs. We where stopped and made to wait in the lobby by a male teacher as a Sergeant at arms. The Inspector joined us in the in the holding pen, until the door person was talked into calling for updated orders on our detention.

We where sent to the Directors waiting room and the Inspector joined the cat fight inside. We waited for hour and a half, listing too heated discussions and watching people shuttle in and out for copies of our complaint.

It was all insane, but thank goodness we got to wait outside the door. In any event - after two separate trips to the prosecutor's office, three visits to the best adoption lawyer in town (previous prosecutor) and a visit by three regional directors above the Director along with two of the city prosecutors the Director pulled the intent to appeal at 1307 hrs.

The Scene, the Directors office at about 1500, the Director trying to look in control, the local Inspector, the three Regional Directors, and the two local deputy prosecutors at a "lets kiss and make nice" meeting:

Erik got the last laugh when he pulled out the Ukraine Family Code Book from his jacket pocket and told all the ladies that made the Director change her mind on the appeal ( that "(he) appreciated the wisdom of the laws of the this country". The Director was about to croak when she saw the book! They laughed too, well all but the Director!

The "Best interest of the Children"! Chapter 18 article 218!

The Inspectors, Prosecutors promised to stand by until we got the kids out, they left with us at 1655. We piled in a cab and drove directly to Get Maxim and meet Vova there. He had rode ahead to get things moving. What a day, God be praised!

Sunday Night-Long story short - we have two more stops on Mon and Tue am and then we travel back to Kiev and should be able to fly by the weekend.

Heidi sends:

This parenting thing would be a lot better if the daughters would stop sending death looks! Ha! The girls are still stinkers, but they come along now and then!

Max and Sasha both have slept in our bed with us a bit the past two nights so those guys are coming around!

The caregivers sure didn't do us any favors! Just the fact that the girls get in a stink even when we try to warn them on caution stuff or trying to stop them from walking in front of a car (cars don't stop for anything out here!) and especially with the snow and ice!

But we are getting through it!

Apparently they are enjoying the "freedom of it all." No routines, but according to our translators, they don't believe the freedom will last! We have kind of let them just be, once we get them back to the two room and living room suite we are currently in. We get them washed up (the girls have learned the bathtub routine is more fun in warm water and a real full tub)! (They are all used to getting hosed down maybe once a week in a 3x3 floor basin. And the boys have both had baths too and they seem to enjoy them! Unfortunatly Maxim wanted to take one after the girls drained all the hot water (it is a small electric water heater that takes a while to regenerate once you have used it all) but he still had a bath (with bubble bath soap of course!).

Today we let them sleep in til they woke up and then we all just hung out till noon- they watching dvds and the TV and Erik and I just repacking our stuff (we moved from our one room hotel room to the suite at night so we had no prep time and it was a bit of a mess to do and recover from)!  Christina even stayed in her pajamas til 1pm and told our translators about it later. We met up with Max and Vova to head to the stable to get a pony ride and take the kids on a sleigh ride. They liked most of it, except when we hit a curve and the sleigh turned over a bit and pitched all of us out (I was the only other adult besides the horse owner on) and they were cold, snowy and the girls were scared of every bump. I had to turn him around after that. Dasha was with us (Roslun's daughter) and was disappointed because she loved it all! She told Vova and Max later what they all said on the ride. It was fun to get the intrepretation even though I pretty much knew the girls were unhappy and Sasha was cold (he had gotten his gloves all wet before we even had left the hotel with a snowball fight and cleaning off Alec's car). The snow was wonderful though!

Took the kids clothes shopping tonight. Soo many decisions they never, ever had to make before!!! The girls both got matching pink dresses and tights with pretty flowers on the lower legs. The dress is really what made Christina happy! They also got a pair of pants too. They wouldn't pick out anything else though we wanted them too. The boys got a couple of pairs of pants and tops and sweaters. They were not really helpful in trying stuff on either! It doesn't help that the clothes shop is in a toy store. The second store we went to was for underwear, and the place we went for coats - yep, another toy store! So Maxim got the remote control car he was hoping for, and the others got something fun too!

We tried to do a family photo - well we did it but Sasha was really homesick and this was only 2 hours after they left so he was looking down. I really don't know how the photo turned out yet, but will look at it. We will try to get another taken to send ya!

Love to all

Erik & Heidi
the blesd