Our 2nd Adoption Journey: 1st Trip

Day 1:

Finally the day we leave for Ukraine is here! Jason came down with a bad stomach bug the night before we left. Thankfully he was well enough to travel the next day. Thank you all for your prayers!

We left Atlanta at 4:50pm (EST) on Saturday, February 1st. What’s crazy is that’s the exact schedule we had 5 1/2 years ago on our first adoption. Just like before, we had a lay over in Frankfurt, Germany and we landed in Kyiv, Ukraine at 1pm (5am CST) on Sunday. It was a long trip!

When we got to Kyiv our driver picked us up and brought us to our hotel. We decided to stay in the center of Kyiv at Independence Square. We will only be staying in Kyiv two nights. It’s amazing how inexpensive everything is over here!

Once we got settled, we went to Пузата Хата (Puzata Hata) for a quick dinner. It’s a popular restaurant chain over here. They serve some Ukrainian dishes. After dinner, I convinced Jason to walk up to Saint Michael’s. It brought back so many memories. There was a man playing an Ukrainian Bandura (I think that’s what it was) in front of Saint Michael’s. It was awesome.

Now we’re back at the hotel about to call it a night. Our DAP appointment is at 9:15am (1:15am CST) tomorrow morning.

Day 2:

This morning our driver picked us up around 8:40am. He took us to meet with our adoption facilitating team. Afterwards, we headed to our DAP (Ukraine’s central adoption agency) appointment. We saw Mila’s file and they read some of her history to us. We found out some sad and surprising details about her there. After learning the details, I am even more convinced that God orchestrated this. There are too many coincidences! We are so excited to soon call her our own.

While we were at DAP, we met another couple who is adopting. We made plans to eat together for dinner later.

After DAP, our driver brought us to the train station to purchase tickets to travel to Mila’s region tomorrow. We leave at 6:45am (10:45pm CST) by speed train to Kharkiv. Then we will meet our facilitator who will drive us to Serevodonetsk. Altogether, it will be a full day of travel. 

Jason and I ate lunch at Опанас (O’panas). It is a very unique restaurant located at Shevchenko Park. The food was amazing! Our entire meal was only $30. We would have easily paid $80 or more in the states for a meal of this quality. Shevchenko Park is very special to me. I spent everyday in this park with Katy & Brody for over 2 weeks. We spent hours playing in the playground there and we ate many lunches from the food carts there. It was so good to see this place again! 

At 4:15pm, our driver picked us up to go back to DAP to pick up our referral. 

After we got our referral we went to dinner with the couple we met. It was wonderful hearing their stories about ways God has provided for their adoption. God is simply amazing! We tried a cool restaurant called The Last Barricade. It was hidden and you had to know a special password to enter. The restaurant is full of surprises with lots of Ukrainian history. All the ingredients used at the restaurant are from Ukraine, including the sodas.

We can’t wait to get to Mila’s region! Please pray that we have a problem free day of travel tomorrow.

Day 3:

Our driver picked us up at 5:50am (9:50pm CST) to bring us to the train station in Kyiv. We were so thankful that our driver took us all the way to our train and showed us our seats. He has really helped make our journey less stressful. The train was much nicer than we were expecting. We had a lot of room. Our train left at 6:45am and we arrived in Kharkiv at 11:31am. 

At the train station in Kharkiv we were greeted by the regional facilitator and her husband. They would drive us all the way to Sieverodonetsk. It is impossible to go there by train anymore because the tracks run through many Russian dominated areas because of the war. 

Before we left Kharkiv, we went to get some paperwork notarized because the notary in Sieverodonetsk is sick.

We rode there on easily the scariest car ride ever!  I thought we were surely heaven bound a few times. Drivers around here drive very different than we are use to.

We found out midway through the trip that we would be able to meet Mila today! I couldn’t believe it. We weren’t expecting to meet her until tomorrow. We arrived at the orphanage at around 4pm.

It was so surreal to meet Mila. In person, she is so tiny! At first she was very shy. But after a little while we saw her personality come out. She is extremely smart. She even knows how to read! She is a little lady who loves to look her best. She explained to us how she asked her nanny if she could wear blue eyeshadow today when she met us. But her nanny said no. I caught her crossing her legs constantly. She’s absolutely precious! I can’t believe she is going to be our daughter soon. 

We are so very excited! 

Since it’s late we weren’t able to spend a lot of time with her tonight but we will spent many hours with her tomorrow.

Day 4:

We are staying in a hotel only one block from Mila’s orphanage. This hotel is much better than the hotel we stayed in in Kyiv. We have a separate living room and an enclosed balcony. Breakfast is free at this hotel but Ukrainian breakfasts are nothing like American breakfasts. Jason wouldn’t eat anything. I was even a little hesitant. The hotel also has a restaurant for lunch and dinner. The food for lunch and dinner is much better. 

After breakfast, we visited with Mila for a couple of hours. We came back later this afternoon and spent more time with her. She really started warming up to us. 

She is so meticulous in everything that she does. For instance, both times she was finished playing with play doh she cleaned every speck of it off the play doh toys. When we were done you couldn’t even tell they had ever been used. She did the same with everything else. She pushed chairs in and picked up all her toys. It was amazing. Maybe she will show me how to be better at being neat.

Mila’s three favorite things we brought today were a set of necklaces, bubbles and watching videos of herself on our phones. When she really likes something she loves to show everyone. She showed off her necklaces to every nanny that passed over and over again. She did the same with the bubbles and the videos. 

We got quite a lot of giggles today (mainly due to funny Papa a.k.a. Jason.) She has definitely warmed up to Jason. Yesterday she wouldn’t let him close to her. There aren’t many men that come to the orphanage. 

We found out today that we will be able to go back to Kyiv tomorrow evening and fly home on Friday. Although it will be so difficult to leave without Mila, we know that this process will be complete soon. The paperwork has been finished to submit for our court date. We should get a court date in about 30 days or more. At that time, Jason and I (and possibly Clark) will return for a quick trip for court. Then there is another 30 day wait. I will return alone on the third trip to complete the process and bring our daughter home. We are estimating to bring her home in late April.

Day 5:

This morning we went to visit with Mila. Outside was a winter wonderland. We were able to meet the orphanage director. This is the one who Jason posted an article about in our group. In July of 2014, she saved the 61 children in her orphanage in Luhansk from be smuggled across the Russian border. We were in Ukraine while this was happening!!! Mila was born a few months later and she was brought to the new orphanage in Sieverodonetsk where the director brought all the children. It’s amazing that through all the disaster of the war, these children had a beautiful place to live and caregivers who truly loved them. 

After our visit with Mila, we packed up and we made the 3 1/2 hour drive to Kharkiv. Our driver was a little less scary today. We got to Kharkiv several hours before our train arrived. So we ate some McDonald’s and I got some coffee at Aroma Kava. We waited in a waiting room and our train left at 6:36pm. We’ll get to Kyiv at 11:27pm. We have a driver that will pick us up and bring us to a hotel next to the airport. We fly out at 1:55pm tomorrow and arrive in Atlanta at 8:25pm. 

This trip was less than a week! That is much shorter than I expected. Our facilitator thinks we will have court the first week of March!

Day 6:

We left Kyiv at 1:55pm. We had a connection flight in Amsterdam and then we were headed to Atlanta. We arrived in Atlanta a few minutes ago. We are so glad to be back. It’s been a crazy week of traveling but it was all worth it to meet Mila.