Friday, December 26, 2008

Home for the Holidays

Hi All,
I am sorry if I have not been good about writing in the blog but our life has been upside down for the past couple of weeks. 

Our last few days  in Melitopal were wild. We went and met with Albinas  sister and after alot of crying she agreed to allow us to adopt her sister and refuse to be adopted herself. We bought he a cell phone so we could skype with her and although it required 2 full days of travel and expense we were successful. ( I will detail the process in my book:)



Nadia,Vitaly and Albina (Julia)


More paperwork, lots of trips to the orphanage and finally we boarded the train for kiev and our flight home. The girls traveled separately with Vitaly the following day. I waited in NY and spent the night with friends to take the girls to Cleveland. Wow - 42 hr trip for the girls as we were delayed for many hours due to the snow storm. We arrived home at 5am on the 22nd.

Grace, Nadia, and Julia

We have been careful not to give the girls too much, and they have been adjusting to the american (we have everything) lifestyle.

Christmas as a joy for us just watching the girls interact with Grace ( she is very happy to have sisters!). We gave Albina a bike. It is all she wanted since we met her in September. She has been riding back and forth in the driveway ever since.

We also bought the Rosetta stone English program and every morning they each spend 1/2 hr learning english... i highly recommend this.

At this point we plan to take the girls back to Ukraine Jan 7th and finish the adoption which will take at least another 3 weeks. We received an email this morning from our facilitaor which I will share with you later but the jist was that another couple got thier daughter to Kiev and she said she did not want to be adopted because she heard that children were being taken and killed in America....It's Ukraine... more to Come
MR
  




5 comments:

India said...

Just keep feeling WONDERFUL and saying, "I so appreciate my beautiful family!" Don't let the negative vibes of others deter you from your love and what you, Paula and Grace want in your lives! I LOVE your determination!! The only energy that I am putting in this whole journey is, "Michael will get what he wants!"

I love you SOOOOO! It will be a wonderful way to ring in the New Year with all those beautiful women!

Love, Sis

Michael Redman said...

Hi Sis,
Yes it is a wild journey, and quite stressful but we are taking this one step at a time.
Love you,
Michael

Anonymous said...

Why are there negative vibes?

adopting2fromUkraine said...

So glad to hear you've gotten consent from all relatives now. Our host child through the same group was delayed coming in from JFK also.

I would like to know how you like your facilitator.

Thanks,
June
butchee81@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

I liked what India wrote and agree with her. When you are experiencing such stressful, extraordinary circumstances moving at a relatively rapid pace, small issues can appear larger than what they really are. Best to keep thinking positive thoughts and remember all us are thinking of you and Paula and wishing you all the best.

Tom