Wednesday, April 26

Again, Natalie brought all five of the children from the orphanage in the morning. The five Peckhams and Natalie met at the Post Office so Stan and Toli could have their photos taken for passports and several other needs in the process. Then we marched down the street a short way to the central market for the boys’ turn at shopping for clothes. It went quite well. We had to steer the boys occasionally toward American styles. They seemed happy at the end of it all.

The Dodges were meeting Liera and her twin daughters for lunch and their final get-together at McDonalds. Susan and I wanted Ukrainian fare for lunch; the children wanted American. We conceded to our children’s wish to eat at McDonalds as well. We returned to the apartment so the boys could show the girls what they got. All of the children wanted to wear their new clothes to school tomorrow and we consented.

As Susan and I returned from grocery shopping we came around the corner to the back of the apartment building to see Paul and Natalie supporting a man otherwise unable to stand on his own. They were walking away from our building. I ran over and took Natalies’s place and learned that this otherwise respectable looking man was inebriated and had been spotted trying to keep himself from collapsing by grasping at shrubs and then failing entirely. We walked him down the road a half mile to the approximate area of his supposed home, sat him on a bench and encouraged him to recline and sleep it off.

Vladimir arrived from Kiev a short while later and gave us birth certificates for the children and parental rights deprivation court documents for each parent, as well as translations for each. We read of the conditions that led the revocation of rights which confirmed what we had already been told. Vladimir also explained upcoming events and answered questions. We wanted to know if the US Embassy was going to be open on May 7, 8 or 10 around the May 9th Ukrainian holiday so we might anticipate even a tentative date of return to the US. Though he calls them every day they have not yet been able to tell him. We are trying to decide on when we will need separate apartments (i.e., when we will move the children from the orphanage to live with us). It may be as early as Friday. This single apartment is inadequate for all ten of us.


Thursday, April 27

It is now Friday and the three children are ours. Let’s rewind a bit.

Yesterday morning we met Natalie at the Internet where she printed out the remaining US immigration forms for us. A short while later we left for the school to meet with the Director, Viktor, where we planned to present our gifts to the school. To simplify this process a standardized amount had been added to our fees we paid before we came to Ukraine. Vladimir gave that amount back to us for this gift.

Paul and I went with the Director to make purchases that would fulfill requests of our children’s teachers and what the Director felt was otherwise most needed by the school. One of the teachers had requested a DVD player for her class. Another had requested three tents for class campouts. We purchased the player the Director wanted. He then wanted to provide Stan’s and Dasha’s class and another class each with a new sofa and chair set. He made the selections and we paid the money. We then paid for some seeds and plants for the school vegetable garden. The remaining money will be spent later on the tents.

We then had a little time to return to the apartment for a snack before Paul and I had to go with Vladimir and Natalie to the Notary at 4:45 pm to acknowledge the court decree and then travel to Krolovets and Schostka. Only one parent from each couple had to sign documents. Our feeling before we left the school was that our children were more lovey-dovey today than previously. There seems to be more confidence in their countenances than previously, probably due to the activities in which we’ve been engaged the past couple of days. They can probably see that things are becoming nailed down. There was likely a tentativeness and reservation in previous days. Today Dasha asked for our home address because she was giving her new name (Jennifer Peckham) and our address to her friends. That also shows more certainty in her attitude.

We had an appointment in Krolovets, the district that contains the Buyvalovo village in which Stan was born, at 7 pm. We made it in time and three women were in the office waiting for us. I signed Stan’s new birth certificate with his new name and with us as his parents and we left for Schostka to go through the same process for the Dodge girls. We arrived there before 9 pm and a woman arrived a short time later to take care of the process there. The Schostka office was closed on Thursday, so we assume that Vladimir had provided some kind of incentives out of our fees to get these people out after business hours and on a day off. We are grateful for that.

The court decree did not become official until today (Friday). Nevertheless, he was given the document early and everything done Thursday night was dated for Friday. That has bought us an extra day.

As of this (Friday) morning we are the proud parents of three more children, and Stan may now officially be called Stan. So we’ll begin to call him that – more officially.

I managed to extract from Vladimir what our current best-case scenario is for the remainder of the process. He would return from Russia late on May 3rd. Then we would need someone in the passport office here to be willing to work on Friday the 4th (normally they are closed on Fridays). Then we would travel to Kiev on Sunday, take care of medical exams on Monday, get visas, etc., at the US Embassy on Tuesday, and return home on Wednesday the 9th. We still don’t know whether these businesses in Kiev will be open on those days because of the national holiday on the 9th.