Lara's Gone, Now What?

Given we are on the long road program to getting this adoption completed (as we have stated in our prior post), and after much deliberation, Lara is heading back to the U.S. in order to conserve her leave time after Alex returns home. This was our plan if we ran into difficulties finding a child (and we did). We seriously considered her staying, but when we calculated her remaining leave and weighed the fact that our time with Alex here is a few hours a day in a crowded room with six other families, it made more sense that she head back and spend more one on one time with Alex at our house and helping him to get settled in. Now that we know we have a boy and know his age, she is no doubt going to do some damage buying lots of the right stuff a young boy needs before we return home!

It was with a tear in my eye that I watched her pull away in the car headed to the train station last night. We have spent so much one on one time together over the last 5 weeks that the apartment seemed very quiet last night and today. I will miss her greatly. We have gotten along famously here and this trip really confirms that we are best friends and life long partners. When two people have only each other to talk to (nobody else knows English) and have so many obstacles to overcome and problems to solve on the fly, any crack in the partnership would be devastating. We found no such cracks. When I was down, she became the rock and vise versa. (I love you honey!)

After her first class train trip last night, I am glad to report she arrived at the apartment in Kyiv safe and sound without a glitch. She shared the cabin on the train with a babushka (grandma) and it sounds like they got along well and found some way to overcome the language differences. I will leave it to her to post the details of her trip and the woman she met on the train. She will spend two nights in Kyiv (she's there now) and then board a flight Tuesday morning arriving in Minneapolis Tuesday evening. During her stay there she will be going to the U.S. Consulate to sign some official paperwork for the adoption to go into our file. Friday afternoon we ran down and received the three Ukrainian agency approvals needed in order for me to handle the rest of the adoption on my own.

Many of you have asked what is left. After the waiting period (ends on the 15th), I can take custody of Alex. After that we need to apply for his Ukrainian passport in order for him to leave the country at the Vital Records Office here in Simferopol and in the small town where is originally from. This will take about 3-5 days. (If you are wondering, Alex will remain a Ukrainian Citizen until he is eighteen. After that he can decide whether to keep this dual status or revoke it.)

Once we have his passport, we will travel back to Kyiv and go to the U.S. Embassy to finalize our documents, obtain a U.S. Visa for him, and get a required physical examination. This should take 2-3 more days. After that, we are headed home!