Our First Appointment at the Adoption Center

Hi all. We had our first appointment at the Adoption Center yesterday. We met our coordinator and walked to the center from our apartment. It was only a 7 minute walk. There are many conflicting reports about this part of the process so we did not know what to expect and we were very nervous as you would imagine.

Walking up to the government building, one would think that you would walk into the large front door and then make your way to the Adoption Center. As it turns out, potential adopters go to the small side door of the basement of the building. There is a nice brass sign outside of the door that says it is the Adoption Center. Inside is a very small waiting area that consisted of a couch, a short hallway and a flight of stairs. People were sitting in the waiting area as well as standing in the hallway and on the stairs. Minimalism at its best (perhaps Minnesota's government could take a lesson from these people).

Our appointment was at 3:00 and we got there about 30 minutes ahead of time. A little after 3:00 a woman came to the head of the stairs and called down for our "case" to come up. We went into an office and sat down on a couch in the corner. A woman who is a psychologist with the adoption center sat down in front of us across the coffee table and began talking through our interpreter/coordinator. Other people were in the office and others were coming in and out throughout the discussion. No privacy during this discussion. If one began to cry for joy or sadness while reviewing the children available, it would be there for all to witness!

In any event, she began describing the children available that were in the files she had in hand. Keep in mind that we are looking for a child under the age of 4 years old and healthy. This is a difficult age group to find and there are more boys available than girls (girls are "more adoptable"). We had read a great deal about these appointments and we were not expecting much success with our first appointment. Per our expectation, we were not presented with any children that met our minimum criteria. There were 5 children presented. All older than 4 years old with 4 of them significantly older than 4 years old. All 5 had significant confirmed health problems. We understand that the Adoption Center has a responsibility to these children to try and find homes for them and that these would be the first children presented. The entire meeting lasted less than 30 minutes and they had no more children available.

We will be waiting now for another appointment. Our coordinator is terrific and we feel is working hard for us. We don't know how long it will be before we are invited back. We remain hopeful that this will happen quickly, but there are no guarantees (as everyone keeps reminding us). There is a child out there for us. It is a matter of time in order to find him or her.

Over the next few days, we'll keep updating this blog as we learn more. In the meantime as we wait we will be visiting some sites in Kyiv and learning about the culture in the Ukraine.