Still safe over here! Everything is going good. I saw Dasha twice today. She still has a runny nose, but seems to be doing good other than that.

We are going to Kerch tomorrow to pick up the new birth certificate!! I hope to spring her out of there in the next couple of days, ASAP!!

Everything is Good!

Sorry for no update. I had one day that the internet was not working. I had to go get it fixed, with the help of my driver. Never could understand what the problem was due to the language barrier. But they fixed it! It is working really slow though. It takes a REALLY long time to download pictures.

Dasha is feeling better! She hasn't had a fever since I last posted, but today she had a runny nose. :( I hope that it goes away. It seems that she is just fighting it off and on. Her whole groupa is sick. Actually, the doctor said it is the entire orphanage, flu epidemic. Praying I don't get it!
Hopefully, when she leaves here (one day next week, not sure which day yet) she can get rid of it once and for all and not pick up more germs!

She is such a delightful little angel! Wow, she is something else! :) I can't wait to get her home with John Paul! They are doing a lot of the same things! She said mama one time today. She waved at me and said, "Ba ba". She has been getting really vocal (babbling). She has the sweetest, tiniest little voice. It is so precious! I hope John Paul and Dasha really take off developmentally once they get together. I think John Paul will be happy to have another child in the house. I cannot wait to get home to him! I miss him so much!! I am getting pretty home sick over here. I have spent a lot of time in Ukraine since last April! I will have spent close to three months over here by the time this adoption is over, I think that is right. It is interesting to experience a different culture. The difficult part is being here for so long alone! Our facilitator will be back on Monday, so that will be nice to have someone I can speak English to. Well, actually Sergei, our driver, speaks pretty good English too. I have been taking a driver this time because our facilitator urged me to do so. Apparently, it is less safe than it was this summer due to economic conditions. This summer we took public transportation. I was determined to do so again, but Rick thought it was a bad idea too. There have been 3 bank robberies down here recently too. So, I think a driver is a good idea considering.

Anyway, I'll try to do better with updating the blog. Some have expressed they were worried about me over here alone. I apologize for that! I have been busy on the web cam with my mom and John Paul and also sending IM's back and forth to friends. Well, I can see JP and my mom on the web cam. The connection is too slow to carry the sound. It cracks and breaks up, but at least I can see JP! It gets a little frustrating trying to download pictures too. It takes forever! The video clips won't download at all. The computer freezes up and the browser stops responding. I assume it is due to slow connection since the web cam freezes up for that reason. I have a lot of pictures though! I will work on that tomorrow when I have a couple of free hours in the evening. Right now I need to get some rest so I can go see Dasha in the morning.

Thank you everyone for your prayers for Dasha and me!!

I will post more pics tomorrow! But for now here is the black coat picture that everyone is wondering what happened to! lol!!



Feeling Better!

Update

It's way past time for an update! Everything is going well. Dasha and I have had a lot of fun playing over the last few days. This morning when I went though she acted cranky and tired. She also had a cough and started running a fever while I was there. I cuddled her and rocked her and she went to sleep. Yulia talked to the care giver for me and they checked her temperature. They gave it to me in celcius though. Yulia said it was only a little high and that they would order some medicine for her. Her entire groupa has been passing around the flu. I am praying that she will be feeling better by next week when it is time for her to leave with me. She was not herself at all this morning. She was very pitiful acting. :( She was breathing really heavy and hard. Every time she would cough she'd cry. :( We learned from her medical records in July that one of her lungs is not fully developed due to her being born 8 weeks early. She was also very prone to pneumonia the first 1.5 year of her life. It just makes me nervous and I am ready to get her home and checked out thoroughly.

I am going back this afternoon to see her again. I hope she will be feeling better than she did this morning. She slept for 1.5 of the 2 hour visit. She's sweet to watch sleep though and I figured with all of the other babies coughing and crying she probably hasn't been resting well. I know it must be loud in her room because I can hear them coughing and crying in the other room where I visit with Dasha. Poor babies. I hope they all start feeling better fast!

Here are some new pics of Dasha. The ones were she is asleep and covered up with my black coat were taken today. :( I think she looks pale.

GOING TO ORPHANAGE NOW. WILL ADD MORE PICS AND STRAIGHTEN THE ORDER OUT WHEN I GET BACK! JUST SOME TO SEE FOR NOW. :)

We Had Court Today!

We had court today at 4:00 p.m. This time went a lot better than it did when we adopted John Paul! It was much more relaxed. We were both glad of that! JP was the first child that has Down Syndrome to be adopted from that region and they did not understand why we wanted to adopt a child with such a condition during his court. We could not get them understand it at all. Since his adoption two other families have been through the same court to adopt children with Down Syndrome. We also took pictures of John Paul since he has been home to show them. In addition to his pictures, I also brought pictures of Dasha from when we were just over here. I wanted them to see her sweet little face as well. :) They (the judge and jury) seemed very interested in looking at them. The judge looked at them twice and smiled both times. We had the same judge and jury as last time. They remembered us. :)

They didn't ask us a whole lot. Mostly they just wanted to know the answers to the basic questions, like do we support our application for adoption of Dasha, etc. The judge asked me if it was difficult to care for such a child. I was happy to get that opportunity. :) I told her, no not at all. In fact, he is doing really well and becoming quite independent. I was THRILLED to be able to tell her that he has began feeding himself and is also doing really well with toilet training. The judge and lady jury member smiled. The male jury member looked shocked and then smiled. I wondered if it was that he was surprised that he can do those things or that I brought up toilet training in court. lol!! I also told them that he walks on his own now very well. She asked if our family accepts him and if they accept that we are going to adopt Dasha too. That was a yes. We are VERY fortunate to have loving and supportive families. She was happy to see pictures of John Paul playing with my nephew Ethan. She smiled the most at those pictures. She asked if they play together and if nephew accepts him. That was a yes too. :) It really touched my heart! Ethan is a soft spot for me anyway. I love that little guy too.

The judge said that when we came to adopt in the summer that she could not understand why we would want a child with such a condition. She said that she now understands it is because we love them and want to help them. I think the pictures of John Paul and Dasha showed more than our words could ever express. How could you not love these children, they are so beautiful and kind hearted. :)

As much as I have been upset that we couldn't bring Dasha home in July with John Paul, today it all sort of made sense. Maybe it was all God's way of raising awareness for children with Down Syndrome. Maybe it was so they could see for themselves and hear how children with Down Syndrome thrive when they are given love and a family. It was an amazing feeling to see their smiles over John Paul and to hear in the words they were saying that some awareness was raised. I would not have chosen to make Dasha wait 6 months longer to come home, but I am very thankful that we were given this awesome opportunity to share John Paul's progress with the court. What an awesome day!

Oh, and they told us congratulations! There is one minor issue though. The piece of paper from Dasha's birth town stating that her mother's rights had been terminated did not come through. We are not sure why and we know for a fact that she is clear for adoption. Tomorrow we have a driver going to Kerch to pick up the paper and he will bring it back to court. The judge was going to postpone our court until Monday once she realized that the paper was missing. Thank God for Igor (our facilitator). He told her Rick already had train and plane tickets out for tomorrow and would miss his train and flight and talked her into proceeding. She decided to go ahead, but the paper must be brought to her tomorrow. Please pray everything goes okay tomorrow in Kerch and the paper is produced! It is costing us $200 to send the driver there. Ouch! Especially since I have to pay it again when we go back to Kerch to pick up her birth certificate after the 10 day wait. We are really on a time crunch to get me and Dasha out of here by Feb. 4th! Please pray that we get her visa and out of here by then. I did not buy adoption rate tickets this round because I thought I could fairly accurately predict when we would leave. The adoption tickets would have been a whole lot more expensive and I was nervous to spend so much. We just decided to take our chances. I allowed 2 extra days to get out by on the departure date (judging from how long it took last time). The problem is that they passed a new law in December about the birth certificates. You can no longer get them in the same day. You have to wait 2 to 3 days. So we are looking at making our flights either on the exact day or missing them by a day. If I have to change the departure date then it is going to cost me a minimum of $500 just to change the date, then I will have to pay the fair difference for both of our tickets. I really don't want or need to do that! Please just pray that we will get everything done and wrapped up by Feb. 3rd so Dasha and I can leave on the 4th at 6:45 a.m.! Thank you so much!!!

This is pretty neat too! Today is the traditional Ukrainian New Year's Day! This is based off of the Julian calendar. There were fireworks outside last night for New Year's Eve. Anyway, I thought that it is amazing that Dasha became ours (minus the dreaded 10 day wait) on the first day of her New Year! A new start for a new year! I am so thankful to God today for our little girl, and of course our little John Paul too!! John Paul has new pics on his blog.

We Made it to Simferopol!

We made it here safely Sunday night. Today we went to the orphanage to see Dasha. It was so great to see her again! She remembered us and was happy to see us again. :) She is such a sweet little girl! She fell asleep on me during our morning visit again. I loved it! We have court on Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. and we will appreciate your prayers that everything will go well. We have the same judge that we had last time and I think that will be a good thing.

We are going back to see Dasha again in the morning. I can't wait to see her again! She really opened up to Rick a lot more this time. Last time she didn't seem to know what she thought about him. She still keeps an eye on him. lol! I assume it is because she has never been around men. All of her care givers have been women. John Paul loved having a man around and still does! Dasha however, is just now coming around. I've spent a lot more time with her, so I am sure that is a factor. I'm sure when we get her home and settled in she will be all about her daddy. There is no telling what she thinks right now. She's probably thinking, "This lady just keeps coming back. I wonder if she'll ever take me with her. And who is this man that comes with her for a week and then leaves? I don't know, but they bring good toys and snacks. Everyone keeps calling her mommy. Mommy sure is soft to sleep on. Wonder where Roma is? I can't figure out how to get him out of that book she keeps showing me." lol!

Dasha loves to see John Paul's pictures! She licked his face twice and laughed. lol! I can't wait to get them together!!

John Paul is doing really well at my mom's house. We talked with him earlier on the web cam. He started laughing at us. I guess he was happy to see us. Either that or he thought we were funny looking! lol! He's probably trying to figure out how we got in the computer screen. He was grabbing at the screen. He helped my step dad make a new crate for their small dog today.
My mom told me that at one point John Paul even picked up a drill bit and put it in the drill, just like it goes! Maybe he'll be my little handy man. :) I have pics of it. I'll post them on his blog tomorrow. He is also scooping his own food! Way to go John Paul and Grammy!! He's been putting his spoon in his own mouth for about 2 months now, but he has only scooped himself several times. Apparently, I just needed to make a home made banana pudding and he would have scooped more often! lol! April, we have another cookie pudding lover in the family! Better guard the cookie pudding at Easter! lol! My mom sent me video of him feeding himself. I am so excited that he is doing this!! It's just so awesome! He did feed himself a broccoli chicken casserole meal too! So I guess the banana pudding got him on a roll! I had hoped and prayed that he would be feeding himself before we brought Dasha home. I knew he was so close, but he just wasn't interested in scooping. I knew he could because I have seen him do it. I just couldn't get him to do it for me consistently. Hopefully, he will continue to get better over the next 3 weeks. I'm just so proud of him! And I am proud of my mom too! Last trip he played her! He acted like he didn't know how to put his spoon in his own mouth at all. I told her that he did when I left my instructions, but he apparently was VERY convincing! lol! I have seen it myself! He is a very clever little boy! He conned her into feeding him is what he did! lol! When I returned home, get got busted! lol! And then the little stinker tried the same number on me. Didn't work! This time my mom had his number and he gave her hard time when she made him put his spoon in his mouth himself. She didn't give in this time and I guess she won the battle of the wills because not only is he putting his spoon in his own mouth for her, he is scooping too!! Thank you mom for being so patient and good with him! :) It is VERY difficult to be away from him so long, but it sure helps that I know he is happy and thriving!

I will put all his news pics and video on his blog tomorrow night. It will take me a while to do all of that and right now I need to get some sleep. I am still jet lagged and haven't adjusted very well yet.

I haven't proofread this and I am too tired to do so. Please overlook any errors due to exhaustion. :)

Just a quick update to let every one know we are fine. I haven't updated because I have been so busy getting things taken care of before we leave again. I am on my way out the door now to drive John Paul to NC to his grammy's house again. I'll be back home tomorrow.

We are leaving Saturday and will be in Kiev Sunday night. Then we are also flying to the town where Dasha's orphanage is on Sunday night from Kiev. We were VERY fortunate to find plane tickets cheaper than the train! If anyone is traveling soon and will have a long train ride then check out WIZZair.com. Great prices!! Our tickets were cheaper than the first class train tickets and last time the only train tickets available were first class. I'll take an 1.5 hour flight over an 18 hour train ride any day, especially when it is cheaper! We will be able to see Dasha on Monday. :) Our court is the 14th and Rick will come back home on the 16th. I will have to stay during the 10 day wait and hope to be home with Dasha at the beginning of Feb. Our 10 day wait falls on a Saturday and we will have to wait until Monday the 26th to get her new birth cert., passport, med. exam, and visa.

But of course, I will be updating while I am over there! I just wanted to give a quick run of events.

Thank you so much to everyone for your prayers and support!!

More Pics of Dasha

I can sign mama
My tummy hurts! :(
Here's my best fish face!

Sleeping Angel







My "almost" mommy brought me this new outfit and hat
Here's another mama sign :)