Thursday, March 23, 2006

News on the ex-NAC

It hasn't been posted by the Embassy yet, but it seems to be official that the current NAC (Natl Adoption Centre) will shut down at the beginning of April. From then until May 1, they will complete the processing of families already in-country pursuing adoption. All other paperwork will be on hold until the new ministry takes over on May 1. It's a little odd, but I'm really excited about this new ministry taking over. There are still a lot of unknowns--we may still not be able to adopt even after May 1, but it's great to see Ukraine making progress and trying to update their system. In the past, the adoption process for Ukraine was marked with corruption and accusations of corruption. Hopefully the new setup will eliminate those possibilities so the focus will be on finding children homes, not making money on the side.

There are many of us who feel that it would be beneficial to the whole situation if the NAC (or whatever it will be called now) would charge a processing fee for the adoptions. They don't because they don't want it to appear that they are selling children, which I totally understand. But charging $1000 per adoption could make such a difference over there. That money could go towards computerizing their database, facilitating updates on children already in the system (right now it is usually sticky notes, and often times the files are not updated with any regularity), improving orphanage conditions, etc. This is why I'm excited about the new NAC starting on May 1. There are so many possibilities!

Thursday, March 16, 2006

The greatest of these is...hope

I have been thinking about things lately, and reflecting. I have a pretty good commute to and from work--about 25-35 minutes with no traffic--so I have lots of time for ruminating. :) Specifically, this week I was listening to a Christian radio program and the guy was talking about suffering. It got me to thinking. Are we suffering through this adoption process? No.

I thought of how little disappointment we have actually had. No miscarriages. No children placed with us and then removed back to their birthparents. Our entire process has been one of hope, not disappointment, and it will continue to be that. I think of the many families around the world, particularly in countries of war or civil unrest. I think of the mothers who have watched their children be torn from their arms...sold into slavery, conscripted into the army or rebellion forces...or worse. Things could be so much more painful, and for many others they are.

I am so grateful to be in a place where all I can do is hope.

Thank you, Lord, for hope.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Slowly but surely

I tell you, it is a process trying to get things done, or in this case, re-done!

We need to send in notarized and apostilled copies of our doctors' licenses, as the ones currently in Ukraine expired at the end of Jan 2005. So far, my doctor's office did it but without the needed signatures (at least partially, if not entirely, my fault) and Mark's doctor's office had both signatures on it (the doctor and the notary) but the notary's statement says "sworn to and subscribed before me this 3rd day of March 2006". Not a problem, except the doctor's signature is dated Feb 28 2006! That won't fly with the apostilling office. *sigh* So now everything goes back again. I do feel bad asking people to do this over and over again. It's not fun for them and it's not fun for us either.

I'm supposed to be contacting our social worker as well to get our HS updated, as it was completed last April. It's hard to believe we've already been at this for over a year. We're still pondering what to do after May 1. May 1 is when the new government division takes over the adoption process. But it's looking like they still may not reopen to US dossiers, and we aren't sure what we're going to do if that happens. We could continue to wait it out, but we can't really afford to keep redoing paperwork every year, and it is possible Ukraine could be shut down for a long time. It's also possible they could reopen May 1. *wry grin*

In the meantime, we're performing at a ball at the end of March, we've got family coming up in mid-April for a musical we're performing in, and we're heading to Texas a few weeks after that for a wedding. Trying to stay busy (well, okay, we're not really trying--it comes naturally) keeps our minds off of everything else. Besides, we probably won't have time to do a lot of the things we do now once we have kids, so we better get as much of it in now as we can!