SDA appointment

We were picked up at our apartment at 10:30 by a driver who spoke no English.  At one point he showed Doug and I his phone (I think to ask if the address he had to take us to was correct) but seeing as how I don't read Cyrillic, Doug just shrugged his shoulders.  Thankfully we arrived at the correct location!
When we arrived Yulia was waiting on us.  She told us that today we would have our appointment for our big boy.  Because the boys are not siblings and they weren't at the same orphanage, we would have to have two separate appointments at the SDA.
We waited what seemed like forever and even though our appointment was scheduled at 11:00am, I didn't surprise me when it turned out to be 11:30 before we went into the office.  As we stood outside waiting, I  listened to Yulia talk to people who passed, and at one point I head her say 'tomorrow'.  (Sometimes knowing a little of the language is worse--you pick up on just a few key words!)
When we went into the little office, his picture was on the top of the file!  It was him, his file, waiting for us!  It seemed a bit surreal.  We sat there quietly and as I looked at his picture, memories came back to me.  There was a night, many years ago, near the end of one of his visits in Ohio, had his head on my lap.  He said to me "Mama- Karina, America.  Dasha, America.  Roma, America.  Why I no America?"  Our journey has been long, but I am hopeful, this time it will have a happy ending with a forever home.
As we sat and waited for the official, I showed Yulia the pictures we brought.  I shared with her about our family and how Amy is a part of society and holds a job.  I love to see their reaction!  People here are so surprised to hear that Amy talks, walks, and has a job!  It is so sad that children with disabilities are seen as less.  Sadly it is because here, they typically don't walk or talk because there are no services, therapy, or funding for children with special needs.

So the plan is to leave on an overnight train tomorrow night (Thursday) and arrive in region on Friday morning.  We will need to have some paperwork done after seeing our big boy, stating, YES, we do want to adopt this boy. (I could tell them that now, but it is a formality, so we have to go first.)  Our facilitator in the region thought that paper could be done on Friday.  We then will have to send that paper back to the SDA and then they will issue us a second appointment for our little man.

I think as it stands now, we will plan to spend the weekend with our big boy and send the paper back to the capital city.  Yulia should know the day before our appointment and we will catch a train back to the capital city to have our second appointment for our little man.  Then we will wait a day for his referral and head back to the region again.  I'll get to ride the train lots this trip!

There is still hope that we might be able to have one court, but we know that there is a real possibility due to the fact that one boy is in the city and the other outside the city and due to the age difference, that we may have to have two court hearings.  It is what it is.  As long as the story ends with us being granted the parents of two boys, we are okay with how it happens. (I say that now...I may grumble later!)

Tonight we ventured out to meet Sasha and Natalie!  Oh, so good to see dear friends that we have missed for many years!  It is so nice to have contacts in Ukraine!  We had a chance to catch up and chat at McDonald's.  Natalie gave us a Chidlren's encyclopedia in Russian and gave us the wonderful suggestion to keep some Russian books around for Max so he can still be exposed to his first learned language!  What a wonderful suggestion and sweet gift!