Wrap Up

WE ARE COMING HOME!!

We picked up Blake's Visa today.  We walked up to the US Embassy, the guard recognized us, ushered us past the long lines of people awaiting their Visa's, and away we went.  We were the only family in the adoption unit.  Because we are the last US family adopting right now, until adoptions are reopened (which I heard today will be SOON!!).  We walked out of there an hour later with Visa in hand!  That was our last official step in this process for Blake to become a US Citizen when we step foot on US soil in Chicago tomorrow afternoon!!

The past few days have been a whirlwind of driving, waiting, sleeping, driving, waiting, signing papers, waiting.  Anyway, here is a bit of a synopsis of what all we had to do, pay close attention at how your prayers made everything possible.  There were so many things that happened this past week, that we really should not have been able to do--but God went before us, just like I have been praying, and prepared the way.

Sunday night: Gotcha Day!
Monday morning:
5 am--Rise and Shine.  Fly to Kiev from Lugansk Airport.  We said goodbye to Violetta for the last time.  I'm going to miss her and her sweet daughter and family.

First plane ride!

9:30 am--Arrive in Kiev.  Niko picked us up we headed straight to the US Embassy to begin the process to obtain a Visa. We had confirmed an appointment online the week before...but, for some reason we were not on the list and they weren't going to let us in.  I called Luda, she made some calls, the next thing I know, we are being rushed inside past all the waiting lines to get Blake's paperwork turned in.  We didn't even have to wait a minute!  Praise God moment #1.
10:30 am--Head over to the hospital to have Blake's medical appointment.  I was so apprehensive about this appointment for some reason, because so many other family's have had major issues with their child's medical appointment--and were held up here for another few weeks. We found out the nurse who usually checks the child in and takes his vitals, weighs him, and takes his height was out to lunch...so we sat down thinking we would be waiting awhile for her to return.  Not long after a physician sticks his head out of the doorway, waves at us and in we went.  He began speaking to me in English, asking lots of questions about Blake, etc.  He looked him over, played with him a little bit, told me to redress him, signed some papers and told me to go wait in the waiting room.  5 minutes later he comes back and hands me a big white envelope containing Blake's medical results that the US Embassy will need to issue his Visa.  Niko's eyes about popped out of his head...he has never seen a medical appointment go so quickly.  We were in and out of there in 30 minutes!!
Praise God moment #2.
2:00 pm--We go to our apartment.  No Internet.  Great, I haven't talked to Jerad in a few days, I want to see the girls, and was most looking forward to Skyping with Blake and the girls...no such luck.
4:30 pm--Begin to wind down for the evening and I decide to give Blake a bath because of a poopy mess we had earlier in the day.  I turned on the hot water...and nothing.  I call Luda, she tells me she'll call the landlord about the Internet and the water issue.
6:00 pm--Luda finally calls back and says the housecleaning lady will be by soon to figure out the boiler for the water and that a computer specialist will be by at 9:00 pm that night to fix the computer.  Not ideal, but I'll stay up late and wait for him just so I can talk to my family...
7:00 pm--Housecleaning lady shows up, messes with water boiler...she can't figure out what is wrong with the heater either.  But she is able to show me how to rework the wires for the Internet, and voila!  We have Internet.  She calls landlord. We can either move apartments or maintenance man will come later that night to help fix it.  We decided to just wait and move to a new apartment Tuesday morning.
9:00 pm--Luda calls back and tells me they have realized we are at 'great' risk for there to be an explosion and gas leak in our apartment.  WHAT???  Blake has been asleep for hours now and my mom just went to bed too.  She said we would need to move apartments now or allow the maintenance man in at 9:30 pm to try to fix it..if he couldn't we would need to move to another apartment across town.  Ugh.
9:30 pm--Maintenance man returns with housecleaning lady (who asked to come back and wait with me so I wasn't left alone with the maintenance man--so sweet!)
11:30 pm--Hot water!  No more gas leaks. I am so grateful to Luda for staying on top of this issue for us and making sure we stayed safe.  It could have been a bad situation if we had not had our water boiler fixed and we had slept here unknowingly.  Praise God moment #3.

He is beginning to like his baths again.  But he still prefers to stand outside the tub and throw stuff in. :)

He kind of likes running around in just a diaper too! :)

 And the most important part, Blake has been a super-trooper throughout all of this.  He sleeps in the car as soon as it starts moving.  He plays quietly while we sit through appointments.  He has taken his naps and slept all night.  He is eating like a horse.  He skyped for the first time last night with Leah.  He kept licking the screen and closing the laptop lid. 


So like I said, we have felt your prayers through this whole journey.  They have paved the way for our process to continue on smoothly, they have kept us safe, they have moved mountains!  Praise God and praise you all!

If you would like to welcome Blake to the US tomorrow, we will be arriving at 5:57 pm at Mid-Continent Airport in Wichita, Kansas.  Channel 3 news will be there to finish their previous story on our adoption journey.  What a great way to celebrate!  We would love to see you all there.

Trying to help me by putting on his own shoes.

It didn't take him long to start getting 'naughty'...he pulled all of the DVD's of the TV stand and threw them on the floor and then looked at me like this.

"Cheese!"