SDA appointment-one year later

You may wonder why I chose to revisit Kara's adoption Journey, it is simple, unlike other adoptive parents, we did not have Internet connection once we were in Vorzel. With the exception of one day in Irpen; Kara's journey was not chronicled on her blog, and I want it to be there for her, so hopefully one day we can make a book for her.

Meghan all ready for the SDA appointment, that poor stroller lasted 20 minutes on the Kyiv streets, the front wheel broke off. We threw it away, our TRU stroller, in a garbage dump in Ukraine somewhere. It was the last day we had dry streets, it began to snow in earnest that night.

Andreevsky Street


Saint Andrews Church

One of three wedding parties we watched descend those stairs in the 5-6 hours we sat in Anatoly's Mercedes. After Meghan spilled water on the back seat, we did not see Anatoly again. We just knew it was because of the water, and he did not seem entirely comfortable with our daughter.

We had worried that bringing a child with Down syndrome to Ukraine may pose issues, especially when you consider that folks there have likely never seen a person with Down syndrome, I am sure there were some underlying issues, we could tell Meghan made a few folks uncomfortable, but no one was outright rude to us. In a way, I think having her at our side helped the SDA officials and the judge at Kara's adoption to see how much we loved and cherished Meghan, and I hope it helped open their minds a little about children with Down syndrome, at least we hope so, and perhaps the dozens of families adopting the many children with Down syndrome before and after us helped them see how much they are loved too. :o)

There were no rolling blackouts, we had a warm and cozy room with radiated heat which actually got too warm, a dining hall with 3 hot meals a day, sure the room was tiny, but we managed. Meghan adored walking through the snow in ill-advised shoes, note to other parents traveling in fall-winter, bring snow boots for your kids, we did not think to (living in the desert Southwest, we do not own such things) and there were none in her size in Vorzel. All in all, having her with us was a blessing, so much for gloom and doom about bringing a child to Ukraine.

Instead of writing our what happened on the 9th of November, our appointment day with the SDA, so I will post the link to that day here:

http://ukieadoptmom.blogspot.com/2007/11/about-eva-and-huge-180.html

Needless to say, it was one of the most difficult things I have written on this blog. Concerns that losing Eva like we did would also lose us friends were valid, we did, because of the doubts we had about her health, they absolutely blamed our family when the SDA said we could not adopt her, and we can say it likely was our lack of faith in a small way, but we feel God's hand in all the transpired.

Eva came to America (as most folks know) and she is doing so well, no one could be happier than us, except of course for her forever family! She looks like she belonged with them all along, and Kara looks like she was meant for us, only God knew the course our adoption journey would inevitably take.