~Welcome to the story of our journey to save another Eastern European princess with down syndrome and an older child! In 2010, we traveled half way around the world to adopt a twenty month old (now three years old) precious girl with down syndrome, Gabby. Now, less than two years later, we are on a mission to adopt another precious little girl that is in the same orphanage Gabby was in, Ava. Not only Ava, but yes....one more "Elaine". That means we are trying to adopt two more children!!!! If you are unaware of the situation in most, if not all Eastern European countries, please continue to read. In these countries children with down syndrome and special needs are most often placed in orphanages and if not adopted by the age of four or five (depending on circumstance), they are transferred to institutions where the likely-hood of them ever seeing outside of the institution walls remain slim to none. Many will live very short lives due to lack of appropriate care. Please don't allow this to happen to our sweet Ava! "Elaine" was fortunate enough to escape a very bad institution but nonetheless is in an institution and is an older child whose chances of coming home if we can't adopt her are not good. Having adopted and fully funding ourselves the previous adoption such a short time ago, we will need all of the help we can get to reunite these two angels and bring their big sister home. We utilized all extra resources with our first adoption and so fundraising is essential with this adoption. Whether it be from your prayers, helping to fundraise, buying from fundraisers, donations, etc...your help is much appreciated and is very much needed in order to make this dream a reality. Thank you so much for following our journey~

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Quick update

As you are all aware I am sure we are still in country. We are half way through the process now. I've not done updates to the blog because we are trying to stay private until this is over with. I do however have a private facebook group where many family and friends are following our journey and getting regular updates.  If you'd like to be in that group, please let me know. Of course I must know you are you must at least be able to tell me how you learned of our blog.

To be brief, the girls are doing wonderfully and the visits with them have been amazing. Its really undescribable.  It seems as if though they were always the missing peices of a puzzle that we almost had put together but not quite :)

Now for the this:



This is the part I hate. I actually feel sick to my stomach thinking about it.  Before we came here (in our girl's country)  we were told 6-8 weeks is how long we would be here. We planned and fundraised for 6 weeks hoping for the best. When we got here we realized quickly that because off fairly new laws requiring a 10 day wait for court approval from Kiev, in addition to the 10 day wait after court, as well as the DAP making us have two different referral appointments because we are adopting two children in different orphanages, we would definitely be here the 8 weeks.  Now, we have found out that because we met the children a week apart from each other, making us get our paperwork done later than expected to get to Kiev, the holidays are going to effect us.  The DAP staff will be on vacation and want return until Jan. 2. We were hoping to have court before the new year so we could be home the beginning of Jan.  However, because of the holiday, that won't happen.  We are hoping right now for court to be Jan. 3 (the earliest possible). After court (whenever it is) we will still have to wait 10 days to get our court decree, then another 4-6 for passport, then a couple days in Kiev again in the end for medicals and visa appointments before we can come home. So, its looking like the end of Jan. before we can return.  This means we are short on funding for about three weeks.  We could use any and all help anybody in this group could give.  I know it is the holiday season, and I know everyone is short on cash.  I know that all of my online adoption friends and advocates in this group who have adopted, are adopting, or advocate for adoption are tapped out. However, I also know and believe that the holiday season is a time of miracles and that my friends is what we need right now. I small miracle.  I hoped to be done with fundraising. I hoped we wouldn't be one of the many families adopting that get in country and run out of funds, but its looking like that will be the case.  We've came this far, I know we can see it through.  

One of the most important things I can stress to you all is that no amount is too small to give. If you have a fundraising idea, I will try it so long as it is quick and effective as we are already here and everyday that passes is a day of the funds we have left decreasing. 

Being we are in country now, the best way to donate is by clicking our donate button on the ride side of this blog.This will donate the funds to our fsp account through RR and they will transfer it to our paypal account, giving us access to it. You will need a debit or credit card to do this.  If you can't do that and would still like to donate. You can send a check or money order which takes longer to process but is still very much needed and appreciated. If this is the route you'd like to take, please message me and I will give you more information. 

We just want you all to know that we appreciate you helping to get us this far! I've said from day one, I feel like our children belong to not just us but an entire community because most of us have worked so hard to get them home. We are almost there! All of the hard work has almost paid off....we just have a bit more to go! 

Thanks again!

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