Medicals, Embassy

We needed to get up to be picked up at 8 a.m. to start our day. The kids got up really well considering we had to wake them up early. We had a mini bus take us to the hospital first. (I was mixed up on the process - I thought we did embassy first and medicals the next day, but we did medicals first.) We went in to the hospital and checked our coats first. Then, we waited in a hallway while George got us registered. They first took the little two and weighed and measured them, then the older two. They also checked the eyes for the older two and they could see even the smallest line - using pictures since Vlada doesn't know her letters yet. Monte went to pay to pay the bill for the medicals. They used to be $85 a person and now they are $90 - George says because of the "crisis." More waiting. The kids are doing fairly well waiting and they are getting lots of attention in the waiting room. There is a lady here from California with her adopted son also. She is on the same timeline as us, only a few days faster. Their court date was Dec. 29 and ours was Dec. 26 and they are going home tomorrow. They are friends with the couple we talked to in the airport on our way home last time and that family is just having court today. The process is different for everyone. Then, they called in the whole family. The doctor was really nice and went through their medical records and explained things to me. She asked the kids all kinds of questions. She said they all answered them correctly and worked together as a family unit. She had them all take off their shirts, multiple layers remember!! She checked their lungs and then had them lie down and she checked their abdomens. We had to have Vlada sent for an x-ray because of the Mantoux sensitivity. More waiting, it is getting harder to sit still. The facilitator for the California family was telling them it was much nicer to sit on the benches than lying down on the dirty floor. That helped for a while. Then, Vlada went in for her x-ray. We had to wait for the x-ray to be finished and read. We waited in another hallway for a while and then George suggested that we go to the hospital cafe. It was really nice and had good food. Even though it was 10:30, we had lunch. Their choices were liver or fried fish. Maxim chose liver for everyone. He is the only one who ate it. But they did mostly eat up the potatoes and beet salad. Now, everyone has to go to the bathroom and they all have to go at the same time. Jason was beating on the door while Jillian was going and cried the whole time and of course Jillian took her sweet time knowing that she was bugging her brother. Now, we are sent back to the hallway to wait for the x-ray. It is getting much harder to sit still and things are deteriorating. George came back once and said it would be another 5 minutes, so we got our coats from the coat check. They ladies hand signaled that the kids look like mama and papa. Then, more waiting. It is getting tougher and tougher. Okay, lets go!! Everything is done and we have to rush over to the embassy to do the paperwork for the visas. We have to be there by noon and there is lots of traffic. We fed the kids cookies and juice in the car. That kept them busy for a little bit. We got there and parked on the sidewalk. We tried to rush the children into the building where they do the security check. It is really hard to rush 4 tired children. We got there with 1 minute to spare!! The security guard kept looking at the clock, but lets us through. We got up to the floor where the adoption unit is. The lady there is really nice and said I could take the kids to a waiting room down the hall that has toys in it and Monte could do paperwork. Monte had the paperwork in hand, but certainly didn't want to fill out papers, so we switched. He took the kids to the other waiting room. Luckily, I had most of the paper filled out ahead of time. She went through everything and helped me with a couple of questions I had. She gave me a little heart attack though. On our fingerprint paper, it said the expiration date of our fingerprints was June of 08. They are good for 15 months and we had them done in March. There was an error in the date written!! She said we were lucky the original was there that showed our March date. Whew!! I certainly don't want to stay and re-do fingerprint just because of a typo by our government. Everything was in order so far and they sent us away to come back tomorrow at 2 to do the interviews and get the visas. Please pray for this process that everything is correct. (We have to take the children back with us for the interviews.) They are really tired now!! We made it back to orphanage 12, but its too late for a nap. They are getting a little short tempered now. Monte took them outside to play while I filled out two more sets of papers that we need for the embassy tomorrow. Bogdan said that Mia wanted to make us Ukrainian potato pancakes and we could also have the cafeteria food for tonight, they serve at 7. He also said that Artyem and Alyosha would take us back to the arcade place to go ice skating, which would be really fun, but the kids are incredibly tired, so we elected to stay in and eat at the cafe. Bogdan sat with us (and some of the other kids) and went over some phrases the kids have been saying that we couldn't understand and some phrases we can use with them. The orphanage kids here got their Christmas boxes from Samaritan's Purse. They really enjoyed getting them. One of the teenage boys brought us socks and a hat and gloves that he got that were too small. That was nice timing as Jason lost one of his gloves today and was beside himself that he didn't have them. Mia also brought all of the kids a gift, a coloring book for Jason, stuffed animals for Robin and Ryan, and a "book" of hair thingys for Jillian. All of the kids want Jillian's gift and are trying to "trade" her for it. She knows she has the prize and is keeping it from them. Lots more tears on both sides. I think it is an early bed night. Jillian was asleep in just minutes, and just now (in the middle of the night), she was crawling in her sleep on the floor looking for something. I just put her back to bed and tucked her in, but I better get off the computer and lie down with her and try to get some more sleep. Tomorrow is another big day!! Again, please, please keep praying for all the paperwork to be correct an we can be ready to go. Also, please pray ahead for customs for when we leave Ukraine. I have heard they can give you a hard time. On Saturday morning, I really want to be on the plane home!!!!