Night 4/Day 5 Really Heavy Stuff

Dearest Loved Ones,
Well, Lamar and I have had a change of heart. We have decided that we have invited each and every one of you on this journey to take with us. We need you now. We need your prayers, support, love, and encouragment now more than ever. Therefore, we are going to share everything with all of you.

I have been keeping an ongoing, intimate journal of this life-changing journey. God has placed it on my heart to share it all with you. Please forgive any typos, mistakes, or run-ons. I was writing from my heart for no one in particular. Enjoy the good, the bad and yes, even some ugly.
If you don't have time to read this (yes, it is long!) please scroll down to the last paragraph and you will find the summary. Otherwise, if you have a moment, grab a cup of tea or a glass of wine, sit back and hold our hands as we walk this path together.
We love you all.
Kris (and also Lamar)

When we first arrived in Kiev, Yuri picked us up and drove around town to pick up groceries and show us to our apartment. During our time in the car he asked us what we really wanted. Lamar and I told him we really wanted a child or children as young as possible. We would prefer to have at least one of them be a girl, if not both. However, we would still go home with a child, even if it weren't a girl. Yuri listened attentively and told us he had been doing research and he had come across two options to ask for at our first appointment. He had heard from the adoption networking grapevine that there was a precious little three year old girl available. However, a French couple was meeting her at that moment. He explained French couples were relatively picky and there was a good chance it would fall through because she wasn't the exact age they asked for. The second referral he had in mind for us was two boys, ages 2 and 4. However, they were part of a sibling group of 4 and it could be difficult to separate the two from their older siblings. That's all we got!

That first night I hardly slept. I really felt like I needed to stress to Yuri our desires so he could work hard on finding the perfect child/ren for us. I rehearsed over and over in my head a speech I wanted to give to him. So the very next day after we unpacked, settled in and got to know our environment a bit, we invited Yuri out for dinner. After some get-to-know-you talking, I took a deep breath (and a sip of wine!), and gave it my best shot. I explained to Yuri that the reason we wanted a younger child was because I had the opportunity to stay at home with Lamar's good job. If we got an older child, they would be brought back to the states and immediately placed in school. They would be going from a 1:30 ratio in the orphanage to a similar ratio in the classroom. We didn't want that. I wanted time to spend with the child before they had to go to school. I wanted to take the time to hold them, play with them and bond with them to make up for what they hadn't had in the orphanage.

Yuri listened politely, even though the tears came and my voice cracked. When I finished he said it would be great if I could say the exact same thing at our SDA appointment the next day. Also, he told us to be prepared to answer the question, 'Why did we choose to adopt from Ukraine?' Augh! I had no idea we were going to be responsible for giving a speech to an audience of Russian speaking women while Yuri translated what we said. No pressure...

As you can imagine, I slept next-to-none that night. I kept rehearsing what I needed to say to get our feelings across in the shortest amount of time possible. We had to deliver this speech at the beginning of our ONE hour appointment. We would be cutting into our viewing children's folders time. I didn't want to do that, but at the same time I almost felt like Lamar and I were being held responsible to sell ourselves. I might say that was quite a bit of stress to shoulder.
Now comes the appointment day. After waiting 30 minutes past our appointment time, we were invited into a very modern office. For some reason I expected a dungeon-like room with one light bulb suspending from the ceiling and only aluminum chairs to sit in....if not just crates turned upside down. I also pictured a large woman with a big frown, in a grim skirt suit with knee highs showing named Helga conducting our interview. Don't ask me why....I just did.
However, Lamar and I sat on a couch across from a beautiful, young, Russian woman with a lovely smile. She didn't look at us much and spent most of her time talking/flirting with Yuri. Then she asked us what we wanted. Lamar and I did our very best to quickly and accurately tell her exactly what we told Yuri the night before.

We were told ahead of time by Yuri that you can have up to three appointments. He said it is common to only see very sick and older childen the first visit. You still take a referral, travel to the orphanage, say it didn't work out and wait for another appointment. Lamar and I did NOT want this to happen. We really wanted to have a strong, potential referral after our first visit. Little did we know what she was going to show us...

First of all, she pulled out the portfolios on the two boys Yuri mentioned. The youngest was as bald as a cue ball and the oldest looked mean. We discovered that they weren't 2 of 4 but that they were 2 of SIX BOYS! We couldn't believe it. We placed this aside immediately and asked to see more.

Then came the extremely sick referrals. We saw pictures of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Hep C, Cleft Palate, sclerosis, etc. Now mind you, we have only been approved through our immigration paperwork to bring home a child with mild, correctable conditions. We didn't see one child that fit that description except the two boys we had placed aside. We didn't see ONE single girl with mild correctable conditions. It was heartbreaking. I couldn't help
but cry. To make matters worse, Yuri received a call during our appointment that the French couple decided to adopt the little girl Yuri had a lead on.

Talk about devastating! Our hour was up and we had NOTHING. We found one little boy that was just beautiful but Yuri made a call on him and it looked like he was so sick he wouldn't live much longer. It was the hardest thing to place his file aside in the "no" stack. So, having no other options, we picked up the file on the 6 boys and gave it to Yuri. He said he would try his hardest to see if they could be separated from their brothers who already lived in different orphanages.

Leaving our appointment was so painful. I felt like my world was crashing in. We were in Yuri's car and we had to get our dossier photocopied. Yuri left us alone (he could tell we needed some time together). I just assumed Lamar was as heartbroken as I was. During the appointment, I could tell he wasn't all that excited about the eldest child who looked downright mean. Then, the last thing in the world happened. Lamar said he was happy. What? Was he sitting at the same appointment as me? Did he not see what we were offered and what we weren't? There's over 10,000 children in the orphanages here and they didn't show us ANY healthy ones except two boys. We wanted at least one girl. Didn't we? He started talking about bunk beds, building forts, and having an entire basketball team in his family. He laughed when he said that the one boy might not be mean at all and we shouldn't judge a picture. The Bryant family told us that over and over again. Maybe he had just woken up from a nap or was hungry and didn't want his picture taken. I laughed, too. What if THIS was God's plan? What if He did want us to double up on our boys and bring home two more? Would that be so bad? I actually started getting giddy with the idea of a household of little men. It could work....right?

When Yuri returned we called the orphanage in Kirovograd where the boys are. We will be working with an attorney that has tight control over this region. Apparently she has quite a bit of authority and power. She has been able to waive the 10 day waiting period for several families. This is unheard of in Ukraine anymore. That means we could come home with the boys together this visit! We could knock out everything in one trip! I don't want to get my hopes up, but that sounds really good. Anyway, Yuri spoke with her and she knew the boys very well. She said, "yes, they are good boys...and very handsome too". I don't think she could have said kinder words. My heart was officially lightened and I was on Cloud 9. Yes!~ However, she reminded us that it could still be difficult to separate the boys from the 4 others, even though she agreed it had to be done because NO ONE could adopt all 6 boys. We actually might have to travel to each of their orphanages to get letters from the boys. Sounds painful, but Yuri said it can be done. She also told us there was a Spanish couple that had just been there that REALLY wanted the boys. However, they did not have permission on their immigration forms to bring home more than one child. They couldn't get around it so it fell through. Was that God's hand, too?

We went home to take naps. We were still jet lagged and exhausted from our draining day. However, I couldn't sleep a wink. (Insomnia much?). I wanted more than anything to get online and type SOMETHING....ANYTHING to all of our friends and family who were praying for us. However, what do you say? So many people have been praying "girl, girl, girl" and now we are sitting here with a referral to look at a 2 year old and 4 year old boy. Would they be disappointented? Would they disapprove? Would they send messages of regret and condolences? I wasn't sure. However, I wasn't ready for that. So, I jumped online and started looking at boys' names. I really wanted to stick with Christian names (having a Josh and Jake). I also wanted to keep part of their Ukrainian names to save a part of their heritage. We knew their names were Yaroslav and Nikolai. However, we didn't know who was who. Lamar and I
both had a feeling that Cueball was Nikolai and Angryboy was Yaroslav. We asked Yuri before if either could be Americanized or shortened. Luckily, Yaroslav could be shortened to Yaric. We liked that. Nikolai was easy enough to say as it was. I tried many different combinations. I wrote them down, and woke Lamar up from his nap so I could share with him our options. I didn't tell him my favorite and just checked to see what his favorites were. We were in
agreement. Score! The winning names were Alexander Yaric and Andrew Nikolai. We could even call them Alex and Drew. We NEVER talked about these names as options before but they stuck. In fact my favorite moment was when Lamar was online looking at bunkbeds and he said, "I can just picture Alex rolling off the top onto poor Drew!" It sounded so natural...so real...and so right.

We had dinner that night at a Ukrainian Indian restaurant. I started crying and Lamar didn't quite understand why. He is so good at being able to compartamentalize everything and I wear all my emotions on my sleeves...both sides. As excited as I had become up to that point, there was still a part of me that needed to greive. I wasn't going to ever have a girl. No pink...no sunflowers and lady bug decorations, no dresses, dressup, tea parties or mother daughter pedicures. For some reason, it appears as though this just isn't suppose to be a part of my life. I will be OK with it, but I will also need a few moments to get through it. I can't focus on looking at what I'm going to never have, I must look at everything I will be blessed with receiving. Dog piles, wrestling, bug catching, trucks, jets, cars Legos, and boxer/briefs are my future...and I LOVE it. There's nothing like laughing hysterically because of anunexpected body noise. There's nothing more flattering than hearing your son say, "Mommy, you sure look pretty!". I'm still touched when they fight over who will hold my seat when I sit down at the table or who can get to the door first to open it for me. Now it's going to be more bodies and limbs flying
everywhere when we have wrestling time in mommy's and daddy's king size bed. We will have more giggles and silliness and longer fits of laughter. We will haved more sweet heads to kiss every night as I bless each of them and say, "May you grow up to be a big, strong, Christian man like your daddy". We can do this. I want to do this. I thank God for an opportunity to do this. We will do it!

That night we decided to tell the boys. Afterall, this is a family decision and we needed their input. They both sat in front of the camera while we had a Skype conversation. They were staring intently and very seriously at us when they asked us if it was a boy or girl. As we proceeded to tell them it was going to be two boys ages 2 and 4, HUGE grins slowly came across both boys' faces. Their reaction was pure, uninhibited, and angelic. It was real. It was
precious. They were more than alright with it. Neither one of them voiced any heartbreak that we didn't find a girl. They didn't even ask. They were happy! That warmed my heart and encouraged me that it wouldn't be so bad when we decided to share the news with the rest of our family and friends. Maybe they, too, would see that this is joyous and good. They asked us what they looked like and we told them exactly what the lawyer had said- "good...and handsome, too!" Joshua didn't miss a beat and replied, "Oh that's great! They will fit in perfectly with this family!" Oh, my dear boy. Lack of confidence will never be a struggle of his. Humility? That is a different story all together...

So...sleeping has become a problem. Last night I couldn't sleep because I was picturing how it is going to be when we meet Drew and Alex. Will they bring them out separately? Will they come out together? Will they be scared of us? Will they embrace us? How do we introduce ourselves? Mr. and Mrs. Douberly is way too formal. Mommy and Daddy doesn't seem right if something happens and it falls through. Lamar and Kris? I'm just not sure. Again, we must turn to God and know His hand will not let go of us during that moment. He will continue to always be present.

Other questions arise that keep me up. What happened to the mom and dad? How long have they been in the orphanage? Do they get to see each other during the day? Do they know they are brothers when they do? Do they like each other and get along? Were they heart broken when the Spanish couple left because they couldn't adopt both? Will they be skeptical meeting Lamar and I? God, give us the answers on your timetable when you feel we are ready. One of my favorite times of the day back at home is right before bed. We have a very comfortable routine. The boys come down freshly clean from the shower and they take turns snuggling in daddy and mommy's laps. Then we say prayers. I love hearing my boys pray. Sometimes the prayers are heartfelt. "Dear God, please be with all the troops in Iraq". Some prayers are convicted. "Please God help me to make better choices tomorrow." Some prayers are selfish.
"Dear God, please let money appear so I can buy the Lego SX-200 Star Wars set". Others bring tears to my eyes, "Dear Lord, help us to buy an orphan". It dawned on me today that the next time we are all together as a family it could very well be the first time Andrew and Alexander have ever prayed with their parents and siblings. That blows my mind. Lord, you have been there with them through it all. You comfort them when they are sick or needing a mommy or a daddy. You give them strength when they are hungry. You have led us to them for some reason. Please use us, Lord. Let us show them the beauty of having you live in their heart. Help soften their hearts and welcome you into them. Let us help them see the beauty and love in the world through our boys, our friends, our family, our home, and all of our other blessings. Let them give their lives to you and love you the way we do.

***Alright, to sum it all up (for those of you whom have fallen asleep or scrolled down from the top), Lamar and I leave tomorrow for the city of Kirovograd to meet two boys, Nikolai Osen (whom we will name Andrew Nikoloai) and Yaroslav Osen (whom we will name Alexander Yarik). They are blood brothers and they are 2 and 4 years old. They are healthy and belong to a sibling group of 6 so there could be complications separating them. However, we can't take them all because we are only approved for 2 and the others are much older and in a different orphanage all together. Please pray for us as we take this journey tomorrow. Pray God leads the way for us. We are very excited, nervous, anxious, and yes, very scared.

We will get up early in the morning to read any comments or words of wisdom you may have for us. It provides us with much strength.
God bless you all, and thanks for hearing....um, reading me out!
With Peace and Love,
Kris and Lamar