At Last….

No beating around the bush…We have finally been invited to travel to Ukraine for our second adoption!!

As I mentioned in my last post, we were hoping to travel to Ukraine in late fall to begin the local process to adopt Lena. Well, ever the literalist, God has organized the timing so that we travel in the final week of fall—we leave on 13 December, just a week before the first day of Winter.

As with Masha’s adoption, the first step of the process is a meeting on Wednesday, the 16th in Kyiv with the State Department of Adoptions (SDA). The SDA manages all adoptions within Ukraine, both domestic and international. In order to protect the children and maintain a manageable process, the Ukrainian system operates on a “blind referral” system. This means that children cannot be matched with parents for adoption before the adoptive parents travel to Ukraine and meet with the SDA. In cases where parents wish to request the adoption of a child that they’ve previously met (like on a previous trip or through a hosting program), this meeting is the first and only opportunity to request a referral for that particular child. While there is a small chance that the SDA will not approve our request, we don’t foresee any significant issues.

Following that meeting (and the first of many sets of paperwork), we will travel to the region in southeastern Ukraine and begin the local process for adoption. If all goes well, we will arrive on Friday morning, and will finally see Lena and be able to hold her in our arms again!

As wonderful as it will be to see her again, our primary focus over the next several days will be on obtaining all the necessary permissions and executing documentation in preparation for our local court hearing. Typically, the court hearing is held about a week after the parents’ arrival in the region. In our case, we expect a little bit of extra documentation, but we are praying to have our court hearing completed by the 29th. It is important to understand that scheduling is a little less precise and rigid than in the US; some of you may remember that we had less than an hour’s notice for our hearing last time? http://nilesfamily.blogspot.com/2007/05/court.html

Following the court hearing, there is a mandatory 10-day appeal period. This appeal period must end on a business day; if the 10th day falls on a weekend, we must wait through the following Monday, and the final court judgment can be retrieved (and we can take custody of Lena) on Tuesday. For several reasons, local accommodations and extreme parental boredom included, parents are discouraged from remaining in Ukraine during the appeal period. You may recall that we stayed last time, but after living through that during *good* weather, we realize the wisdom in returning home, especially during winter!


Because of the holidays, we had to book our return flights for very early on the morning of New Year’s Eve. If we can’t make it to Kyiv in time for that flight, we’ll be stuck there through the middle of the next week!

While both parents must be present for the court hearing, only one is required to take custody and do all of the “outprocessing.” This includes obtaining a new birth certificate and passport, as well as collecting all the appropriate immigration paperwork at the US embassy in Kyiv. The current plan is for Christine to return to Ukraine and take care of all of this while Mark stays home with Masha.

Beyond our firm departure for Kyiv on the evening of the 13th, and our appointment with the SDA on the 16th, all dates are subject to change. We have learned to trust our facilitators and translators, knowing that they are as motivated as we are to get us back home…but it also means that we have no control and very little information about the timelines until events actually unfold.

Our travel anxiety is much lower. We have the advantage of being familiar with the city and understanding the basic process. We know that we can pack light, as we can buy almost anything we need in the local grocery stores. We expect to have Internet access from our apartment via broadband card (thanks to the Stillwells!!). I have already started loading up my e-reader with the many books I’ve been meaning to read (recommendations, anyone?), and getting the iPods updated with some new tunes. We will probably carry more weight in personal electronics than in clothes!!

Regardless, there are still many things to take care of before we leave, most importantly, the Care and Feeding of the Mashroom! We have a dear family friend who has graciously agreed to stay at our house with Masha so she can keep her routine close to normal while we are gone. Anna, you and Gracie are true blessings to us! We are diligently preparing house manuals and schedules, and trying to make this as easy as possible on everyone!

I’m not certain how much I’ll be able to post between now and our departure, but I’ll try to get a couple more posts up before we leave. Thanks to all of you for your endless support, prayers, and interest!!

...And we're at it again!

After a lengthy hiatus to attend to life, the Niles Blog has returned!!

As many of you are aware, we have begun the process to adopt again! Over the next few weeks, I'll fill in the gaps over the past year, and share where we are in the process and what we expect to happen over the next few months. But for those of you clamoring for an update....

The Cliffs Notes Version:

While we were in Ukraine to adopt Masha in June 2007, we met her best friend, Lena. She was a very sweet and soft-hearted girl, always there with a smile and a hug. We would have adopted her on the spot if we could, but we learned that her family situation was such that she was not available for adoption. Masha remained in touch with her after we returned to the US, calling and sending letters and photos.

Over time, we learned that the Center (orphanage) was working through the legal details to allow Lena to be adopted, but we understood that process was very long, involved, and often unsuccessful. While we had hope for her to eventually become part of a forever family, we committed to stay in touch with her and share our love with her regardless of what happened.

Fast forward to August 2008, when we had the opportunity to host Lena for a 2-week visit in our home. We knew that her opportunities to participate in hosting programs was pretty limited, and we wanted to give her a chance to travel to the US, visit with our family, and shower her with love for the time that we could. After some very chaotic travel arrangements, she arrived in mid-August and returned at the end of the month.

And no, i did not blog. :(

As she was packing to return to Ukraine, though, we learned that there had been a significant change in her status, and that she had been declared adoptable by the Ukrainian court system!! We rejoiced, but definitely recognized that there were still many hurdles to clear before she could become part of our family, including a 14-month waiting period before she would be eligible for adoption to a country outside Ukraine.

We began the process to update our Home Study (the first step in any adoption process), and learned that new State requirements meant we had to obtain some additional background checks through the appropriate Child Protective Services division of each state that Mark or I had lived in. A couple of mine took MONTHS to come back, and so our update took MUCH longer than our original homestudy.

As soon as we got the homestudy documents, we were able to move to Step 2: submit our application to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). We submitted that about three weeks ago, and we have an appointment to be a guest in their Indianapolis office to take our fingerprints and verify that our fingers haven't changed since last time we did this....

It generally takes them another 4 weeks to do what they do, so we hope to have their approval by the end of August. While they process our application, we will use the time to collect the many many other documents that Ukraine requires for us to submit as our application to adopt.

Just as with Masha, there is a risk that a Ukrainian family could choose to adopt Lena before she becomes available for international adoption. there is also a risk that we could be denied by the US or Ukrainian governments. While all of these risks are small, we are still praying that all goes smoothly!

If everything goes according to plan, we hope to be invited to travel to Ukraine late this fall.

Eight Months

Winter is heaving-to. It has clearly decided that it’s not going anywhere, and in the meantime, it’s going to have a bit of fun with us. In typical Midwest fashion, we’ve experienced the battle between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, throwing their separate weather patterns at us and laughing as they wreak havoc on our lives and plans.

After a couple of 55-degree days a couple weeks ago, accompanied by flooding worthy of a live remote on Good Morning America, we are again looking at a blanket of fresh snow and sub-zero wind-chills. God has thumbed his nose at the school system’s allotted number of snow-days, and they have begun tacking time onto the end of the kids’ sentence. The school year has been extended one day…so far. Any more snow-days, and our first summer vacation will be in jeopardy.

Masha takes it all in stride. The Winter Meltdown retreat brought kids from three churches together with the staff from our new “positive” radio station (www.remedy.fm check it out – great mix of rock, hip-hop, and alternative with none of the toxicity that is soaked throughout the mainstream media!!) for a weekend of fun and fellowship in southern Michigan. She had a great time; the highlight seemed to be an afternoon of Extreme Sledding.

She has continued to excel in school. Her teachers are all working hard with her, and she’s catching up to her class more quickly than anyone expected. Her homeroom teacher believes that she’s learning English quicker than normal, and we believe him. She understands most casual conversation now; while we still run into new words, she is more and more able to figure them out through context. She constantly comes home with new phrases…her current favorite word is “seriously.” “Seriously, Dad, the dog is stinky.”

I have never seen a kid work so hard at schoolwork. It’s a challenge to get her started, but once she has some momentum, she can’t stop until she’s all done. Recently, we were looking up vocabulary words in the dictionary. And yes, I am making her use a REAL dictionary. With pages. And a cover. Like…a BOOK NOT typing the word into dictionary.com and seeing what comes up! What a horrible, horrible monster I am! Or so I’ve been told. But I digress…

Recently we were looking up vocabulary words at the kitchen table. We had a few minutes as Mark was finishing up dinner, so I figured we could get about half of them done. She fought me on looking them up, but after the first couple, she got in the groove. We were starting on #5 when Mark announced dinner. He set the table around us; she moved the silverware away. He put her plate of roast chicken ON the open dictionary; she handed it to me. I had to take the dictionary away so she would eat. She was late to Campus Life because we needed to finish. I can honestly say I never cared that much about my homework!!

In school, she is gaining more confidence and grasping more each day. She even volunteered to read out loud with her reading group last week!!

Overall, we could not be more proud of her. Of course we have 13-year-old moments. We have times when her plans clash with ours. She sometimes perceives our home as a democracy rather than a benevolent dictatorship. But Masha is a good girl. Open-hearted, kind, and generous. We watched a movie last night with a teenage girl who, when talking to her mother, called her father “your husband.” Masha was baffled. “Why does she call him this? He’s her father. She should call him Dad. That is not nice.” She deals with anger much more constructively that I do, and I’m learning from her. And she always apologizes. On her own.

God has blessed us indeed!

Happy New Year!!

Snow is an overused metaphor, but as I watch the flakes dance to the ground on the first morning of 2008, I see a clean white palette. A year of possibilities, opportunities—life, just waiting to be written.

As you can imagine, busyness got the better of us this fall. After meeting with the guidance counselor, Masha entered 6th grade on 16 August. Although she is slightly old for 6th grade, we hoped that easier, repeat content might give her the opportunity to focus on developing her English skills and acclimating to the American culture. Looking back, we definitely made the right choice!

At the six-month mark, her conversational English is great. She has opened up, and shares her thoughts with us…in fact, she had trouble sleeping a few nights ago, and woke Dad up for a 2-hour chat, covering every topic imaginable. She can follow most of the dialogue in movies and she’s even noticing different regional accents.

As expected, cognitive language and reading skills are lagging, but she’s learning quickly. She says she still thinks in Russian, but more and more, we are hearing instant reactions in English. She is staying in touch with several Russian speakers, and is maintaining her Russian, but she’s starting to struggle to remember some less-used Russian words. Her grades are right in line with class averages, and her teachers are working very hard to balance challenges with likelihood of success. They started out the year making significant accommodations for her, but she’s now taking many of the same tests and quizzes as her peers!

Social planning is a challenge; in typical 13-year-old fashion, she is loathe to plan ahead, instead opting for last minute sleepover requests. She has a couple of close friends, and is starting to get involved in activities with the church youth group. We’re trying to tread carefully, but so far, she’s falling in with great kids, choosing decent music (for the most part), and making good choices.

It’s interesting to see the difference between her relationship with both of us. She’s still pretty reluctant to share personal thoughts and feelings with Dad; she’s a perfectionist with him, and won’t share any work-in-progress… With Mom, she’s more open to talk about “girl-stuff.” But she also is a ferocious wrestler, and loves to roughhouse with Dad. Christmas break has seen the emergence of amateur martial arts, combining a couple of moves taught by Uncle Rob, more learned from watching movie fight scenes, and a few crazy, made-up actions successful only by brute force. The kid has no idea how strong or tough she is!

Overall, Masha is settling in better than we ever could have hoped. Of course, there are challenging moments for all of us. Unrealistic expectations, disappointments, homesickness, memories….but they are balanced with joy, accomplishments, surprises, and belonging. She is truly our daughter in every sense, and none of us can imagine life any other way.

So today, I reflect on the year that’s passed and the year to come, and I watch just enough snow to hide the sleeping grass and spilled birdseed, not enough to shut the city down. God knows how to kick off a year!!

Two Months

It's days like this that make life worth living. This morning, as we ate breakfast and bid my father and step-mother goodbye, Maria announced that she would like to go to Extreme Park. We told her that it might be a little expensive to fly all the way to Ukraine to go to Extreme Park in her hometown, but that we could maybe go to Fun Spot in Angola if she wanted...

School starts next week, so we were thinking about a last hurrah already. When she offered to pay for her own ticket out of her allowance, we realized she was serious!

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. We are finally wrapping up the Twelve Days of Birthday. Thursday marked the final day of YMCA Day Camp, Friday brought shopping day with Nana. Maria will have three well-deserved days at home before starting sixth grade on Thursday.

She is facing this newest challenge with an appropriate mixture of anticipation and terror. She has taken the first tour of school, picked up her books, walked through her schedule, and learned her locker combination.

We will take her back to school on Tuesday to walk through the building one more time and meet with her guidance counselor to ask any questions that might be bugging her. She will have another girl in her grade who also speaks Russian, so she can help explain the subtleties of middle school culture. Further, all the kids in her sixth grade class are new to this school, so they will all be getting lost in the halls for the first week!

We expect the first few months to be challenging, but Maria is well equipped to meet that challenge head-on, and to beat it with a little time and patience!

Overall, things are going well. Maria is learning English very quickly...she is spontaneously using "cool" and "awesome" appropriately. She eats nearly everything in sight. She loves Hannah Montana and High School Musical. A pretty typical kid.

Of course, we have our teenage moments, but the battles we are having hardly differ from the ones you veteran parents have always been fighting. Occasionally, she shares a word or comment that reminds us of the trials she has faced in her short life; this is a gentle reminder to balance discipline and structure with love and fun. And I guess that's what being a parent is all about.