Well we are on the bus halfway to Kyiv from Odessa. It is a VIP bus so it is actually quite comfortable....thank goodness as it will take us 5.5 hours to get there.
Monday evening after the court decree was corrected Yana waited around for the judge to sign it but he never came back. So Tuesday morning she went back for the signed final decree.
From there we headed to get the kids birth certificates after dropping of the kids and taking care of a few things at the orphanage.
The trip to Tarterbury took about an hour. We were expecting about an hours wait for the birth certificates while the orphanage jurist (lawyer) went to meet with the inspector for a letter of permission to close out the kids bank accounts as required by the bank....we did not need this when we did this for Nadia as far as I know.
However the inspector in Izmail said she was not the inspector that needed to give this approval because she was not the one to register the children and now the inspector in Tarterbury was saying the children are no longer under her and it is the responsibility of the inspector in Izmail. LOUD phone calls made to the bank by the jurist (she was the loud one) and Yana resulted in them finally being told we have permission to close the accounts without it.
But the drama did not end there. There was "discussion" as to whether Dan's name should be on the birth certificates. I won't go into all the details of that craziness but a phone call to Odessa and waiting for a returned call, a one hour lunch break, a half hour without electricity and a woman who didn't give a darn and it took 5 hours for it all to be completed. Thankfully Dan's name is on both birth certificates.
With this delay we got back to Izmail too late to see the notary or handle the bank accounts...we would have to stay another night before heading to Odessa.
Again, THANKFULLY, I was still able to sign the kids out of the orphanage. :)
When we got there Olya spotted me from down the hall and sprinted towards me to give me a great big hug. It brought back memories of showing up in Sakhnovschina to adopt Yana and her sprint towards me (maybe Dan will find that post on the first blog and post the link). The kids were obviously thrilled.
Of course I was very happy but was tired and concerned we were falling behind. On our way out we said goodbye to Natasha (a sweet girl and aged out orphan)...she was crying. Even as I type this my heart is broken for her...she just wants a family. Hard to put that aside and do a happy dance. Natasha represents the thousands of kids who age out every year and will never know the love of a family.
Later back at the hotel the kids were all settled in. We were ready to get an early move out in the morning. We were to hit the bank first then to the notary then to Odessa to apply for their new tax I'd numbers and passports.
We arrived at the bank just before 8 when they were to open. We are there fifteen minutes working on this and then are told we had to wait for the money to be delivered. Interesting since the jurist had been working on this since last week and the bank said then they needed to know how I would want the money because they needed to order it. In any case, we were told it would take about an hour.
An hour later the woman from the bank and the jurist would have to go get the money from the central bank...we continued to wait.
THEN maybe an hour later we hear the bank is insisting on this letter of permission from the inspector. *sigh*
Yana, the jurist and the woman from the bank go to see the inspector who eventually agrees to write the letter...she says she will call Yana when it is ready. So we wait. After more time than it could possibly take to write this letter 1:00 is almost upon us and the bank closes for lunch from 1-2. Yana decides to head back to the inspectors office and wait.
The wait continues....and you know what I forget what other ridiculous things happen from there. I only know I was able to take care of Olya's account first but needed something more for Ivan's. It took 7 hours to do what we thought would take 1 hour. There was no way we would make it to Odessa by the close of business. We officially fell a day behind.
I won't even bother posting about the awful, dusty bed we slept in last night. Ivan took some pics of me today and you can see my eyes swollen underneath...not an enjoyable night.
Today was a much better day. We completed all we needed to do in Odessa and are currently on our way to Kyiv where we will stay until our flight home.
There is still hope we will get the passports back in time for us to get their visas and make our flight home next Thursday. Please pray the passport will be ready on Monday. This will give us 2 days to finish off the rest of the process (it will take a day for the completed passports to get from Odessa to us in Kyiv). If they are not done until Tuesday we should be alright as the US Embassy will help us out to get the visas back in a day so we can make our flight. If the passports are not done by Tuesday then the earliest we will be able to come home is Saturday since the Embassy will be closed for Thanksgiving. Of course this will be a very expensive change in flights so....please keep praying!
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