Our appt

I skimmed over a very important topic! Our referral appointment! The day after we arrived in K.iev we had our appointment to "look at children's files" at 11:00 am. Our driver picked us up at 9:30am and we arrived in plenty of time to wait (somewhat nervously) for our appointment (for about 30 minutes). We met a very nice Ukr couple that now live in California, that were there hoping to get a referral for a child under 7.

I snapped this picture while we waited. This is St. Andrews Church which is right outside the office that handles the adoptions.

Our facilitator was sick (and in the hospital) so another facilitator stepped in to help out the representative that was there. It was really (really) nice to see-after all you hear and read about backstabbing in the country-some of it is definitely not true as there was a wonderful level of participation and professionalism between our two in- country agencies. 

They were running a bit late inside the building, so we finally were ushered in about 11:15-11:20. We were taken to a back office where we waited for a few minutes. Then a very nice woman came in and asked a few questions of the facilitator, confirmed we were a host family and that we had just hosted this boy, and then left to go find his file. Something took awhile, and they had to call the director once to clear something up, but they brought out the file for "V" and his brother "A". They asked which one we would like to view first and we said we didn't care since we understood that siblings of course come together in this country. :) They went over a bit of their history and their respective medical diagnosis. No real surprises for history, with a bit of a surprise when they talked about "A's" medical. Nothing too surprising though in reality. 

We confirmed we wanted to accept the referral and that was that! Very easy and smooth. We were told we would pick up the paperwork the next day and then we left. Outside we met Kristen and her hubby. We had been chatting for awhile online and I was hoping that we could hang out in Kiev-but it just didn't work out that way, to my disappointment. 

Their appointment was right after ours, and you can read all about their journey to Marat on her blog as well!