An update!

Two years ago today was our "Gotcha Day" of our daughter Julianna Alyona. She was 14 years old when we adopted her. We had a closed blog but we have decided to make it public to help advocate the adoption of older teens. So you're probably wondering how the last couple years have gone-- the first year was both the happiest and saddest year of my life. It is hard to hear about your child's life prior to adoption. Stories of being hungry, abused, and all alone. I will leave it at that. My daughter had to adjust to being here and around 4 months in was the hardest period for her. Once we got through all of that she still said "I'm so happy to have a family. I'm afraid I'll wake up and be in Ukraine again." No, sweetheart, you are here to stay :) I have put many hours into my girl; holding, rocking and singing to her. I think we have gone through every phase, infant to now a teenager! She has had to learn so much including simple things such as automatic versus push doors. We have also learned some things. For example, we can never grab her while trying to discipline. Time in, not time out, works best. Jealously is an issue that will always affect her due to her being rejected in an orphanage for 8 years. So what does my girl enjoy? She loves picking her clothes for the next day, trying them all on and having choices. She loves smells, perfumes, soaps, body washes, etc. If I get anything scent related I can expect her to instantly start smelling! She's also involved in school choir and taking voice lessons. She recently got a puppy and is enjoying training classes. I hope that she will also start 4 H to give her the opportunity to get more involved in social groups of kids her age. I tell her all the time I wish I knew which other boys or girls have her heart; I would go snatch them up in a minute. We feel so blessed to have such a large and happy family. Diane

Home Sweet Home!

A Mother's Point of View

Tonight our fifth child comes home.

I thought I would write a post to express my joy in being a mother to another child. I feel so privileged to have been blessed with Julianna in my life. Although Ted has kept this blog, I also wrote my own journal... I NEVER want to forget the glory of so many moments, both beautiful and heartbreaking. The joy I feel when I hear Julianna call me "mommy" and Ted "poppy" or the way she says, "I'm so happy I have family," is truly unexplainable. Every time we moved one step further in the process, you could tell she was truly relieved. Her biggest fear was that something would go wrong and we would be forced to leave her (not a chance).

Our daughter has a lot to discover in this world. Simple things, like windows being controlled by a button, was quite the novelty. Unfortunately for our sweet girl, life has never been easy, both before and after being in the orphanage. She has lived in the internat for 8 years of her life. In a village with nothing. Her life experiences have been small.

We cannot wait until she's home tonight. Finally, she will see what endless love means, what being a family means, and what forever means. She has so much to learn but we are so anxious to teach her and provide her with amazing life experiences.

I want to thank everyone for their endless support. Especially my daycare parents for their understanding and our entire family for accepting our new family member as one of us.

I have always known this is something I needed to do. Some people climb mountains or jump out of planes, but I feel my time in Ukraine has fulfilled all my goals. I will forever be grateful.

*******BREAKING NEWS*******

I'm a couple of reports behind but I wanted to let everybody know that we completed the last step of the process yesterday at the US Embassy and we're coming home!

Diane and Jillian will arrive Saturday evening and I moved the flights up for Julianna and I to Sunday, arriving around 10:30 PM.

It's been a long and rewarding journey but home sounds really good.

Thank you for your support.

The Purvis Family

Ted, Diane, Jacob, Justine, Joseph, Jillian and Julianna.

Trip 2 Day 17
Tuesday June 1

Today was a whirlwind of a day. We started out at the birth certificate office next to the motel. Our role for the day was to try and keep up with Nastya, sit and wait until needed and then sign our names repeatedly without explanation.

The big surprise came at the bank where we found out that Julianna had about $25,000 grivna in her accounts (~ $3,000 USD). Not so surprising was that they wouldn’t give it to us saying that we needed to convene the guardian counsel of 12 people to all agree on it (yeah, right). Somehow, between multiple trips to the orphanage and children services to get papers signed we ended up with the money. We didn’t get many pictures today because of the hectic pace but the best would have been them handing Julianna a huge wad of money. She wanted to donate 4,000 to the orphanage for shoes, 500 to Valya and 500 to a girl named Sasha we never met so this was our last stop before leaving Schors.

During all this rushing around we met Julianna’s sister Oksana and nephew Danya outside the bank. She was very nice and we did get a few pictures of them together. It wasn’t the ideal way for us all to meet but at least they were able to say their goodbyes. We wanted to stop by the house that Julainna owns (or co-owns?) to get a picture but Nastya was in a big hurry to get to Chernigiv so she decided to skip that. We never signed any papers on this house so I don’t know what will happen with her share but that’s a minor concern at this point. Nastya informed us that the government was voting today on whether to ban all international adoptions from Ukraine. The supporters of this measure feel that too many adoptive families are not fulfilling their obligation to report back to the Ukraine on the child’s welfare post adoption. This may be true but we’ve seen first hand how they fare without adoption. Typical political nonsense but fortunately the measure did not pass.
I’m trying to figure out what we did in Chernigiv but it’s mostly a blur. We went to a notary and sat there forever and did some more signing, went to a government building for something else, searched and found a place to take her passport photo and actually got her Ukrainian passport to get her out of the country. The passport would normally be a 3 day wait followed by a 4 hour round trip drive from Kiev to get it but we magically transformed this into a 1 day process. My buddy Benjamin Franklin played a large role in this transaction.
We went to McDonald’s in Chernigiv which was very exciting for Julianna, and us too to be honest. We tend to forget that not only is she a small town girl but she’s been further isolated within that town. Most of the things we do are either new or rare experiences for her. Her McD’s order was a Big Mac, 6 piece Chicken McNugget, Large Fries and Large Coke. We have a 77 pound eating machine.
If McD’s was exciting, Kiev was mind blowing for her. We have a really nice apartment located in the heart of the city. Diane and Jillian are ecstatic over the washing machine and ice cube trays. This is a very vibrant and exciting area by Independence Square with many fountains, statues, colorful lighting and lots of people. Julianna has seen a few Ukrainian celebrities and she’s squealing with excitement. All she can say is “Wow!“
We’re ahead of schedule. Tomorrow we check in at the US Embassy and after that bring Julianna to her Medical exam. If all goes well we should be home earlier than expected!

Trip 2 Day 16 Monday May 31

The day involved a lot of waiting but it was all worth it in the end. We decided not to go to the orphanage until Nastya arrived and that happened around 3:30 PM. Julianna called during the wait and said the Director was telling her the 10 day wait wasn’t over and that her paperwork wasn’t in order so she probably couldn’t go today. I told her not to worry and just be quiet and wait. I have no idea why the Director would say this because we had no problems once we arrived and I gave her a “gift”.

We ended up staying at the orphanage for quite a while because Nastya had to run around completing paperwork. Sveta and Valya were crying most of the time and Julianna went from happy to sad and everything in between. I gave Sveta the extra Ukraine phone we had and we all tried to make her feel better. We hope to get Sveta and her brother on the GFA hosting list next summer so we can see them again.

We said our farewells and after checking Nastya into the hotel we went to the cemetery. The tradition is to put a specific number of flowers and candy on the grave so she did this for her dad, uncle and grandma. The cemeteries are very elaborate with many silk flowers and even small tables picnic tables at many of the graves. We were doing all this in the middle of a thunderstorm to add to the ambiance.

After that we went to a different graveyard back in the woods. It was raining now and the area was very flooded. Here we placed flowers and candy on the adjacent graves of mom, grandma and grandpa. We weren’t able to stay long because of the mosquitoes. We hurried back to the hotel to get Jillian some antihistamine to try and mitigate her reaction to the bites. We wanted to meet Julianna’s sister but she wasn’t available so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

We all went to our favorite restaurant for our last dinner in Schors. We had a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Nastya was able to tell our waiter Misha that we were leaving and he asked her to find somebody to adopt him. He’s a nice guy, maybe Justine would be interested.

Back at the hotel Julianna and Jillian went to the shower room. No sooner had they started then we lost power in the entire building so that caused a little excitement. Diane went to their rescue with a small flashlight.

We’ve been working towards this day for a long time. It would be hard to overstate how good it feels to have her with us.

Trip 2 Day 15 Sunday May 30

Julianna’s last full day at the orphanage (knock on wood)! We went over for our morning visit and went up to the girls bedroom area. We’ve been getting a bad vibe up there recently and it didn’t change today. I think there are a lot of emotions involved with Julianna leaving and they’re all dealing with it in their own way. Fortunately, Sveta and Valya are sticking with her to the end.

There wasn’t much going on with the visit so I sat just outside the room and worked on the computer. I soon had a group of younger kids around watching me so I gave them the Ipod touch to keep them entertained. One girl wasn’t sharing very well so I eventually took it from her and passed it to a boy who was waiting. Apparently this irritated her because she gave the boy a good wallop. I’m not sure he noticed.

I think Julianna wanted to get us out of the bedroom area so we finished the visit outside kicking the soccer ball around. Diane suggested to Julianna that we not come for a second visit today because it seems to be making things more difficult for her. She said she had a lot to do anyway so it would be ok. It’s Dennees 16th birthday tomorrow so she wanted to go shopping for a gift and also go swimming.



Alona R walked over to the hotel again and Julianna, Sveta and Valya showed up a short time later to show us the gold chain they had bought for Dennees. We had some nice interaction amongst the girls with Alona helping with the interpreting and also answering some of their questions about America. Valya is starting to relax around us and we can tell she’s a real character. She graduated this year and supposedly is going on to some type of performing arts school with Kosta (dancing boy). We didn’t know they had any options so this was good to hear.

Alona’s folks showed up a little later and we headed to their place with a stop on the way to pick some fresh vegetables and strawberries. Once again they went to work preparing a great meal. The salads they make are especially delicious. They also know I like beer so Granny and I usually share a bottle. During the meal Uncle Wowza showed up with his whole family including the dog so it was nice to see them again. The little guy Vladic has an infectious laugh that seems to break out for extended periods of time for no apparent reason. When they were leaving to return to Chernigiv he refused to go so I was afraid Wowza was going to yank his ears off again. He finally left but returned a short time later by himself. I’m not sure how he worked that but I was glad to see him.

G & G left for a while to tend the animals so we were able to clean up from dinner. When they returned they wanted to play Uno. It was quite a scene with poor Alona trying to explain the game to them, Vladic bouncing all over the place laughing like a mad clown and Jillian freaking out every time she saw a mosquito. Diane and I were pretty much laughing the whole time at the general craziness.



It was getting late so we said our goodbyes to Alona and Vladic and left with G & G to return to the hotel. As we exited the building Grandpa came up turning the steering wheel and laughing like Vladic. The only problem was the steering wheel was no longer attached to the LADA. Fortunately, they both thought this was hilarious. The next challenge was to move the car out of the way and put it in their shed. Gramps and I were trying to turn the front tires by hand while Granny and Jillian pushed. The only problem was there was absolutely no communication between the motor (Granny and Jillian) and the steering team so that was pretty comical too. They would give a mighty push and I would jump in front and push the other way to avoid ramming the shed as Grandpa was trying to extract his arm from the wheel well.

With no other options we set off on the long walk home. They insisted on going with us and brought along their yappy little dog to terrorize other pedestrians. It was actually a pretty nice walk and by now I had a serious case of the giggles. I was thinking that this was a fitting end to our time here in Schors and I couldn’t wait to write about it. The good news is that Alona’s guardians are generous, good hearted, hard working people and we’re glad we got a chance to know them.

Tomorrow will be another eventful day. It should be our “Gotcha Day”, the day we take Julianna from the orphanage forever.

Trip 2 Day 14 Saturday May 29

We spent both visits today in the large room playing with a lot of kids. School is over now so there’s a lot less kids here. For the last couple of days the kids have been scattered around the room working on puzzles or lego type kits. We’ve been happy to see some type of organized activity for them. The lady who watches over them seems to treat them well. Sometimes they don’t treat each other too well. One thing I’ve noticed is they can really take a punch, or slap, or kick, … It doesn’t seem to phase them at all.



We usually spend the time in there playing Uno. We hand out the notebook computer and my Ipod touch so other groups of kids can play games on those. The fishing game on my Ipod seems to be very popular. The older girls try to run off the younger boys because they think they smell (they do) so we usually have to enforce a little niceness so everybody can be involved.



Alona walked from her apartment to the hotel and joined us during the second visit. I think the village kids hear a lot of bad things about the orphanage kids so if nothing else I think we’ve opened her eyes a little bit. She thought it was sad all these kids have no parents or anybody who cares for them. Alona’s guardians have told us tactfully how all the kids here use bad language and steal . That hasn’t been our experience at all as they’ve been very respectful of our stuff. I’m sure it’s just a good excuse to forget about them.

Alona left us at 6:30 PM to do her daily chore of walking the cows home and we walked to the foster home for some computer time. Little Nastya and a boy her age entertained Diane and Jillian while I got caught up and then we changed places and they checked Facebook. Cheered by this touch with home we headed back to the hotel to down a little food and get some rest.

Trip 2 Day 13 Friday May 28

This turned out to be a full day. We went over to the orphanage in the morning and smoothed things over with Valya by giving her a shirt and a necklace. Probably not the right way to handle things but we don’t have a lot of time and we want to make Julianna’s last few days in the orphanage as painless as possible. In reality we’re past the 10 day waiting period but Nastya won’t be here until Monday so we must wait.
When we arrived back at the hotel Alona R and guardians were waiting for us. We spent the two hour break between orphanage visits in the hotel room with them. Granny had arranged that Alona R would join us for the second visit to the orphanage. This isn’t really how we wanted them to meet but it was out of our control. Alona R had never been to the orphanage before and she was very scared to go there so I’m not sure what Granny was thinking. The visit was awkward but they’re both really nice girls and I’m sure it will work out in the long run.



We hooked up with G & G again after the visit and drove to this fetid pond area. We didn’t know it but this was close to where the milk cows are pastured during the day and we were waiting for them to walk back to the village. During the wait I ate enough bugs to qualify as an appetizer for dinner and donated enough blood to earn some cookies and juice. It was really cool to see the whole herd of cows walking back to the village. Nobody was leading them, they just seemed to know where to go. We followed in the car and then Jillian, Alona and I got out and followed Rosa and Meilka home with Alona giving them an occasional swat to keep them going.




G & G were busy with the animals so I had Alona give me a tour describing everything while I videotaped her. I’m too citified to know what all the vegetables are and I was curious. In the process of taping I managed to run a tree branch into my eye so I’ll have to edit that part out to maintain a “G” rating. They fed us some strawberries from the garden that were probably the best I’ve ever had.



We went to their apartment and after a lot of preparation they fed us a great meal. It’s amazing how hard they work. Once again they wanted us all to spend the night but fortunately Jillian was swelling up so bad from her bug bites that we could say we needed to get back to the hotel to give her some medicine. We got back to the hotel around 11:30 PM for some much needed rest.

Trip 2 Day 12 Thursday May 27

Although we didn’t know it until we arrived it was “Last Bell” at the orphanage today. This is a ceremony signifying the last day of school and all the kids were dressed in their best clothes. Many of the girls had big white bows attached to their pigtails. We waited out front for a while with our usual group of followers. My buddy Vlade managed to delete all the videos off my Flip camera so I was happy I uploaded them to the computer last night. The nurse hauled Julianna off to take some medicine and she was very unhappy about that. She doesn’t know what it’s for but they tell her she has to take it to go to America. Maybe we can figure it out when Nastya gets back here Monday.




We crowded into the large room for the ceremony. There were a few speeches interspersed with song and dance routines. Julianna and Kosta (who I’ve been calling dancing boy) had a great extended dance routine. They handed out “diplomas” to the ninth graders and there were a lot of tears following the ceremony. This is the end of the line for them here. We tried to find out when they would be leaving and where they would go but Julianna doesn’t seem to know.






Afterward we went up to the bedroom area and we had Julianna put some gifts together for friends and teachers from stuff we brought. It’s always awkward handing out gifts because there’s never enough for everybody but I guess they’re used to it. Sveta started crying heavily during this time. I found out later she wanted to go and see her family but they wouldn’t let her. We believe Sveta and her brother were taken from the family due to alcoholism.



One of the teachers we gifted suggested we take Julianna with us back to the hotel for a visit. We’re still a little paranoid so we checked with Nastya and she thought it would be OK. We brought Sveta along as well to try and cheer her up. We worked on a puzzle and did some crafts in the room for a while then headed for the candy store. Julianna picked out an assortment of her favorite candies for Jacob, Justine & Joseph. A little later this turned into an assortment for Ted, Diane & Jillian. Sorrry! We’ll restock before we leave.



From here we walked to our restaurant. Julianna told us her mom worked there but not anymore because she died. It was fun to watch them study the menu and order. They had salad with imitation crab and chicken in it, pork with french fries and cappuccino. Julianna seems to like all food and meat in particular. I can’t wait to bring her to Costco.



We said our goodbyes and Pasha returned the girls to the orphanage. We accomplished our goal of making Sveta feel better but it may have been a mistake to take her with us. Julianna called us later and she was very despondent. She said “Valya no my friend”. I managed to figure out that Valya was upset that we’ve been lavishing all this attention on Sveta so she told Julianna they weren’t friends any longer. It doesn’t sound serious but we found out later that Valya cut herself as a result. We will do some damage control tomorrow.