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.