Saturday, May 19, 2012

Good News/Bad News Take 1 (I'm sure I'll be using this again!)


So much has happened the last few days I don’t even know where to start. 

1) Clay, who had been sick with a really nasty cough, was diagnosed with pertussis/whooping cough this week.  We weren’t expecting that one!  He is feeling much better after a few days of meds.  The rest of us are taking antibiotics just in case—we sure don’t want to start an epidemic at an orphanage or end up in a Ukrainian hospital.  We are SO glad our pediatrician was on his toes and made the very unlikely call for a pertussis swab test.

2) We received an email from Victor, our facilitator in Ukraine, telling us that oops, all of the kids at Uglegorsk orphanage will be leaving for summer camp two days after we arrive.  We were planning to spend five days with them at Uglegorsk and thought we had cleared those dates.  Naturally, at first, we panicked.  There was no practical way we could change the dates of our trip.  After some creative brainstorming and a helpful discussion with Laura at Ukrainian Resource Center (URC), we decided to keep our original flights and see what Victor could work out on his end.  Sounds like we might spend those first two days at Uglegorsk, then travel to a different orphanage for our remaining time.  Our interpreter will be with us no matter where we go, so we are not locked in to anything.  The obsessive planner in me is having a little trouble with this, but I’m doing my best to go with the flow!

3) After two failed attempts and months of waiting, my background check results finally arrived in the mail!  (And yes, you smart alecks out there, it was clear.)  That was the last piece of documentation we needed for our home study.  Our case worker is coming to our house Monday morning for the home visit.  Naturally, the house is a wreck, but he assures me that doesn’t matter.  He will interview all of us, review the paperwork that he’d requested, and complete a write-up.  We pretty much have the rest of our paperwork in order.  We’ll be counting on Laura and Victor to coach us as to when to submit what so that the timing for our second visit to Ukraine will be practical.  I know that much of this process is beyond our control, but we can try, right?

A week from right now we’ll be flying over the Atlantic!

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