Seeing Our Children For The First Time

On Monday, June 7, 

2021, we had our first appointment set to meet with the Minis

try Office of Social Service of Ukraine.  This appointment is where you are presented options of children available for adoption. 30 minutes prior to this appointment we met with Inna, our translator and facilitator, outside on a street side cafe.

Inna had prepared for us printouts of the children appear

ing on the Ministry’s website that were showing available for adoption.  She had the children grouped in categories, boy & girl, 2 girls, 2 boys, then single non sibling children girls and boys.  We were about to start looking through the black and white printouts when it started to rain.  Quickly we covered up the paperwork and moved to another location with a shelter over a bench.

It was here in this location that we saw our children’s beautiful faces for the first time, although Ryan and I never spoke it out loud to each other, we new in our souls Anna (9) and Artem (11) were ours.

Going into the appointment with the Ministry office it is recommended that you have a list of children that you are interested in, so we followed Inna’s recommendations and selected a few others, but our full intentions were on only Anna and Artem.  We walked into the meeting and the clerk Oksana presented us first with pictures of children with severe disabilities.  Our facilitator explained that we have not been approved to adopt children with severe disabilities.  Oksana asked if there were children we had selected from the site that we were potentially interested in.  Inna passed the photos over, then Oksana left to go up to the 11th floor to bring back their files.  We waited about 20 minutes before she returned with files in hand.  She started opening files, but Anna and Artem were not there.  Though the children presented were beautiful, it was a complete blur as we had our minds set and we were not seeing Anna and Artem here.  Ryan finally asked what about Anna and Artem?  Oksana replied that yes she thinks they are still available and went to an office next door to grab their file.

She presented us the photo’s you see here and started to share about their background and medicals.  We discovered in this appointment that the children were from a region that was neighbouring to where Ryan’s Great Grandfather was born and raised.  Right at the start of our adoption application back in October 2019, we had spoken with our Agency about the possibility of adopting from this part of the Western region, but the way the process works, it is almost impossible to select children from specific areas of the country.  For this reason, we never expected that this would likely happen as most of the adoptions our agency had performed were from the southern region of Ukraine.

Once Oksana had finished presenting, we asked if Ryan and I could go to an office to discuss privately.  She gave us an office next door where the conversation was very short.  We knew 100% that these were our children, we only wanted to make it look to the ministry office that we were not making a fast decision, but rather taking time to discuss privately.  From there we signed a request to meet with Anna and Artem.

The next day we went back to the Ministry office to pick up our approval letter which is required to present to the social services office in the city where the orphanage resides.   This all went smoothly.  Waiting outside in the hot sun with another couple from Italy who was waiting to pick up their approval letter to visit their 3rd orphanage.  Again, feeling very fortunate that we were able to find our children on the first appointment.

On Wednesday, June 9th, 2021 we woke up early that morning to board our train around 7am.  The train was newer and had lots of space and comfortable seating.  With our bags and luggage on hand we were now on our way from Kiev to Khmelnytskyi which was a 4 hour train ride.

The feeling on the train was a feeling of excitement and nerves.  Wondering what would their personalities be like, what would the connection feel like, even some of the logistical aspects of what the orphanage would be like were just a few of the thoughts we had.

The country side of Western Ukraine was beautiful, but as the train passed through many small villages, the poverty in some of these areas was very evident.  Small homes that would be considered a tear down shed here in Canada, were how just some of the people are living there.  You could see they live a simpler life, yet lots of children running and playing outside.

Finally we arrived at our destination.  Khmelnytskyi has a population of around 200,000 so it is considered smaller.  Our taxi took us to our hotel where we dropped off our luggage and freshened up for the busy day ahead.  After a quick bite to eat at the hotel restaurant, we took a taxi to the social services office about a 15 min taxi drive away.

We sat outside in the blistering heat until the social worker opened the door to let us in.  With Covid protocols, they only let you in the entrance way, no meetings are held in any offices.  We met briefly to present the approval letter given to us from the ministry office, which is the authorization to visit the children at the orphanage.  This meeting was very brief, with a social worker being assigned now to our file and joined us in our taxi as we headed to the orphanage.

Pulling up to the orphanage grounds, we could see lots of play structures and brightly painted buildings.  Feeling very excited and nervous, we walked into the orphanage.  No children were around as they were all in class when we arrived.  We walked up to the 2nd floor to meet in the director’s office.  The director and an orphanage worker were sitting at a desk.  They asked us to take seats on the couches near the entrance of the office.  Our social worker took a seat at the desk with the director, while Inna sat with us on the couches. 

The doctor entered the room and shared with us the same medical information that was shared with us at the ministry office in Kiev.  No additional surprises were found here, she just went into greater detail.

After the doctor left, a couple of minutes later, Anna and Artem entered the room.  They sat on a couple of chairs near our couch.  They walked in looking shy and a bit nervous as expected.  They were wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts with slippers on their feet.  They took their seats, swinging their legs on the chairs and giving us shy little smiles on their faces.

We asked a few questions with the help of Inna translating: What do you like to do?  What is your favourite colour?  What type of animals do you like?

The ice was really broken when they sat down on the couch next to us and Ryan started performing some magic tricks.  They LOVED it!  Giggling, laughing, and very curious.  Artem loved it when Ryan started showing him how to do the tricks.  It was so adorable to watch. 

Next we brought out the Family book we created for them.  The book contained pictures of our home, yard, things we like to do, pets, family, and friends they will meet.  We talked through all of the pictures, with Inna interpreting the entire time.  Their favourite part was seeing our dogs Maya & Jack.

After a short visit, the children whisked us off to show us the area they live in.  They ran off to their rooms and when they came back they were wearing different clothes.  From there they took us to their favourite part of the playground where we played soccer, danced, and played together.

The family photo at the top was taken just a couple hours after meeting them.  The connection was immediate with Anna and Artem just as we had dreamed it would be.  The meeting couldn’t have gone any better and the most incredible part to this journey is that we met our children on our 20 year wedding anniversary!  God’s timing is always the right timing and should never be questioned.

Inna asked Anna and Artem privately, do you think you would like to go to Canada with Ryan and Mandy.   Artem responded, “I think we will go, but we would like to talk to Grandma first”.  Anna and Artem’s Grandmother is still a very big part of their lives.  She cares for them a great deal and visits as often as she can.

The next day when we arrived back at the orphanage, Anna and Artem came running up to Inna with great excitement.  They were speaking Ukrainian, but we could make out a few words, enough to know that this was good news.

Anna presented us with 2 drawings, writing at the top of each drawing, Mama & Papa.  They both gave us hugs and then ran ahead.  Inna turned to say, Artem spoke to Grandma and she has given her blessing, so they will go with you!  The best news we could have heard.

In Ukraine, the children also have to consent to the adoption.  We later found that Anna and Artem had turned down 3 other families prior to us.  They were truly waiting for us during the 6 years spent at the orphanage.

3 days after meeting Anna and Artem, Ryan and I sat down with the children to have a chat.  We had prepared the following in Ukrainian for them to read:

“We love you both.  We would love for you and Anna to come to Canada with us.  Do you want us to be your new family?  We will love you and support you.  We will teach you many good things.  You will have new friends and new family who will love you deeply and help you in every way.  Our family is your family, our friends are your friends, our home is your home.  We will keep in contact with your grandma and support her, she will be in our family too.  If you want we will keep in contact with your friends and the orphanage.   We will learn Ukrainian and you will learn English, we will help each other.”

After each section, they both said yes.  Artem especially lit up when he read that we would keep in contact with Grandma and help support her.  After they finished reading they both looked at us like as if, of course.  Like it’s no big deal and we already know this.  Artem later asked if he will still be called Artem in Canada or if his name would change.  He was happy to hear he will still be called Artem.

Over the next few days, we would visit the orphanage from 4-6pm every day.  The hotel was only a 15 min walk and there were several convenience stores available to buy water and food. In addition to the hotel restaurant there was also a restaurant only 2 min from our hotel which served amazing homemade style food.   The owners Tatyana and Oleg quickly became friends to us even though there was a language barrier.

When we arrived on Monday, June 14th at our regular 4pm time, Anna and Artem came running up to us excited to tell us that they had met with the social worker and signed the documents to agree to be adopted by us.  It was official we are now a family.