Here is the story of my boss's adoption trip to the Ukraine.
He and his wife adopted two children, a boy and a girl, two years ago, and decided to return for two of the girl's friends this year. They left just after the recent re-election in Ukraine.
They're returning with one of the girls, Leeza, and her brother Zhenya -- and leaving the other girl, Katya, behind because of a paperwork issue. They're going to return for Katya as soon as they can. They have to wait a year.
There have been days when I'd read the updates and cheer -- and days when I'd sit in front of the computer at work and try not to cry.
Last week we were telling Leeza and Katya that we wanted to adopt them, but that we had some paperwork problems and Katya couldn't come home with us now and it would have to be later. Katya became upset and Leeza said to Katya " you go, I will stay". This is coming from a girl that wants a family more than breath. They are too good.
Leeza is now like the kid in the back seat on the way to Disneyland that keeps saying, "are we there yet?" She wants to know when we are going to America. It is really hard to be excited for Leeza and so depressed about Katya at the same time. Katya is doing much better than we are. She has a Mama and Papa now and she can't hide her excitement about that, although we are sure there is some fear inside her that we won't come back. Living your life without a family, and especially a Mom or Dad would probably create doubt like that no matter what we did. Zhenya has his own profile on Papa's windows XP on the family laptop now and you would think that he just won the lottery. The techie Papa has already learned some things about his computer that he never knew before. Zhenya is still attending his Physics and Math classes at the University this weekend despite knowing he is going to America in a week. He is one driven kid. He said that it doesn't matter if he is leaving in a week. He says Physics and Mathematics are the same in Ukraine and America. He could skip the class and play with Papa's laptop all day, but he would rather take a bus across town and sit in a class. We are so proud :)
