Blog Update days 10 & 11

We received a call from Sasha that he had arrived in Odessa and wanted to see me before they pick up the passports. Sasha arrives at the hotel at 11am, during our meeting he receives a call that the passports arrived at 10am, we finish discussing all the challenges and our plan forward. He will leave with Sergay and his driver
from Kiev (Alex) they will go the passport office, pick up the pass ports, fax a copy to his office in Kiev and then Alex will return to transport us to Kiev in an air
conditioned Audi station wagon.

The van had no AC and our last return to Kiev was brutal. So we check out of the Hotel Odessa at 12noon, the cashier accuses us of removing a towel from the hotel. We must look through out luggage to see if someone backed a towel in our completely full carry on bags. After 15 minutes of arguing the cashier calls the maids to check one more time, they find the towel hanging on the bathroom door. Five days $2000 and they
want to charge me for a towel ………….

Sasha calls at 12:30 the passports have been faxed and the driver is on his way to pick us up. He arrives at 1:45 and we are off to Kiev. The car ride is much nicer and quicker than the van, we arrive in Kiev at 6:45. The apartment is clean and has three beds so we are going to settle in for the night. Its 95 outside and 90 inside, we run the fans and open the windows, but at 10PM its still 80+. We convince ourselves that it’s only for two nights and we will be at the embassy all day Friday and on a plane to NYC Saturday morning.

Bad decision, none of us got more than two hours of sleep, it was just to hot. The driver and translator pick us up Friday morning at 7:30am. We pack into a Suzuki Vartri SUV, 4 of us in the back seat and headed to the Ukrainian Immigration Health Services medical center. The traffic is bumper to bumber, so we arrive at 8:25am only to find out the clinic opens at 9, but they have AC and we wait. The doctor sees us early and we review the medical records around 8:45. The girls are healthy but need vaccinations hepatitis B booster and rubella for Sara and rubella for Jordan. We pay for the exams $170.00 and vaccinations $50.00 and receive a health packet for the US Embassy. Off for the US Embassy and the final leg of our journey. There is a huge crowd at the embassy, organized by times in ques, we show the US passports and go right into the embassy. We arrive at the adoption waiting room to find the room full; they ask Cheryl and the girls to wait in the next room.

I submit my I600, health packet and passports. They return all three with circles around items I left blank to discuss. They ask me ten questions about the agencies (the stork and Adoption Journey). Have a seat and we will call you for your interview, but your fingerprints for your USCIS I-171H expired last month and we will need to re-submit before we can issue the visas.

My heart feels like someone has ripped it out and all the blood has rushed to my feet. I’m now white as a sheet and they ask me to fill out another form, at this point my mind is at a complete lock-up, frozen and pounding with a headache. I can’t even remember the spelling for the girl’s names. I fill out the paperwork and return to the window. I ask to speak to someone about the finger prints. Michael comes to the window, I tell him I can’t understand, CBI ran my finger prints three times April 2007, October 2007 and March 2008 each time telling me it takes 4-6 weeks for FBI to review the prints.

Michael explains that the USCIS and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) have a separate data base and the finger print processing expires after 15 months. The I-171H has a date of completion of 7-06-2007 and in the body states that the expiration is 18 months after being issued. At the very bottom there is a note that finger print processing expires after 15 months. No where does it state that the finger prints expire 15 months from the time they were taken back in April 2007.

After ten minutes of pleading Michael agrees to send an email to DHS in Moscow to see if they can accept the finger prints since I was actually in the Ukraine when they expired and the fact that we are 5 weeks into this process. We must come back after 2PM. We head to lunch with a glimmer of hope, all I can think is this can’t happen now. My own country is splitting hairs over my finger prints, to get two ten year old girls in the country. Needless to say lunch was not good. We returned to an empty Embassy, they are changing out the emergency generator and all the power will be turned off at 3PM. I meet with Michael and DHS refused access until the finger prints are processed again. They require ink prints to be taken and sent to DC, this normally takes 4-6 business days and expedited 2-3 business days.

They take my prints and send them off Friday and we are stuck in Kiev until someone in DC can input my prints manually in the system. Michael then informs me Cyndi will also need to get her prints done and sent to DC for processing. Once again my heart is heavy, my blood feels thick like cold motor oil and my head is bounding worse than ever. I have developed a twitch in my eye that lets me know that my blood pressure has probably reached an all new high. I inquire if anyone knows where we can get a hotel and/or apartment with AC.

Michael says he can get us a list and returns with one of his team, Lena. She informs us she has a friend at an accommodation finder service and they have apartments in downtown Kiev at reasonable prices. She makes a call and we can stay two blocks off the main square in a very nice neighborhood with AC. We booked it over the phone and Lena took us to the Rental office and then she walked us over to the apartment showing us all the good coffee shops, restaurants and markets along the way. That was above and beyond the call of duty. Everyone keeps telling us to look on the bright side, the weather is good and it’s better to be in Kiev than a lot of other places.

On Friday it was hard to think of anything but defeat and disappointment. I pay my taxes, I’ve followed all the rules and fought a good fight in Odessa and now 24hrs from our flight to freedom it’s taken away. The girls are feeding off our emotions and are clearly upset and scared. We try to reassure them that everything is okay. I have the translator explain that this is just a set back and we will be leaving next week…………………………….sometime.

We have requested a congressional letter from Ken Salazar’s office to expedite the finger print processing. According to the Embassy, if the office receives the congressional letter they have 48hrs to respond. Cyndi went to the USCIS office and they sent her new finger prints to DC electronically which should arrive Monday morning for processing. Why can’t they use my electronic prints from last year? Did they change? If so doesn’t that defeat the purpose of finger prints?????? Stay tuned.




Day 11

The girls sleep to 9am Saturday morning and we convince the girls to go for a walk around the main square and get some coffee for the frazzled nervous adults. The square is beautiful with large fountains and green parkways. The girls play in the fountains for a while and the discover that they can hand feed the pigeons. After spending an hour or so trying to catch a pigeon they final decide its time to move on. We then enter unfamiliar territory for the girls, a Mexican restaurant. We order fajitas and the look on there face when the waiter delivers bowls of tomatoes, chicken, beef , peppers and tortillas is priceless. I show them the proper way to build a fajita, but they keep eating all the stuff off the tortilla before we can roll it up. They eat all the bowls clean, but the tortilla is safe. They don’t have hot sauce, but give us garlic butter that will straighten out your hair and keep the vampires at 50ft for a month. On are way back to the apartment we stop and play in the park. Several playgrounds with all the essentials; seesaw, swings, jungle gyms, monkey bars and one poor pekapoo/pug dog that the girls would not let lie down. The owner got the dog to lie down in the grass and drink some water, only to have the girls run him around the sand box ten more times. Cheryl cooked some veriniki and made a tomato/cucumber salad for dinner. Looks like and early night for the girls. Thank God. We’ve finally come to grips with the situation and can only look forward to our safe return.

I keep you posted on our ongoing saga.