All was going smoothly until....

Wednesday night when I took a MUCH closer look at our travel itinerary. We booked these tickets while still in Ukraine last time as we were just so thrilled to get ANY tickets at all. It wasn't an easy task for my travel agent. The problem is Austin and I are due to arrive in Munich, Germany at 12:25pm Sunday and are due to depart from Munich to Kiev at 1:00pm...the same day. This 35 minute time frame includes going through customs. Our assigned seats are in row 55. I know...it keeps getting worse. For those of you who've traveled on a looooong flight know how people are very anxious to get off the plane. Someone suggested asking if we could get off first. I have my doubts. Even if we did...being in a strange airport...going through a new customs...and getting ourselves AND our luggage on the next airplane is NOT looking like an easy task.

So...I checked online to see if there are any other flights leaving Munich and going to Kiev later that day. There is one...7:25pm...which would get us to Kiev around 10:40pm. That would mean we would miss the night train going to Nikolaev...which I REALLY wanted. Getting on that night train would mean we could save about $100 hotel expense...we would most likely get our adoption paperwork done in Nikolaev that Monday and be back on the train Monday night. The way it looks now we will be wasting a day in Kiev doing nothing...but waiting. I could take Austin for a walk to show him things we saw and places we went. That would mean he would get an eye or two full of half dressed girls :(

Oh, there is another option. We could get into a car...without seatbelts...with a driver, who most likely was up all day, and be driven down to Nikolaev and be there by Monday morning. For some reason this option just does NOT sound very appealing no matter which way I look at it. I can NOT get those visions out of my head of us and the approaching car (or bus...or truck...or motorcycle) being only 100 feet apart...in the same lane...with a semi truck next to us and behind us. And then 2 minutes later...this happened again, and again, and again. It REALLY was THAT bad. I would rather be in labor for a week without an epidural...and I've never had an epidural to know how great they are.

I don't mean to scare any future adoptive families. It was maybe just me being the BIG chicken that I am. Darrell didn't have the same experience I did. He was in the front seat with a seatbelt but IF I had the option of a seatbelt I don't think it would have changed things much. The train ride was much cheaper and SO MUCH more relaxing.

Please pray all works out and that we can still be on schedule to fly back home on the 21st.

THANKS!

We are home.

We flew into Bismarck around 4:30pm Wednesday afternoon. Catie, Noah and Joey were there to greet us. Joey didn't see us right away but when he did he just stared with a blank look. I imagined him thinking..."is this a dream?...do I really see my mom and dad?" I then grabbed him and hugged him and kissed him and kept saying..."mommy's home, mommy's home". He then went to Darrell and came right back to me. It was so nice getting so many hugs and kisses from both of them the whole night. I got "shy-ish" smiles from the older kids. I "think" we were missed which was nice to see :)

Me and the little ones went to bed at 10pm. Noah wanted to stay up and talk but I could NOT keep my eyes open any longer. Two hours of sleep in 48 hours doesn't go very far. I woke up at midnight to Darrell coming in the room (he milked and went to the day field when we got home...and fell asleep while driving the tractor...I won't even go there) and sat up in bed and was soooooooooo confused. I was trying to figure out what apartment I was in because nothing looked familiar. Darrell said we were HOME!

We had the BEST kid-sitters possible...my mom and Catie. Everyone and everything was very well taken care of. I felt like I was walking into a brand new mantion compared to where we had been staying. It was spotless and thanks to 2 great friends our fridge was filled with amazing food. What a treat! I had been looking for broccoli everywhere we went in Ukraine and NEVER saw it anywhere. One dish in the fridge was broccoli stir fry. YUMMY!

The boys did a great job "managing" the farm. We could have not did this without them and their willingness to do their part.

We're so thankful God was watching over all of us and brought us all back safely together. Now if He can just do that while Austin and I are gone for a week to finish up the adoption we would be even more thankful. I know those who offered prayers for safety were also a part of it too!

We have a Six-Pack!!!!!!

Of boys that is! The judge ruled in our favor to become the parents of Pyshchalo Il'ya born 4-17-2008. He is now named Isaiah Ilya Becker.

Court was delayed 1 hour due to late jurors. We (facilatator, translator, social worker, Darrell and I) were sitting out in a VERY warm hallway. The judge told us we can sit in his air conditioned room...what a treat that was!

Finally at 10:55am we were told to go into court room. There were 8 people in there until the judge and jurors walked in totaling 11 people in yet another VERY warm room. Currently at 12:30pm it is around 112 degrees.

Lots of Russian talk was being jabbered as we sat there wondering what was going on. Our translator was good about trying to catch us up after someone was done talking. Darrell and I both were asked questions but nothing too hard...just very nerve wracking standing before the judge even if he didn't understand a word we were saying. The orphanage doctor was asked a number of questions including if she thinks we understand this child comes with special needs and if she thinks we can handle it. Translator told us she said without a doubt we know and can handle it as we have been raising another child with Ds for the past five years. She also said she has seen us interact with this child at the orphanage and she can see we love him already...sniff, sniff.

Before long the judge and jurors left the room. The orphanage doctor and social worker came and shook our hands and congratulated us. They were confident we were going to be new parents. They were right...judge/jurors came back 5 minutes later and jabbered some more Russian and our translator said he agreed to grant us our request and we are the parents of Isaiah Ilya Becker!!! Whoohoo!!!!

The hard part is over. We will have one more visit, although short, with Isaiah today before we are picked up at 6:15pm to head to the train station.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers! It will be nice coming back to cooler weather. Hopefully it cools down here too before our return trip in 2 weeks.

Our Translator Vika

Our Facilitator Sasha

Saturday & Sunday.

Yesterday when we came for our afternoon visit Isaiah had his "gloves" on. First time since we've been visiting him. Most of the pictures I got of him from past adoptive families he had these same gloves on. Isaiah is a thumb sucker and finger chewer and boy oh boy does he have a suction. In between his thumb and pointer finger it is so raw. He has 6 more teeth to get so HOPEFULLY the chewing will vanish when he is done teething.

Isaiah had his first dance lesson from dad. I also have it on video but dad won't allow me to upload it :( (he was singing a Russian tune)


We visited the Nikolaev Zoo. We saw our first hippo and were as up close and personal as you could get to some scary but beautiful big cats. Also saw some buffalo...was neat to see the map of where they come from...the plains of the midwest.







We didn't have a long afternoon visit with Isaiah as we met with our facilitator and the translator we will have with us in court. They were going over with us what to expect in court...what to say and what not to say. Darrell plans on being the main speaker. There are only 4 English speaking people in the court room of about 10-12 people...facilitator, translator, Darrell and myself. So if Darrell has a brain freeze and forgets what he was going to say he just has to say something and the translator will do her thing...no one will know what happened. Court could be anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes...depending on how busy the judge is that day. The hardest part might be how to pronounce Isaiah's real name. Their phonetics is not the same as ours. Isaiah's last name starts with a P but sounds like a B. If you happen to be having a restless nights sleep tonight around 2am say a prayer that all is going well. Our SD friends didn't have a good experience in court on Friday and they have to come back Monday also. Please say a prayer for them also.

Today, Sunday, we ventured out on the bus to church again. There was a baptism today. Looked like there were 2 Godmothers and 2 Godfathers and we had 2 sermons again this week. Would be nice to know what we were being told. It was 36 degress C which is 104 degress F...with NO breeze at all. It gets hard to breath at times.

We walked around and went into many small shops. Shoes, shoes, and more shoes EVERYWHERE. Found another huge kids store and bought some bubbles for Isaiah. Bismarck Airport confiscated the bubbles I had packed in my backpack. He didn't get as excited as we thought he would but he did try to grab them. He probably never saw them before.

Ukraine Map & Flag.

Here is a map of Ukraine. We started out in Kiev...traveled down to Nikolaev...and will finish back up in Kiev. Same thing will happen on 2nd trip. The remaining trips back up to Kiev will be by the night train. I can not get myself to get back on "suicide highway". There are some things some people can only do once and that is one thing for me.

Notice where Odessa is on the map...very close to Nikolaev. We believe both of our families ancestors shipped out of Odessa back in the late 1800's to early 1900's. Some family never did come to America. It is kind of neat walking the grounds that some blood line way back in the day may have also walked. For all we know Isaiah could share the same blood line somewhere along the line. He does really look alot like one of my little boy cousins. :) Our facilitator said that we need to mention that to our judge that our ancestors come from this area. They started in Germany and when things got bad there they traveled to Russia...which is why they are referred to as German-Russians in our area back in North Dakota. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union along with Russia and a few other countries. The final independence for Ukraine was achieved in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR. We have questions to ask family when we get back home because we are beginning to think that the term "German-Russian" is not correct because Odessa is in Ukraine and that is where most shipped out of. Now, maybe they traveled to ship out of Odessa but actually lived in Russia. Lots of interesting facts to find out.

Germans in our area refer to vegetable soup as Borchst. Borchst is BIG here in Ukraine and it is YUMMY! They use a lot of beets in theirs. All this time I thought Borchst was a "German" word but turns out it is Russian/Ukrainian. We know 3 Russian/Ukrainian words pretty well...Dah (yes), Nyet (no) and Borschst (vegetable soup).



Here is a picture of the Ukrainian flag. I find it really ironic that the colors are the exact colors that are used to bring awareness to Down syndrome...blue and yellow.

Good News x 3.

#1-Our Interpol Clearance is in which means court is still on for Monday at 10am.

#2-We will be able to get the one day passport for Isaiah on our 2nd trip which means instead of spending 3-4 days in Nikolaev we will only need to be here ONE day!

#3-We were suppose to go to Notary tomorrow but just found out she is going on vacation for a week so we will do it today.

Now we can reschedule tickets and book 2 more for our return trip. Darrell won't be coming back with me but luckily our 13 year old Austin is passport ready so he will come with me. It will sure be nice having an extra set of arms to help with Isaiah. He may be little for a 2 year old but his low muscle tone makes him hard to carry.

Today when we got to the orphanage they were already outside in their same play area. They were having their morning snack outside. It is a cooler day...the humidity is sooooooo much better. All 3 nannies today were very nice and asked us questions as best they could in English. They asked about our family so we showed them our photo album. Everyone is always shocked to hear we have 5 boys back home. I was surprised that one of the nannies has 5 kids herself...all older though. We were told most families have only 1 child...some have 2 and very few have 3. Today was also the first time that we saw so many toys in their play area and before they went back inside some of the kids got to sit in a little swimming pool. The nanny put Isaiah's feet in. We aren't sure what happened today but they never handed Isaiah to us. We stayed with them the whole time they were playing and then when they were done the little ones went into a stroller including Isaiah. After his feet were cleaned in the pool they took him inside. Darrell and I just looked at each other. We did go in to give them their daily diapers. We were asked to bring a few diapers everyday which seems strange as he is not even ours yet but oh well. Before we leave on Monday I will give them the rest of the big bag we bought here so we don't have to stuff them in our already OVERSTUFFED luggage.

While the nanny was pushing the kids in the stroller she was singing and Isaiah would bounce up and down. We could tell he definately understood what she was singing. He seems to get treated very well by everyone. We wish he could come home with us now but knowing how he is cared for will make it easier to leave.

July 22, 2005 & July 22, 2010

This post was meant to be on the 22nd but time always seems to be hard to find lately. Our days go by faster than we thought they would.

A while back I mentioned how the 22nd is a very significant date for my adoption dream. I have journal entries that were dated such and such month and year that had the day of 22nd. On June 22nd we received our SDA appointment. It came much later than we had hoped for but just kept trusting God had THE perfect time that we would travel. A couple hours after I got the email with our SDA appointment news, which was for July 20th, I realized that there was a VERY good chance that we would meet Isaiah for the very first time on the 22nd of July. It would be like the day we gave birth for a typical pregnancy. What makes this day even more special is that July 22, 2005 is the day we gave birth to one of our biggest blessings...our Joey. Joey is the boy who inspired this adoption of a child with Down syndrome. Joey has blessed our family in so many ways and we wanted to give back to God by helping one of 147 million orphans in the world...a little boy who Reece's Rainbow named Isaiah. For those of you who didn't read the beginning of this blog, our Joey wasn't always named Joey. He was named Isaiah Joseph but within a half hour of him being born I had a STRONG feeling that I needed to change his name to Joseph Isaiah...so I did. 3 1/2 years later (Nov. 2008) God finally told me why that change needed to be...because there was going to be a different Isaiah in our family someday. And ironically Isaiah's real name is not Isaiah...it is Ilya...but there were 2 Ilya's on Reece's Rainbow so they changed my Ilya to Isaiah.

By God allowing...planning...for both these boys to have the same "birth date" tells me that this was indeed God's will for Isaiah and for our family.

Just for fun here are some pictures of Joey throughout the past years. He turned 5 last week and we were sad to miss his birthday. It was even sadder missing him blowing out his candles for the FIRST time. I've been working with him so hard and for so long to get him to blow and he does it when we are gone.
2 weeks old
3 months old
6 months old
9 months old
1 year old
2 years old
3 years old
4 years old
I don't have a 5 yr. picture yet but these are recent ones. Joey ADORES our dog. He can lay by him for so long just watching his every move.