Putting it all out there ...

It's 11:30pm and I have to get to bed, but wanted to send a final note before nodding off.  

Blake and I treated ourselves to dinner at the Donbass Palace tonight.  It wasn't actually that expensive, but it was a tremendous relief to not have to struggle with Russian and point to what we wanted to eat and drink.  We just didn't have the energy for it.  After today's visit, we really just wanted to go somewhere at least a smidgeon western.  And let me tell you, a smidgeon is the best you can do here - but we'll take it.  Everyone we encountered at the Donbass speaks pretty good English, so it was a nice reprieve.

We are simply exhausted.  The emotions involved in this process are high, to say the least, and when you are trying to, likewise, figure out the emotions of little girls, well, therein lies the rub.  We have been back and forth over this for days and now, again, all evening long.  We realize we must be flexible and understanding here - obviously - but we also want to have some kind of plan so we don't feel like we're just spinning our wheels or going backwards or overstaying our welcome.

So, although we may not "officially" extend our offer to adopt the girls tomorrow as previously planned, we have decided that we still want to let the girls know that we would like to adopt them and find out if they have any interest in that at all. 

Irina will be back with us tomorrow, which we are so grateful for.  Katya is nice and means well, to be sure, but during the majority of our visits, we would literally have to say "tell them that, please" or "translate that, please" or "what are they saying", etc., as she seemed to get caught up in what what was happening and forget to translate.  We definitely felt a disconnect that we didn't feel when Irina was with us.  We also think Irina is just more professional.  She seems to handle situations with more aplomb, and we hope that will serve us well going forward.

So, with Irina as our liaison, we feel confident to proceed with our "new" plan.  We will be very interested to see how the girls react to us tomorrow.  Hopefully, it will not be joyless again for our meeting.  Following our visit (or maybe even during it if we feel really out of place), we will have Irina talk with the girls without us present.  We do not want our presence to affect how the girls respond.  We want them to respond openly and candidly, and we're not sure if they will do that with us right there.  We will have Irina tell them, point blank, that we want to adopt them, want them to come to the United States to live with us, etc., and ask them if they have any interest or curiosity in that at all.  They certainly do not need to decide or commit or even come close to that.  Not at all.  But if they have no interest whatsoever, that is fine, but we want to know.  We understand.  It's a huge change and leap for young girls their age to make.  If they do have an interest or curiosity in adoption by us, though, we will continue to go forward and to be patient. 

We are also going to contact Konstantin to see if there would be a possibility of the girls coming to the U.S. this summer for us to host them if they are not yet ready for adoption.  Perhaps seeing how we live and how things are in our home and in our country would be helpful for the girls to make this huge decision.  But we will be clear that we are interested in hosting them to adopt them.  We're not like the Italian family who only wants to have them around for the summer.  Obviously, that doesn't mean they'd have to want to be adopted after our hosting them, but we want them to know upfront that we are interested in adopting them.

So that's the plan for tomorrow.  Today was just such a sock in the gut that we cannot continue pretending that everything is okay when it surely is not.  It just makes no sense and, frankly, it's taking its toll on us.  The whole thing is taking a toll on us, so we can imagine how it's affecting Karina and Victoria.  We truly do not want them to feel any unnecessary angst.  That is the last thing we want for them.

So, hopefully, tomorrow we will at least know if the girls have any interest in going forward at all, or if they really just wanted to meet new friends.  We want to feel like we are going in a direction, at least, and I am sure that Karina and Victoria will be relieved one way or the other. 

As always, your prayers are so greatly appreciated.  We will need lots of them in the next few days.

xo