September 16, 2015 Paper chase day

Wednesday September 16, 2015

 Quick over view of this crazy day....

We started out very early in the morning with getting the court decree (I waited for about 30 min outside while Iryina ran in to get these papers).  Then it was on to the birth certificate office where Iryina faught for two hours trying to get them to give us Galin's name as well as my name on the birth Cert.  This didn't work... They finally told her to come back later.  We drove across town to the first of three passport offices.... two hours later we were back at the birth certificate office for more arguing and persuading.  It took another hour before they would agree and then another hour for them to figure out how to actually do this document!  Iryina and I were very relieved when that was over!  Birth Certificate in hand, we continued to run to different offices to get the passport process started. 

This place...GRRRRRR! This place gave us such a hard time!  I paced back and forth in front of these stone steps for hours! 

Who is the best facilitator EVER?!  This girl!!!!! This girl!!!! I love her I love her I love her!  Thank you Iryina for your hard work and dedication to your children!  So many sweet little ones have families because of you! 

She did it!  We were so proud and relieved!  It only took hours and hours of arguing and persuading!

An interesting monument that we drove past in Krivoy Rog on the paper chasing path. 

one of the many many office windows Iryina and I stood at on this day. 

Annie's wonderful director Natasha.  This woman LOVES her children!

This is Lida, assistant director, she was the wonderful assistant director who told me Annie's story the first day we met.  This woman is such an advocate for her kids!  Annie loves her teachers and they clearly love her!  It was a tearful goodbye!

Many of her wonderful teachers came to find her and hug and kiss her goodbye!  It warmed my heart to see all the love and affection that has been poured out on her for these parent-less years. 

So many dear teachers are going to miss this special girl!

Because of this craziness I actually didn't get to spend much time with Annie but all day I was trying to figure out how to make good on a promise I had made... She asked me if she could say goodbye to the people she loves here and I said I would do everything possible to try to make that happen... Turns out it was not easy to make that happen.  We needed to be in Kyiv on Friday morning for the inital TB shot test for Annie so at latest, we would be leaving Krivoy Rog on Thursday night on the night train.  But All day Thursday was going to be spent driving to he second passport office which was two hours away so if she wanted to see them all time was running out fast.  

I bugged Iryina all day to help me make that happen but (in all fairness) she had so many other things to worry about.  We asked the director if we would be able to take Annie out of the school today and she said no because there had to be several key people there at one time to sign her out before I could "take her out for good" So they would not let me take her to her grandmothers!  I was so sad for her!  I kept pushing and Iryina in my corner kept asking the director if there was anything we could do.  At some point the director got so so angry (on the phone)  and Iryina and I felt nervous to talk to her about it again in person.  When we got to the school later that day and cautiously walked to the directors office she was actually very kind and genial towards us and agreed to let Iryina run the papers to the other people who needed to sign instead  of those people having to be at the school.  So then we waited for Artem and somehow it all worked out and they let us all leave with Artem to go to the babushka's home!  It really felt like a miracle that everything fell into place for us to travel to Babushka's home.  Artem showed up right on time... the driver was available, the director allowed us to take her before the final exit, Iryina was able to track down the correct signatures to allow her to leave even though all the right people were not in the same room.  And Wonderful Lida was willing to stay up to receive Annie at 10pm back at school after our visit!  She was not allowed to officially leave until the next day.  Really it was truly a miracle!

Two babushkas live together and actually it is Annie's great aunt and another sweet woman who is loosely related whom she calls her babushkas.  What a special and tearful time it was!  Here are some pictures...