Ouch

4 April 2011

Today we thought we were heading to visit the boys at 3.  Roman had left early in the morning to speak with the Ukrainian case worker.  He unexpectedly called us around 10am and said to be ready in 5 minutes.  Instead of going at 3pm, we were going to the orphanage this morning.  He said that the case worker was required to write a report on the progress of bonding after 3 days of visiting.  We were on our third day.  We were feeling pretty confident that Roman was bonding well with us.  He was smiling a little more each day.

The boys were brought into the room.  The air was thick.  The room was dim.  There was a whole lot of Russian.  The case worker was speaking to the care giver and both the care giver and the boys were conversing.   

The meeting ended with both boys signing a statement that they did NOT wish to be adopted by us.  I leaned to ask our translator what was happening and he said, "Both boys said 'no' to the adoption."  I asked, "Does Roman even understand what he is signing?" and Roman replied "Perfectly."  I felt like that was a cold response, but it's hard to determine the intended emotion with the cultural difference.

Everything happened so fast.  We thought we had 10 days to bond, not 3 and we just weren't sure with the language barrier why we weren't told what was happening so we could speak to the boys. 

The only thing we knew was Maxim was not willing to give up his friendships and Roman was afraid to go to America alone. 

So we are leaving the next train out of Melitipol tonight.  We have to head back to Kiev to try to get our 2nd SDA appointment.  We are so unsure as to how God is going to be glorified through this failed adoption.  We have no where to turn but to Him.  He has a plan.  It is just totally out of our vantage point right now.  And my heart hurts right now.  Ouch.