As most of you know, my sister adopted twin girls from Ukraine in February 2000. My mother and I went along with my sister to support her during her adoption. We also returned with my daughter Shayla, because she would be meeting her birth mother in person. Below is our story of the February 2000 journey to Ukraine.

We left America on February 4, 2000 and flew Lauda Airlines to Vienna,Austria. We had a over night lay over there and was able to catch up on our sleep to be ready for our adventure to Ukraine. We arrived in Ukraine on February 6, 2000 and were greeted by my best friend.

Upon arriving at the hotel, we met up with four other families who were there completing a independent adoption from Ukraine. We all went down to the restaurant and talked and got to know each other.

The following morning we all went to the National Adoption Center in Kyiv. Everyone was very excited to be there, and could not wait to look at the available children in Ukraine. We all talked in the hallway and waited for the director to arrive. When she did, it was wonderful. She hugged my Ukrainian daughter and welcomed us back to Ukraine.

We went into her office, where we were hugging and greeting each other with pictures of all the children who had been adopted from Ukraine. The director was VERY excited because she was given the photo album of over 40 adopted Ukrainian children with their names, regions, and date adopted. She was very pleased.

She asked would my sister like to go to Simferopol' since this is where my children were all adopted from. Of course we immediately accepted this offer. Later on we found out that FOUR families were all sent to the same region that day.

It was very nice because we would all end up on the same plane heading to Simferopol'. We were able to talk more on the plane and get to know each other even more. Upon arrival in Simferopol' we were all whisked away in separate cars. In the end, we ended up in the same apartment building as one of the other families. The first night in Simferopol one of the translators invited us to her house for dinner. It was very nice, because three families adopting were there and we were able to talk about how excited everyone was to go to the orphanage the next day.

The next day we all leave for the orphanage. My sister went into the orphanage directors office and was being shown some girls, when they mentioned that they had twin girls who would be 2 years old on March 6, 2000. I asked them to bring the twins in, as we would be VERY interested in them. Within a few minutes the door opened and there they were. Suddenly, I felt the feelings that I felt when I was choosing my children from the same orphanage, same office, sitting on the same couch. My heart dropped as these girls were just so very precious. The Twins were just perfect and my sister immediately announced that she wanted them, and did not need to see anymore children. She was SO happy...

Dasha was one of the girls names. She is a very happy go lucky little girl who is VERY active and loves to play. While Masha is a bit reserved and very shy and quiet. Later my sister would change their names to Brittany and Brianna.

We immediately started the paperwork on the twins. We had to go to the notary office first and then we started to go shopping for the orphanage. We bought all sorts of things. The first few days there, we were not allowed to visit the children that often. There was a bunch of children that were sick, so they had the whole orphanage under quarantine. Masha was sick, so we only could visit her every once in a while, but since Dasha was in the same group that my two daughters were in, and we were friends with the care takers, they would sneak us in to see her everyday. We played with Dasha's group the most because of this quarantine. So we were limited to the children that we could play with.

At the same time, My daughter Shayla was enjoying playing outside the orphanage in the snow . She was very happy to see her favorite care taker from when she was there. We only brought Shayla a few times, because we where afraid that they would not allow Shayla around the other children with the quarantine.