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The facilitator that the attorney hired was there. But the problem was, it was not the same one that we originally used when we first went through Kyiv. At that moment we were told that they had fired the original facilitator, and that this new one (Oksana) would be taking care of our documents.

But, Oksana only had a "small" car. She could barely fit the attorney, the other family, and their bags in her car. Not to mention my mother, my two kids, and me, and our bags. Even though I knew that I already had a ride there (Thanks to Julia) I still waited to see what they would decide to do. The attorney came over and told me that I would have to hire a taxi for all of us, and follow them to the apartment. I said "No Thanks" I have a ride. And off I went with Julia's mothers friend.

It was really nice. They had a BIG car with plenty of room. They took us to a private apartment were a women was waiting for us, and fed us lunch. We tried to talk and explain what we were doing in Kyiv, and with the attorney but there was no way to communicate with them. They finally called Julia's house and had her translate our conversation.

What they were trying to tell me was that while they were at the airport waiting on us. Oksana (the new facilitator) was asking her how she should go about finishing our adoptions. She did not know which buildings to go to, who to see, or nothing.. She said that if I wanted her too, she would finish my adoption and not charge me one cent.

I was overwhelmed, scard, and confused. I did not know what I should do. And since there was a language barrier between the Ukrainian attorney and us, I did not think that we could do it.

Julia then offered her help by coming to Kyiv to translate for us. She would speak for us, and the Ukrainian attorney would do all the work. We all agreed and the following day Julia was in Kyiv. This was a Sunday, so there was not much that we could do in the adoption, so the Ukrainian attorney invited us over to her "house" for dinner.

While we were all there having dinner the phone rang. The attorney was having a conversation with a women, but of coarse I did not know what it was about. After a few minutes, Julia said to me that it was Oksana the new facilitator calling her again, to ask for instructions on what she should do the following day to complete our adoptions.

After they were done, I called the US Attorney and asked her what was going on.. I said that rumor has it that Oksana has never done a adoption, and did not even know were to go to complete the paperwork. She assured me that everything would be okay, and that we would be in Warsaw by that following Friday.

The following day (Monday), I was suppose to meet the US attorney at the Ministry of Justice. This is the first place you have to go to finish the paperwork. She said to meet her there at 9am sharp. So the Ukrainian attorney and I decided that we would get there a little earlier so we could talk about how we were going to get my documents from her.

At 8:30am I met the Ukrainian attorney at the Ministry of Justice. We had coffee and talked about what we would do that day with my documents. At 9am still no US attorney, At 10am still no US attorney, finally at 10:30 am the attorney and the other family shows up with Oksana and all our documents. She told me that we would be "lucky" if we were to get out of Kyiv by the following Monday. (One week away) I immediately told her that I wanted my documents, that they were fired, and I was going to finish my adoption with the Ukrainian attorney.

She was even more intractable than the first time I met her. She said "here is your documents, I think you're making a mistake"

Well that comment changed not even 10 minutes later when we were walking out of the Minstry of Justice and she was still in the back of the line. Kelly (the other family) asked me on the side, could the attorney help her also. I said that I did not know, and I hated to ask since she was doing it for free. Julia asked the Ukrainian attorney, and she agreed. So now Kelly was with us on this adventure.

We picked up our papers that afternoon and went home for the evening.

The next day we were to bring the papers to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We had to be there at 7am. Everyone was there, and when they opened we were first in line. After being there about 30 minutes the US attorney shows up, and said that she wanted to check on us and make sure we were okay. I did not say anything, because I was affraid of what I might say. (I was mad)

We left there in the blizzard snow, and went to the medical clinic for the medicals on our children. We were only there for about 30 minutes, and then we had to pick up our tickets to travel to Warsaw the following day.

The whole process in Kyiv that the attorney told us would be one week, turned out to be two days. And the Ukrainian attorney did not charge us for her services, and either did Julia.

That evening we returned back to our apartment alone. Julia had gone to her uncles house, and everyone else went to their apartments. We managed to tell the taxi driver that we would like to stop at Mc. Donalds on the way to pick up our last Ukrainian dinner. (Hee Hee)

When we got back to the apartment I could not get the door to open. The lock was not working. A boy from across the hall spoke very little English, But managed to understand what our problems was. He tried and he could not get it to work either. We tried calling everyone that we knew in Kyiv, But nobody was home. We were locked out. We stayed at the neighbors house or about 3 hours until someone told them to break the lock on the door. We finally got in at 9:30 pm.