Gotcha Day...and a few more

Tuesday, our "Gotcha Day", was a very hectic, stressful, but exciting day. We were in the car by 6:00 a.m., heading for Gadaych, Ziva's birthplace. We arrived in Gadaych at 9:30 a.m. and made our way to the "wedding palace", where all certificates are issued (marriage, birth, death...). We waited while Ziva's new birth certificate was made...which was a bit of an ordeal because she has two middle names and it doesn't fit into the Ukrainian's forms. But with a smaller font, they finally got it to fit into the allotated space. Next stop was the police station to change her name on some "court tax" form.

We then headed back to Kremenchuk and made a quick stop at the orphanage. After meeting with the orphanage director and starting some more paperwork, we picked up Ziva for her second car ride. We first went to the bank where we had to close an account that had money in it that Ziva's birth mother had received from the government when she gave birth to Ziva. (This money goes to the orphanage.) Then we were off to the police station, where the paperwork and photos were done for Ziva's passport. We stopped quickly at our apartment for our party supplies and then we were off to the orphanage for a good-bye party.

After a party that consisted of lots of spilled juice and cookies that ended up on the floor (what can you expect when your party guests are 2-3 years old?), we took Ziva home! (Well, if you call our apartment "home"!). She spent some time just running around the apartment, exploring, and when we figured she had enough of that, we gave her her first bath ever! We were afraid that she might be afraid, but were pleasantly surprised that she loved it! She splashed around in the water and even took the shower head and put it over her head! (She has got even braver since the first bath...she now puts her face right into the water, head first! I think we need to sign her up for mom'n'tots swimming when we get home...).

We spent 9 hours in the car on Wednesday...yes, 9 hours... and Ziva was good as gold! When we took Ziva out on Monday to get passport photos and on Tuesday when we ran errands, she cried in the car. She was so scared..her bottom lip and chin trembled and she cried. It was sad to see a child so scared of a car ride. When we travelled on Wednesday, she didn't cry at all! This may be due in part to the fact that she was somewhat used to the car, but we think a lot of it had to do with the fact that she had a seatbelt on. You have to understand that Ukrainians do not wear seatbelts and it is not the law to wear one. Before we left Wednesday, we insisted that our driver dig out the "buried" seatbelt for us; we know that both the driver and our facilitator thought we were odd for making Ziva wear a seatbelt. Ziva was so good in the car, and both the driver and the facilitator commented on how well she behaved; they said that usually the children cry and make a fuss the whole time.

The city of Paltava was our first and only stop. We had to go to another "wedding palace" and police station in order to process the passport more quickly. We finally arrived in Kiev at 3:30 p.m. and we are back in the apartment we had when we arrived here on December 7th (0h, that seems like ages ago...).

We are so incredible happy to finally "have" Ziva! All things considered, she is doing very well. We thought she might make "strange" with us, especially when getting up in the morning, but so far she has been very happy and excited. I guess the month of visits to the orphanage has a big part to do with the fact that she is comfortable with us. Today Ziva went on her first trip to the grocery store, where she just sat in the cart, looking around at everything.