Careening

I woudn't call what our facilitator does "driving"; it just doesn't do the experience justice. It truly is more like careening but he is highly skilled at it. I worry a bit that I am loosing my healthy sense of fear for danger on the road.

There are two facts about the roads here that are completely beyond my ability to comprehend: in the time we've been here we have seen only one car accident (and it was right outside of Kyiv not even on a busy road) and there is almost no road kill. With all of the wild animals - dogs, cats, chickens, roosters, goats, etc. - I would have expected road kill to be a fairly common site. Nope. So thees two facts boggle my mind. Gives me something to ponder for the hours that we are on the road!

Here's another little fact (not hard to believe; just intersting): the traffic light here turn yellow *before* they turn green. And also, like normal, they turn yellow before read as well.

Today we spent only half the day on the road and were pulled over only once. I don't know if this is our facilitator's average or not. This time, when he got back in the car, I was sure he would not chuckle if I were to ask if those were more friends of his. So I didn't say anything! I was hard..... I do wonder though if he factored speeding tickets into the cost of ownership of his new, high-end SUV.

We were able to visit with our son for a short while this afternoon. He seemed genuinely happy to see us! His director & our facilitator talked to him about tomorrow (court) and he confirmed he is ready & very happy to have a family.

We are now at the apartment we will be staying in for the next few days. It is hands down the nicest apartment I have seen in Ukraine. I hate to say it, but all my complaining seems to have paid off. Shamefully, I have been the squeeky wheel.

So tonight we will relax & go to bed early. Tomorrow @ 12noon (5:00am ET) is our court hearing. We will ask the court to grant us custody of him and to change his name to Henry Valeriy Sapienza (we intend to call him Henry). We think the whole court hearing will take less than 2 hours.

After that here's what the balance of our trip looks like:
*After court approval tomorrow the10-day-waiting period will begin. We will stay here through the weekend visiting with our son
* We will return to Bilgorod (via the careening Landcruiser) on Monday for our court hearing for Nastya on Tuesday.
*The following day, we will come back here (via overnight train - ughh) to spend more time with our son & wrap up his 10-day-waiting period.
*Then we will go back to Bilgorod (with son in tow) to get Nastya.
*After we pick her up, we can expect another 10 days in Ukraine obtaining birth certificates with new names & parents, passports, and US embassy clearance/visas to return to the US.

Blah, blah, blah. What this really means is that we are on track to return home @ about the 7-week mark instead of 8 weeks which is HUGE to us! Out of the starting gates, we planned on 8 weeks. I knew if we could get out of here sooner I would be delighted but if I underestimated and we needed to be here longer, I might need hospitalization for insanity. Truth be told, even so there is no gaurrantee about my sanity because in reality we still haven't reached the half-way mark :(! Can you believe it??? Doesn't it seem like this has been going on forever??? Although, it does appear that the conditions (hotel/apartment & especially weather) have improved AND I've toughed up a little bit. So I feel pretty good about the likelihood that I am going to survive this after all!!

Another day down! Blessed.......

PS. Mom, I got your email but can't respond. Have a safe & fun trip to DC!