~Big Update and pics~

As some of you already know, we offically became the VERY proud parents of Gabriana Jaycee Zina Middleton Monday in court!  We couldn't be more happy!  We were very nervous before court and then it didn't take anymore than around 20 minutes...if that.  Court is very different here.  The building is not as big or new as the new justice centers at home.  The court room is more like an office at home.  Present during court was of course the judge, her secretary, two jury members, a social worker, our facilitator, and us.  The prosecuting attorney called the judge to let her know he supported our decision to adopt. The social worker told the judge that Gabby was progressing well duing our visits and would be better cared for in the USA than in Ukraine. 

*Note: Children with down syndrome and other special needs go to Level 4 mental institutions here at the age of 4.  Childen with down syndrome rarely see the age of 6 after this because they need medical care that is not given to them in the institutions.  The majority of Ukrainians consider children with down syndrome to be unable to be educated.  They perceive them as more of a burden on society than another human.  IT IS SAD!  It is not like at home.  The majority of people having a child with down syndrome in Ukraine...leave their babies at the hospital when they find out the baby has down syndrome. 

The judge ask us why....being that we have not been found infertile and can have children.....would we travel to Ukraine and adopt an "incurable child." We answered her by telling her that when we first began talking about children it was decided upon that no matter if we birthed a child or not, we wanted to adopt due to the need! We told her that we felt led to Ukraine and Gabby's diagnosis didn't not make a difference in our decision to adopt her.  This was the best we could do without saying what we really wanted to say! Which I will post when we get home :) haha.

Let me just say that YES, down syndrome is incurable....but children with down syndrome CAN BE educated.  As a matter of a fact, Gabby is progressing everyday we are with her!  Children with down syndrome can go to school, college, get jobs, get married, and yes...they can even have children in some cases.  A child with down syndrome should never be limited before even given a chance!  Who knows what they can do with a little love and nurture!  The thoughts of placing Gabby or any child with DS in an institution so that we don't have to look at them and remember they are there needing our help is more than I can bare to think about. PLEASE if you are reading this and you can find it in your heart to help one of these babies...I urge you to do so. You will literally be saving a life and gaining a blessing far beyond any you will ever receive!!!!! WE WILL HELP YOU IN ANYWAY POSSIBLE to save another child from this so-called life in an institution!  Please email me or message me for more information.

Now....back to the court.  Of course it ended by announcing us as Gabby's parents and now we are in our ten day waiting period and today was day one.  After the ten day waiting period we will travel to Gabby's birth region (about an hour from this city) and get her new birth certificate.  We will then, in the following days, get Gabby from the orphange (woo hoo), travel back to Kiev, get her visa and medical visit done, and finish up the remainder of paperwork involved in this process.  There is still soooo much to do. We plan to be home sometime between 11-12 and 11-17.

Just an update on how we are doing here in Ukraine.  We are doing as good as can be expected.  We do basically the same thing everyday, haha.  We wake up around 7:30 a.m. eat breakfast of some sort that we can gather ;), shower, and get ready for Gabby's morning visit at the orphange.  We get to the orphanage between 10-10:30 a.m. and visit with her until around 12:00 noon.  We feed her as soon as we get there because she is always expecting some type of tasty treat from "da da" and "ma ma" which she says quite frequently :D...although she does say "da da" more thanks to Jason's brainwashing, lol. We play with her, watch her make some of the wildest and cutest faces ever, try to keep her from going to sleep (being that it is close to her nap time), and then we leave.  We then either go to the grocery store, to change money for Grivna, or back to the apartment.  Once we get back to the apartment we basically lounge around waiting for the next visit. We spend the time HANDWASHING our clothes and hanging them on our "home made" clothes line we rigged up in the apartment lol, or fixing some type of something to eat (which by the way..I am becoming a PRO at rigging up weird but tasty Ukrainian dishes, haha).  I even made some spaghetti the other day (although I couldn't find the meat to make meat balls...I used a type of sausage) and it was pretty good. Then around 3p.m. we start gathering up our things for the evening visit and between 4:00 and 4: 15 we go for our evening visit.  We basically do the same things during the evening visit as the morning visit except for Gabby is wild during the evening and keeps us going!  She is constantly moving around playing with something or crawling somewhere.  By the way....today we experienced her hatred for the word NO, haha.  She is becoming very use to us and she knows how to try us, lol.  She knows that when mommy says no, if she cries for a split second that daddy will pick her up and baby her :p  She knows that at any given point she can throw her arms out and I will get her.  Sometimes she will be right in the middle of eating or playing and she will throw her arms out toward me and whine for a split second and I can hug her or hold her and she is okay to go for another 30 minutes or so...AND I LOVE THIS ABOUT HER!  We leave the evening visit around 5:45 or 6:00 p.m.....depending on when they come and get her for supper.  After we go back to the apartment we prepare for the next day, lounge around, surf the net some, watch the same old movies on the ipad, maybe update the blog, get on facebook, etc.  Then we get up and do it all over again...just like GROUNDHOG'S DAY!  I shouldn't complain though because after the ten days we will hit the ground running and basically will not stop until we get home.  The changes and traveling will be very hard on Gabby for sure...which is one of the reason's we are leaving her at the baby house until we have to go back to Kiev.  The baby house/orphange has a schedule for everything and Gabby is right on it...so to get her off of it will be bad.  Of course she will have to adjust once we are home but at least then if she gets sick or needs something we will be in familiar settings then!

I know I have written a novel but I figured I would try to give a good update being that I ususally post pics with very little words (not that you all mind, lol). 

P.S. I am now going to attempt to post pics :)
REMEMBER you can always view older posts that have pictures and videos by scrolling to the bottom of each post and clicking "older post"

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