Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Passport, Visa and Medical exams

Early this morning Vladimir brought Alexa from Sumy to Kiev to complete her necessary medical examinations. An important part of adoption is having the parents certify that they know and understand the health of their child before the adoption is complete. They ran x-rays, blood tests and other important tests on Alexa for several hours this morning. Once complete, I was asked to join with the doctor as he signed all of the necessary documents and made sure I knew Alexa was in excellent health.

I've been incredibily impressed with some other Americans that I've met here who are adopting children with severe medical problems such as downs syndrome and cerebal palsy. I offered to hold a 3 year old girl this morning with cerebal palsy at the US Embassy so her adopting mother could do the extensive required paperwork. The little girl can't walk and won't go to any strangers so unfortunately I was not much help. The mother was here alone from South Carolina and was doing her best to complete all the paperwork alone. What a wonderful person she is to give this little girl a chance to have a family who will take care of her in spite of her physical handicap!

After we received the necessary medical checks we hustled over to the US Embassy where I filed the papers for Alexa's visa. We will go back again on Thursday for a final interview and hopefully the visa will be complete. Since Alexa is now 16 years old, the US does a complete background check before allowing her entry into the US. Sometimes that check takes a couple extra days.

We're getting closer!

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