2nd day with Y&V

It was really the first day with Yuroslav.  Anyways, I called Snezhana this morning just to make sure she agreed that Y&V would be better off in America and she agreed.  Was hoping that would set things up well for the calls with Y&V but it didn't.

Actually at this point I'll talk about the kids before going into our soap opera of an adoption...

This was the first day with Yuroslav.  When we showed up we couldn't find him... turned out he declined to go inside to meet with us.  So we met him outside and I played soccer with him and a bunch of the boys for a while.  Being out of practice and wearing large hiking boots is not very conducive but it was fun.  After that we walked over to Violetta's building tossing a spiderman ball.  He did smile some and was humored at times but play was limited and fairly unengaged -- he seemed more interested in doing solitary stuff.  The caregivers warned us that he takes a long time to adjust to new social dynamics -- I got the impression that meant months, not days.  At the end of the day I walked him back to his living area and "impressed" him with my ability to speak directions in Russian and that I had a flashlight... it seems a common issue that everyone in this country walks around in the dark both inside and outside.

Violetta was her same adorable and bossy self from yesterday.  Today she and Melissa got some 1:1 time as I was working on some of the issues below or playing with Yuroslav.  It took no time to get engaged today and at the productions today she kept looking at me once she noticed I was there.  Yuroslav obviously knew we were there but was hiding as all his friends were looking at us and pointing.

So back on the drama...

I think gma, and now biomom, got on Snezhana today before the calls.  Yuroslav really enjoyed talking to his sister and brother.  Unfortunately Snezhana made some comments that were clearly intended to dissuade him from coming.  Yuroslav is pretty clearly uninterested in being adopted so to some extent there was no harm.  But he was told his biomom and gma wanted to talk to him and to get Snezhana's cell number from us -- which we did not give based on that conversation.  Violetta was practicing for a production so she wasn't around at the time.

The facilitator and I stepped into the hallway a bit later and called Snezhana.  It was a hard call... we confirmed with her that she did believe Y&V will be better off in America and then told her we were concerned that Yuroslav was suddenly concerned about things he wasn't before.  That if she really believes he is better off with us then we can't have her pressuring him... also that we are sorry gma and biomom are pressuring her but it is unfair to help them pressure him too.  She said she would not do it again -- and she kept that promise with Violetta's call.

At the end, our facilitator got gma's cell number.  Snezhana went between being mad and crying... which I think was healthy given the topics.  We've asked our facilitator in Kyiv if she would be willing to call gma to explain we aren't trying to take her grand daughter away to never be heard from again.  Hopefully that will happen and go well.  At this point it is obvious we have to address the gma issue.

I suspect this is going to be an ongoing issue and when we get Dennis home we are going to make sure we frequently send letters/pictures to gma (as well as Snezhana if she doesn't come) just to show that she actually gets MORE communication and visibility into her grandkids when they are in America than when they were in Ukraine.

I also asked Snezhana if she wanted us to call her again tonight... she said yes but right now she has a different SIM card in her phone (they switch a lot) so we haven't been able to talk to her again.  I got her a SIM card from the other provider today so next week we should know both numbers.  Hopefully she hasn't shut down again.