Getting Close

So here are the latest happening to Mike in Ukraine. Thursday Laurel was officially ours!! (Insert screaming here!!) No one appealed her adoption Praise God and she is officially Laurel Anastasia Evans. Friday Mike had to go with one of the facilitators to first go get the court decree, then take that decree to the place to get the birth certificate officially changed and Mike and I put on as her new parents! Then they had to take the birth certificate to the Passport Office to apply for her passport. That is where things got a little hairy. The translator had accidentely put that we were from Italy, had my name wrong and Laurel's name spelled wrong. Arghhh! Anyway, the facilitator got busy making them fix it. They had to go pick Laurel up from the orphanage to get her passport photo. Mike said Laurel was an absolute doll! She laid on his lap and sucked her thumb. He said it was the first day she actually felt like his daughter!! After running across Kharkov about 3 different times, they got the paperwork in with 5 minutes to spare!! The paperwork is on its way to Kiev and then hopefully it will be back in Kharkov by Wed or THurs. When MIke returned to the orphanage the director pulled out a silver cross necklace and gave it to Mike for Laurel. Apparently the church here gives every child who ages out or gets adopted a cross necklace. I love that she'll have this when she gets older. Also, after speaking with about 5 different people here, Mike has decided to let Laurel stay at the orphanage until he see picks her up on Wed. He didn't want to do this at first but apparently Laurel is having a lot of trouble with infection in her ears and they are worried about the infection. Yulia our facilitator informed us it would be difficult to get her medical attention if she got sick and many parents who are over here on their own opt for this. It is very evident that Laurel loves her caregivers and that they are good to her so we decided this was best to help her have as few transitions as possible.Mike is booked on a train out of there on Thursday and will arrive in Kiev on Friday. HOPEFULLY they will get Laurel's medical and Visa done the same day so they can fly out on Saturday. So..... please pray all goes well. Mike will have been in country over 6 weeks!! We miss him so much and can't wait to see Baby Laurel. I'll update soon!