How old were they when you got them?
Jared was 17 months old, Caleb was 5 months old (under new laws you can no longer get under 12 months out of Ukraine) and my twins Phoebe and Chloe were 15 months old.
If I remember correctly you got 2 at a time?
Yes, the boys came home together and then the girls came home together. Currently we are trying to adopt two together again. I think our nursery theme of Noah's Ark became very fitting!
And how long did the process take?
The process from the day I mailed the application to finish was 9 months for the boys and 13 months for the girls. When we were preparing to adopt the girls the National Adoption Center had gone through some major changes with directors that held up the process for us some. Once you get into Ukraine's Christmas holiday in January you pretty much have to just sit it out and wait for that month to be over with. That is what happened with the girls' trip. Waiting to travel is the hardest on me!
Did you know exactly which ones you were trying for or do you not find that out until later on in the process?
Ukraine does not allow preselection of a child. You must see a child in person for three days before you are given permission to adopt the child. You do state your desires that you would like in a particular child such as gender, age and whether you want special needs or not in your homestudy. But, you do not know who your child is going to be until you have traveled to Ukraine.
On our first adoption we had asked for two girls with the possibility of twin girls and as young as possible. Why girls? Well, for some reason we just thought girls were the gender most needed as we still understood the conditions in countries like China and India. However, one night I woke up in the middle of the night and started to pray. I then woke Eric up and told him that I felt that the Lord wanted us to pick out boys names. So, we did that very night in the middle of the night! The next morning we got a call from our agency saying that Ukraine had given us our invitation to travel however, we should prepare for boys because they were in the most need to be adopted. Isn't God good how He prepares your heart ahead of time?!
On our second adoption we really wanted the experience with raising girls. So, we requested for twin girls or two unrelated girls on our homestudy. We arrived home with 15 month old twin girls. Again, God is good!
On our current adoption we have asked for twins or two unrelated children with no gender preference as young as possible. I'm assuming we will return home with boys because they are most in need as there is an abundance of boys in the orphanages. Only God knows!
Where in Ukraine did you get your beauties?
Jared and Caleb were from Mykolayiv (took a train overnight to travel from Kiev to the orphanage)
Phoebe and Chloe were from Kirovograd (hired a driver to take us by a five hour van ride on dirt, bumpy roads going about what seemed100 miles an hours while the driver played what seemed to us Americans the game of Chicken. Thankfully, I am still alive to tell about it!
Actually we loved our driver and hope we get him again on our next trip. Eric says our driver was completely safe and it wasn't a big deal. That's a guy for you! I have the white knuckles to prove the experience!
)
Had you planned on adopting from Ukraine when you first decided to adopt or did you consider other places as well?
We originally tried to adopt domestically and quickly found that domestic adoption was not for us at all. I got as far as working on the required scrap book all about our life and a video that had to contain our home and extended family members. As I was trying to create these things I really disliked the process of trying to sell myself if you will. Please, those of you that have done adoptions domestically do not take offense. It just wasn't the experience we were looking for and we understand that even amongst domestic adoption each situation is completely different! Anyway, we were told we would basically be put on hold before we even got in the line up for birthmothers to see our profiles because there were so many other adoptive parents waiting. We were told, at the time in 1999, that it would take 5-7 years for us to adopt an infant. This was not acceptable to us! So much for the theory that there were so many American babies waiting to be adopted. It's actually the other way around with so many adoptive parents waiting. (With the exception of older children or severely special needs in the foster care system.)
Anyway, as we were searching for God's will for our family I remembered those heart wrenching stories I saw on TV when I was a little girl about the Romanian children being in orphanages with the images of babies being neglected in metal barred cribs. Eric had also already traveled all around the world at this point and knew the conditions of children living in places like India. I knew that God was putting a passion in our hearts to go overseas but not sure where. Just because I only knew people who adopted from China internationally we immediately started to research that program. However, we ran into a snag when Eric and I were not old enough according to China's laws at that time.
What contributed to your decision to adopt from Ukraine?
Many factors... some of our decision as I stated above was based on a process of elimination.
Probably the most important factor is that we felt God completely ordained and paved the way for us to adopt from Ukraine. The day I was told that I would probably never conceive a child, after several attempts surgically and with pharmaceuticals to clear the endometriosis, I went to see our Pastor in tears just sobbing with a broken heart. Pastor took my hand and then reached his hand into a draw in his desk. As he pulled a folder out he said, "I believe this was meant for you." The director of the agency we ended up using had come to meet with our Pastor one on one to share about their christian adoption agency and had left the packet of information with him just days before I was given the disheartening news. I went home and read everything in that envelope with Eric and then we placed a call to the agency. The agency became more than an agency to us. You could just sense the love of the Lord every time we spoke with them and they even prayed with us and for us! After discussing the four programs they had at the time -Russia, Romania, Nepal and Ukraine -the Ukrainian director immediately set up a phone call for us to speak to the facilitator out of Ukraine so we could ask our questions directly. It was amazing to be speaking to this Ukrainian man who was going to guide us step by step as we walked through the process over in Ukraine. I had many fears of traveling overseas as this would be my first time ever. However, by the end of this conversation I knew I could trust that God was using this agency to guide us through to our children.
It was very appealing to us that you could adopt two children out of Ukraine with the second child being much more affordable to do so at the same time. We did not want an only child so this aspect was EXTREMELY important. We originally wanted a very large family to begin with. At the time of our first adoption we never dreamed we would ever have the capability to adopt again. The other aspect we loved is that we did not want to have a child selected before we traveled. Ukraine's adoptions are done live! In other words, to us it felt much more like going through a pregnancy initially. I did not want my heart set on a particular child that I was being sent pics of to then have the chance of it never happening. With Ukraine you don't even meet your child until you arrive in the country. We liked the suspense of it all!
Lastly, the more we learned the more we fell in love with the culture of Ukraine! We have one cousin who was originally from Russia so we had already began learning a lot about the slavic/orthodox culture. This made Ukaine even more desirable for us!
Less red tape etc???
As for red tape no it wasn't less! If anything it was more in the sense that the adoption is done live so you really have to prepare for the unknown. If that's possible 
In other words the red tape we do here in the states is only a small amount of the paperwork. Since the adoption is actually done in Ukraine you have to do so much of the paper chasing and red tape over there whereas other countries you go for a few days, get custody of the child and come home to do the actual adoption. That is because normally in those circumstances you already have a child assigned to you.
Now with all that said, do realize that when in Ukraine if you have a good facilitator they walk you through a lot of it to help you as you try to understand what is needed to be done while in a different culture and language barrier. Our needs such as housing, translating documents and during court, getting food etc were all taken care of and we were always very comfortable overseas relatively speaking. Our last facilitator even took us baby shopping before picking up our girls from the orphanage.
Our drivers were always able to get us exactly where we needed, wanted and even took us on sight seeing tours during the down times. All in all the experience was good both times no matter how much red tape is involved.
Have your children traveled back to their country since the adoptions?
Yes, the boys traveled back in 2004 when they were 4 & 5 years old for the adoption of their twin sisters. The girls have not traveled back as of yet. We are still in the deciding process as to whether we can take them for our current adoption. We plan on making a trip with all of our children later in their teen/young adult years for them to visit their birth country.
The #1 BIG Question.. FINANCES!
Our adoptions were at different years, with different experiences and under different laws that it would be impossible for me to tell you how much your adoption would cost you if you were to adopt internationally. We do not like to discuss specifically our personal financial sacrifices we have made to adopt our children because it would not relate to anyone else. Generally speaking adoptions whether they be domestic or international will cost you in the range of $10,000 -$30,000. This is not the cost of the "baby" as so many are under the wrong assumption. The list of legal costs are endless, on top of the travel, dossier, seals, notaries, visas, criminal clearances, homestudy, USCIS fees, the agency fees etc. I can assure you that no one person or agency is getting rich off of an adoption. Even what goes to the actual orphanage is VERY minimal. My advice if you are truly interested in adoption is to research your options along with reputable agencies and then contact an agency to get their fee schedule for the particular program you are interested in. Realize that laws change all the time both in your own country as well as the country you are trying to adopt from. That means there may be finances that no one can account for upfront.
As far as how to afford an adoption. Well, I have many thoughts on this one that not everyone will agree with. Some Christians feel taking loans are not appropriate. You will have to search your heart on that one. We have taken loans, received gifts towards our adoptions as well as sacrificed other things in life in order to make it all possible. God has provided the means every time through many different avenues! If you are being called to adopt PRAY!! There is nothing impossible with God!!! There are also ways to fund raise as well as apply for grants. There are many people out there who may not have the ability to raise a child but who may have the ability to help you out with a financial gift so you may do so. You just never know until you make your heart's desire known. I know a local Mom who after seeing my kiddos as gymnastics class ended up fund raising for her entire adoption and now has a beautiful little Ukrainian Joy herself! =)
Btw, this tiny spot we pay for out of our work budget to be on campus. It's necessary though to have a presence on campus! So, we praise the Lord that the doors remain open to us to have office space on a secular University. I tried my best to vision what I could do to help Eric make it work out. 
We popped her up one more time to finish closing her up and Eric found the little treasures even after we completely emptied her out and put tons of fabric softener sheets every where last month. Our cat is still out and about catching the varmints but I guess they out smarted her. 
Well, later it came out that they really just wanted the strawberries but didn't know what excuse they could use for the color red to represent in a desert or on a cactus. Jared then came up with the idea that the red was the sunset shining on the cactus. Phew! OK, now I can deal with eating a red tainted banana, sort of.
I promised him that Mama would find him a large print Bible just for him because of his vision difficulties. Regardless, Caleb reacted very much the same as Jared after realizing he just read from God's word for the first time too. He then ran over to the bookshelves and said, "Soon I will be able to read all of these history books by myself too!" We had bought the boys the 
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