Monday, June 14, 2021

Well, it’s T-11 days until we see Meagan again. Sonya and I are beyond excited to make the trek back to Bulgaria and to finally put a bow on this adoption and bring her home! Just seeing her smiling face in person again will make all of this worth it in the end. I can tell you now that I’m going to be a complete mess.

There are a plethora of things that need to be done before heading over. Of course travel plans are in the works and done for the most part. We have our flights booked, the AirBnB booked, the reservation for the car made (cue Jerry Seinfeld – let’s just hope they know how to HOLLLLLD the reservation, which is really the most important part of the reservation, the holding).

Just some details on logistics for anyone who is interested and/or planning adoption travel. We’ve already spent more money on Trip #2 than we did on the entire Trip #1 for a few reasons. Some things we were prepared for, and some not. Some are for obvious reasons and some are not so obvious. We’ll be in Bulgaria on Trip #2 (16 days) longer than we were during Trip #1 (10 days), so the hotel and food expenses will be more. There will be three mouths to feed compared to two on the previous trip. We will be staying in Sofia, their capital city, compared to most of our stay last time being in Kazanluk, Meagan’s home town, so the cost of living will be a bit higher. On Trip #1, we had a vehicle for 9 days versus only 4 days on Trip #2, however, the charge will be just about the same because of current worldwide supply-demand issues with automobiles causing rental rates to be dramatically increased. On Trip #1 we drove to Chicago and flew out of O’Hare because it was so much cheaper than flying out of Indianapolis. On this trip we didn’t want Meagan to have to endure a 3 1/2 hour drive from Chicago to Indy, so we are flying in and out of Indianapolis, which added about $900 to our airline tickets.

As is usually the case, the kids have a busy summer which is adding some more logistical challenges and impacting our time with them. Both Zach and Eli have been working over the summer, so we aren’t seeing them as much as we’re used to. Savannah and Seth have been involved with tennis this summer, practicing from 10am to Noon through the week. Zach, Savannah, Seth and Vivian (Eli has to work) will leave with Cindy for Virginia Beach, VA for some much anticipated time at the beach this coming Saturday, June 19. So Sonya and I will say good-bye to them then until we see them again in about 3 weeks on July 8th. Just about as soon as they return from Virginia, Midwest Summer Camp starts for Savannah and Seth and “Mamaw Camp” starts for Vivian, running June 28 through July 3. We know that they will have the time of their lives while we’re gone, but we will miss them very much (and we of course hope that they miss us as well).

Another challenge that we must address before travelling is the ongoing overreaction to the spread (or lack thereof) of the Chinese Wuhan Coronavirus, known in the mainstream as COVID-19. As you can imagine, world governments and international travel authorities are apparently still as paranoid as ever that people might contract a common cold and they need you to rest assured that they’re doing everything that they possibly can to keep you safe. So, Sonya and I must go through the drill (like we did on Trip #1) of getting COVID tests to prove that we don’t have the virus. Thankfully, no authorities are requiring proof of COVID injections, or else this would add an additional level of scrutiny. We are flying through Germany (Munich) which did not require any proof of COVID-negative results back in October of 2020, however, we do need a negative PCR test no older than 72 hours from POC or a rapid test no older than 48 hours from POC. Bulgaria is requiring a negative PCR test no older than 72 hours from POC to the time landing in Bulgaria. There’s also a chance that we could provide an antibody test from when we had COVID back in December and we’re also looking into that. On paper, it doesn’t look like much of a challenge to achieve this. But our experience in October last year was that when it takes 48 hours (or more, as in our case) to receive the results of the test, when you have a 4 hour drive to Chicago to catch your flight and your overall flight time is about 18 hours, that 72 hours is sucked up pretty quickly. Sonya and I are still formulating a plan of how, when, and where, and what is the the right time to get tested to fulfill all of the requirements. But it looks like it might be another close one.

We got the chance to talk with Meagan when we got our travel dates. Her reaction was priceless and it was very evident that she had, at least to some degree, wondered if this adoption was ever going to finalize. She cried. Sonya cried. I cried. It was all tears of joy. And then it hit her that we would be there in Bulgaria for her birthday! We did have to fight to be there for that as we were originally given “early July” as our tentative travel time. Right now, the plan includes flying out of Indianapolis on Wednesday 6/23, landing in Sofia on Thursday 6/24, recovering a bit, and then traveling to Kazanluk on Friday 6/25 to pick up Meagan, to say some good-bye’s, and to drive back to Sofia for our appointments. Saturday 6/26 will be a free day for us. Then on 6/27, Meagan’s birthday, her group home in Kazanluk has planned a birthday party for her. So we will drive back to Kazanluk on Sunday afternoon for a birthday party at her home. That morning, however, we will go to church. This will be the first time (probably) that Meagan has been to a church service. We are hoping that it is a positive experience for her and not a “what in the world have I gotten myself into” experience. She will probably be focused on the excitement of her birthday party that afternoon, which is fine with us. Meagan has also asked us privately about a end-of-schoolyear party that some of her school friends are planning on going to. We believe that it is on 6/30, but not exactly sure yet. She asked us if she could go in the context of “it’s okay if I can’t make it”, but she does sound excited about it. We haven’t gotten too many details about the party but it sounds like it might be a late-night party at a local “disco” in Kazanluk. I don’t see how this is possible, with the 3 hours between Sofia and Kazanluk and with all of our appointments through the week, but we said that we would discuss it at our next virtual meeting.

Once her court hearing was held, there was a “7 day” appeal period for anyone in her family to formally appeal the adoption. Our judge has a practice of allowing a period of time past the 7 days to allow for anything arriving by mail to make it to their offices. So, in our case “7 days” means “15 days”. Once we received the court decree in Bulgarian, the English translated version would arrive a few days later. The document contained a lot of legal speak (legally transitioning Bulgarian Miglena to American Meagan), and a lot of her history which we already knew for the most part. However, it did include the names of her father and mother, and the name of the lady who had Miglena in foster care for about a year, which we weren’t aware of before now. Of course with this new information sparks curiosity. We had been told all along that Miglena had been abandoned by her parents, had no contact with her parents, and didn’t even know where her parents were. We knew that she infrequently kept in contact with her sister who is one of her three siblings. My curiosity lead me to a Facebook search for these names. It didn’t take me very long to discover that Miglena is connected with a lady from her original home town who has the same exact name as her mother does. It could be a coincidence, but I doubt it. For some reason, people in Eastern Europe have a practice of keeping several different social media profiles. Meagan has 3 Facebook profiles and 2 Instagram profiles. I dunno. The lady who I suspect is her mother has what I counted to be 7 different Facebook profiles, all of them connected to Meagan’s active Facebook profile. I’m not sure why this is causing me to be uneasy, but it seems like people overseeing Meagan’s case could have discovered this, especially since it took me about 5 minutes to, to have made note of it, and to make us aware of it. Sonya and I are going to discuss this with Meagan at some point and honestly encourage her to keep some kind of relationship with her mother if she wants to. But it seems like we could have found out this truth a little sooner than now. We were assured by our agency that Meagan is legally our daughter. I understand that. But if word gets out about the “rich Americans” coming to take your daughter away, there’s the potential for illegal things to be done for a quick buck. I’ve probably seen too many movies and I’m hoping it’s not a big deal.

No doubt Meagan is at least starting to feel conflicted about leaving her friends, her few loved ones, her home, her school… her entire life behind. I’ve kinda gotten this vibe from her in our Instagram conversations. She has been so brave and patient during this entire process and we cannot be more happy with the way that she is dealing with everything, especially in light of all of the garbage that life has thrown in her direction. Trip #1 was such a great time spent with her. We enjoyed our time together and enjoyed the 5 days of getting to know her. It was certainly a solid foundation to the relationship that we’ve been able to build with her over the past 8 months. But at the same time, it didn’t have the feeling of being real. It was under the supervision of a NGO representative who was translating for us. There were rare moments when it was just her and Sonya or her and me talking awkwardly with Google Translate. But for the most part it was more like a fantasy than reality. I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for what I think will be a trip more rooted in reality than fantasy. We plan to have as much fun with her as possible to try to make the trip “light”, but I think it will be largely unsupervised. And it will be overshadowed by the pending departure. For good. Leaving her entire life behind. Good or bad, it’s the only life she has ever known, and leaving it behind cannot be easy for her at all. It is something that Sonya and I both are consciously aware of and doing everything we can over the next 11 days to make this incredible life change for her as good of an experience as we can.