Remembering Our Daughters Adoption

I thought I would take some time to reminisce about our daughter's adoption.

THE DECISION

It was 2004. Mike and I had been married a little over 2 years. I was desperate to be a mom. I knew my whole life that this is what God had called me to do. I was going on 38 years old and not a pregnancy in site. Oddly enough, when Mike and I were dating we talked about having a couple of biological children and then adopting also. Little did we know during that conversation that God had planned for us to build our family through adoption all along.

In March of 2004 Mike and I traveled out to California to visit his sister. Before we left, I asked Mike if I could take some time to talk with him about adoption while in the airport and on the plane. I am notorious for jumping on him with an important topic at the wrong time. So, I prepared him for what I wanted to talk about. By the end of the trip we were both in agreement to move forward with the adoption.

Immediately upon arriving home, I started the investigation of agency and countries. By the end of April we had decided on Russia and Frank Adoption Agency which happened to be located here in Raleigh. I spent the next four months getting us "paperwork ready". We officially went on the wait list towards the end of July. Within two weeks of going on the wait list, we got a referral for a baby boy. I can not explain it as God was in control, but we did not accept that referral. A month later we received another referral for another little boy. Again, this did not feel right. We almost decided to postpone the adoption process but we went to the agency and changed our request from with a boy or a girl to just a baby girl. We expected the wait to take much long. Two months later, we got Em's referral.

TRIP ONE

Emily's referral came at the end of October. We accepted it and two weeks later we were on a plane to Russia to meet our baby girl. We flew in to Moscow and took a van on a two hour ride north to Tver. Emily's orphanage was another two hours north of Tver in a tiny town called Kaishin. We had two other single ladies traveling with us who happened to be adopting at the same time. One of the ladies was from Cary, NC and her daughter was in the same orphanage as ours. The first trip was short. Five days. Just long enough for us to meet and spend a little time with Emily. Of course that was not her name at the time. Her Russian name was Yevgenia. While driving to Tver, our van was pulled over by some police at a roadside stop. Our van driver (Losha (sp?)didn't speak a word of English but VERY nice) had dark features and the Russian police were pulling drivers over who may look like they were from the Chechnya region where all the unrest was going on. It was a bit scary as all the police were armed with automatic rifles and did not speak English and none of us on the van spoke Russian. After an hour delay, we were back on our way.

Upon arriving at the orphanage, we all piled out of the van. The orphanage was painted a pastel lime green color and looked pretty against the white snow, even if it was run down. Most of the buildings in Russia are very old. It was a tiny orphanage with only about 50 children. We entered the building and went up the uneven stairs to the orphanage directors office. They don't have OSHA in Russia so we were constantly tripping over door thresholds and uneven stair steps. At one point I had to use the restroom. All the plumbing is very old and the pipes are exposed. It is amazing that it still works. Everything screams history. You can see it in the buildings, plumbing, roads, the churches and the elderly peoples faces. Russia's history is still very prevalent.



We spent about two hours holding and playing with Em. At one point we placed her on the carpet to see if she could sit up or crawl and we were instructed that that was not allowed. The orphanage workers are very nice but very careful to not let the children get sick, if they can help it. When one gets sick, they all get sick. I am sure their jobs are hard enough without all the kids having colds. Russians tend to think that sickness or colds are caught from drafts (not germs or viruses). Because of this, they keep the buildings VERY VERY warm. They are heated with oil and we sweated to death the entire time we were there. Freezing outside and a sauna inside.

One the ride back to Tver, our coordinator (Tatiana) handed us a book and asked us to write down her full name. First, middle and last as she needed this information for the adoption documents. Now, let me just say that I had spent the previous six months flipping through a book of 50,000 names and narrowing down my list to about 20 names. I kept on Mike for us to decide on a name so we could start talking about her by name. I just happened to take the list of 20 with me. The night before we went to meet Emily for the first time, I pulled out the list and said "okay, we are here in Russia now lets pick a name". Still no commitment. When our coordinator asked us for her name, you could have seen daggers shoot from my eyes at Mike. ;-) That night he wanted to go look up names on the Internet. I said "NO!! I spent the last six months looking at names and trying to get you to do the same. Now, you can choose from my list." Is this a guy thing??? Not funny at the time but hilarious now. I chose her first name and Mike chose her middle name which ended up being her birth mothers name. How cool is that! In the end, it suits her perfectly.

TRIP TWO

The first trip to Russia was cold but tolerable and no snow. Our second trip, which was just two weeks later, was MUCH colder and snow drifts as much a 4-6 feet deep. We left the US on Friday, arrived in Moscow on Saturday, stayed two nights in Moscow at the Marriott Grande and on Monday went to court, in Tver, to finalize the adoption. We spent Monday and Tuesday running around doing paperwork for Visa's and passports for the kids. On Wednesday we left for Kaishin to pick up the babies. It was like a blizzard driving from Tver to Kaishin and we insisted on being okay with postponing the trip to the next day. But, the Russians drive in that kind of weather all the time and didn't think a thing about it. The snow drifts were so deep that they cover up roads and drive ways. People would use TALL wooden stakes with greenery attached to the tops to mark their driveways in the snow. We got to the orphanage and found a small group of little children playing out in the snow. They were TOO cute. I wanted to take one of them home with us along with Emily. We went up to the orphanage directors office and they brought the kids in to us. We dressed her in the clothes we brought for her and then shared some tea and desserts with the ladies of the orphanage. After bundling Em in her snow suit we brought, we got in the van for the long driver back to Tver with two babies and no car seats or seat belts. We stayed one night in Tver with the babies and then left Thursday for Moscow. Thursday, by the way, was Thanksgiving. We spent hours in the van as we got caught up in Moscow's rush hour traffic that evening. After finally arriving at the hotel, we were exhausted and had missed the hotel's traditional US Thanksgiving meal. So, we ordered room service for Thanksgiving. I had spaghetti carbonara and wanted dessert but Mike wouldn't let me because it was so expensive. He wouldn't even let me order a dessert on Thanksgiving. I will never let him live that down. ;-)

The next day, Friday, the kids had to have physicals and then we had our exit interview at the US Embassy. There must have been 50 families all crammed into this tiny room waiting for their name to be called. That night, we all went out to dinner to the TGI Friday's that was right down from the hotel. After several days eating nothing but Russian food in Tver, a familiar restaurant with familiar food was a welcome sight. The next morning, Saturday, we boarded a plane and headed back to the US.

THE FLIGHT HOME

The entire time we were in Russia, I never got emotional or shed a tear. It was all about the business of getting things done to bring our baby home. But now, on the plane, leaving Russian soil, it was all done. Em was ours and we were going home. There were at least 20 other kids on that flight. All just adopted. Many of the older children were terrified as they had never been out of the orphanage before, let alone on an airplane. Tears just started to stream down my face uncontrollably. I was overwhelmed with all the emotions I had encountered over the last several weeks but denied myself from feeling. Excitement, fear, nervousness, joy, love. The gates opened and all this rushed in. Em was the best baby on the plane. She did not cry once. When we landed in NY, Mike took mine and Em's picture stepping off the plane because that is the moment that Em became a US citizen. After a 4 hour layover at JFK, we boarded a much smaller plane for the flight back to Raleigh. With all that had occur ed and time changes, we had been up for over 24 hours. We were beyond exhausted and running on fumes. All we wanted to do was crawl in our beds and sleep. When we arrived at RDU we had some family and friends waiting to greet us with signs, gifts and balloons. It was great.

We spent the next two days staying home and sleeping. Then, I was off from work for 12 weeks to spend with Em getting all her doctors visits, getting her on a schedule and bonding with her. Not to mention it was Christmas time and we had to decorate and shop.

We had a Welcome Home Baby Emily party in February and had all our friends over to meet Em for the first time.