My Head is Spinning

After the call, I felt like I had been wound tight like a top and now was set loose. My mind was racing, my mouth was racing(to anyone who would listen) and it was almost an hour and a half before I got to tell Russ about the referral. In fact, I had left him a message that I had bad and good news to tell him. When He called, I told him about the bad news but was on my way to fix it - He said OK and was ready to hang up before I got to tell him the good news.

There were numerous phone calls and emails to iron out the details that day and I spent the next couple of days taking care of airlines, hotels, doctor appointments and so on and so on.

I am so thankful that our travel dates were not for 3.5 weeks because I am not even close to being ready to go. With three kids at home and all involved in sports - this is a very busy time for us so 3.5 weeks to get ready to go is a precious gift from God - THANK YOU GOD!!!!

This weekend we are working on getting our laptop ready to go with us and testing out skpe and ichat so we can communicate with our kids while we are gone. We did a little shopping for things to take to the orphange to play with when we meet our kids and we are finalizing a list of possible names to combine with their Russian names. 

We are planning on keeping their Russian name and adding a more American name either as their first or middle name. That way they can have a choice as they grow.

Tomorrow, we are visitng both of our parents and I am planning on reviewing our crazy schedule with my Mom who is going to be staying with the kids while we are gone - God bless you Mom, you are always there to help. I love you!

The Call

Those of you who know me, know that I like to control everything that I can. I had even worked through the most probably scenerios of how "The call" would play out. Well, none of them even came close. We had been asked from our region to get a few more documents to them so Monday(4/21/08) was my day to get them signed, notarized and apostilled. It was a busy morning and I was at the Secretary of State's office having problems with getting the documents apostilled because our Notary was not registered. As I was trying to correct this situation without having to start all over, my phone rang. I thought it was Russ because I had called him to help with fixing the problem we were having. But instead it was our CHI coordinator apologizing that she was calling me on my cell but that she could not just leave a message about this. We had a referral!!!  I think my first words were - "You have got to be kidding!!!"

The adoption journeys never seems to follow the path that is logical. In fact our coordinator had emailed me 20 minutes before she had called me and stated that our wait might be a little longer then usual because we are requesting siblings but she was just not sure because there never seems to be any rhyme or reason with when the referrals come. Well, there sure is not but I am just glad that God has it all in control.

How We Got Here

Since I am starting this blog so late, I thought I would update you on how we got here. We have three biological children and never thought adoption was a road we would travel. Well, God had another idea. In December 2005, while attending a Steven Curtis Chapman concert, an ache started to develop in my heart for the orphans that are in the world. The ache continued to grow over the next year and I knew that adoption was something that we should be doing. No matter how many excuses I came up with to push this out of our lives, the ache just continued to grow. So finally, in December 2006, I approached Russ with where I thought God was leading us. So with many months of prayer and contemplation, we decided that this was something that we wanted and needed to do.

As we started down the process of reviewing agencies, choosing domestic or international and gathering the massive amounts of paperwork, One day I just looked at Russ and said, "I know that you are going to think I am crazy but I really think we should adopt two." His response, "So do I."

So here we are after months of paperwork and waiting for the call to come and meet our two children.

Welcome to my first blog! I have created this blog to keep family and friends updated on our journey to adopt from Russia. Reading adoption blogs of others going through the process has helped with the wait, so I finally decided to start our own. Enjoy!