Unreal!

I wish I could have a recording of the past 48 hours to put on this blog. It would be much easier than trying to explain the turn of events. I will do my best. Please forgive me if I am rambling or have run-on sentences!

Before leaving Springfield on Friday to drive home after the conference, I called Pam from CHI and informed her of our decision not to travel to see the two boys. She was not at all surprised and commented that not changing the birth order for Brady and Madison is a very good reason to turn down a referral. That is not an adjustment that is easy for many children. She also reassured me that they will find a good home for the boys - that is what they do she said! Don’t worry. So I felt even better that we had come to the right decision. So the rest of the way home from Springfield I was on my cell phone. I spoke with my mom and Justin for quite some time just replaying what had happened. I was really looking forward to getting home, unwinding and having the conversation with Justin face-to-face. We both thought this was a huge reality check for us. We need to be more prepared. If a call can come that quickly we need to get several things in order. We need to be in contact an International Adoption (IA) doctor so that we can have he/she review the medical information when we get a referral. We need to start reading everything we can about the details of traveling. And the list goes on and on.

I then called my dear friend Kate Schaub to catch up on all that has been happening in Pennsylvania. In the midst of that conversation, the other line rings and it is Children’s Hope????? I apologized to Kate and told her I had to take the call. Of course in trying to switch over, I lost the call! Ugh. So I immediately call back and get her voicemail. It was driving me nuts. What could she want? Then my phone rang again and my heart was racing a million beats per minute. Here was the conversation as best as I can remember….

Heather, you are going to think I am nuts, but I wanted to get a hold of you before the weekend. I know this sounds crazy, but we have a three year old boy that just came available in Vladivostock (Vlad). His birthday is September 15th 2005 [date is off slightly]. He is of normal health, mentally healthy, but sometimes has bronchitis. The doctors did not diagnose asthma yet. His tests for HIV, hep, syphilis were all negative. (She then shared just a couple of details of his birthparents). Again, I have a picture if you would like to see him. (Here we go again. I am in a complete state of shock. My stomach was twisting, head was aching, and heart was pounding. I then caught my bearings and began to ask my own questions – ones I had wished I had asked just a couple of hours before).

Why are we getting these referrals? Everything we have read is that this process can take so long to get a referral. Is there something we should know? Should we be suspicious or skeptics of how this is happening? Here is the explanation. .. Right now we are considered unassigned. We have not had our documents registered with a specific region yet (regions in Russia are like our states). And of the people that are unassigned, we are the only ones open to taking a boy up to the age of three. The people that are registered in the Vlad region are either waiting for a girl or are only open to a child 18 months or younger. Once you are assigned a region, that is where you stay. So if a child comes available in another region that meets your ‘criteria’ you are not considered for that child unless a lot of things are done to make that happen. Essentially many of the people waiting to adopt are not open to children over the age of 2 – especially boys.

My next question was why is he just now available? This is harder to answer. We don’t know the exact date of him being placed in the baby home. He could have possibly been there since birth. There are many unknowns here. But in Russia children have to be placed on their national registry for a period of time. In fact only about 7% of children in orphanages are up for adoption because of laws requiring certain things to be in place. Orphanages are often understaffed and there is no one to do the paperwork or to pay fees that are required to have the children registered for adoption. It is quite sad.

I told Pam that I would have to discuss this with Justin and let her know if we wanted her to send the picture. By this time it was already about 4:00 and she leaves the office at 4:30. I called Justin and shared the information. We agreed that based on the information we had so far that we would go ahead and have her send the picture to us. I called Pam back and asked her to send the picture. She reminded me that if we agreed to meet the little guy we could travel in two weeks. We need to call her back the early part of the week and let her know if we agree to travel to meet him!

I could not get home fast enough to see that picture! I used the time in the car to pray. Is this God testing us to see if we can do things according to His will? He knows I am a fanatic about planning and schedules. Is He trying to make me realize that not everything is according to my plan? When I got home Justin gave me a huge hug and I lost it. All of the emotion of the past day and a half was exhausting.

Ok this posting is getting very long. I’ll just get to the point. We have decided that we will call Children’s Hope on Monday and let them know that we would like to travel to meet this little boy. We are so nervous and scared, but we are excited all at the same time. We will update everyone with more specifics as they come available. We would greatly appreciate any prayers you have to offer! We are also open to any advice you have for packing to travel halfway across the world! :o)