So I have seen on quite a few blogs that people are posting pictures and telling stories every Thursday. What a great idea for a post and I love sharing my pictures.I thought I would share a picture & tell you the story that goes with it, and I will attempt to do this every Thursday. We were in a teeny, tiny hotel room in Kemerovo Siberia with our new daughter while we waited for permission to go home. It’s so hard to describe how little our room was.

We had very little breathing room and I would walk Livi up & down the halls in her stroller... more

That’s our Adoption Story from Start to finish.I left out some details like our our van breaking down in Siberia on Family day,nearly freezing on a bus trip, luggage being lost, being stuck in Siberia due to an ice storm, and other special details that made our trip interesting. Adoption can be a big roller coaster ride of hope & disappointment but overall we had a great adoption experience. We received our referral much sooner than expected, our travel dates came quickly and we really liked our choice in an Agency.... more

We were so happy to be home. We were very exhausted and jet lagged. We unplugged the phone and tried to catch up on sleep. I decided to establish a routine with her meals right away since that is where we had the majority of our issues. I fed her small amounts of food every few hours and she clung to a sealed snack container of cheerios.

It was difficult to get a sleeping routine down at first as we were wide-awake at night and wanted to sleep all day. I truly cant put into words how draining the trip home was. It takes a long time to... more

We could not wait to go home, after spending 16 days in Kemerovo we were anxious to get to Moscow. We were elated to have a huge suite at our Moscow hotel. Our daughter was happy and she ran from room to room. Our time in Moscow was limited and spent at the medical clinic, in airports trying to rearrange flights and at the embassy. I started getting sick on our last day in Moscow. I had a severe headache, was vomiting, coughing and getting a scratchy sensation in my throat. I was getting Bronchitis.

I had hoped to be able to stop at... more

John and I along with six other couples all sat huddled in the small director’s office. We could not believe we were actually getting to pick up our daughter.You could feel the excitement in the air. We learned about the schedules, diets, allergies and a few nice words were spoken. I was seated at one end of the room and John was standing at the other end of the room near the door, it was very crowded and the Men all stood so the Women could sit in the few chairs provided.

All of a sudden the door opened and the children started... more

I last left off that we had just had our stressful day in court and had been granted Livi’s parents. We had to wait an extra ten days before picking her up, actually more like 14 days because its business days and certain days don’t count. We ended up staying in Russia for a total of 21 days for Trip 2.

John was very stressed; he did not tell his employer about the possibility of staying the extra two weeks. We both thought it would be waived, I think everyone thought it would be waived. It just so happened that this region was changing in this respect.... more

It seems that we just got home from Trip one and we were turning around to leave for Trip two. We were fortunate to not have a long wait at all between trips. I think we only waited three weeks and then we received our travel announcement.We spent most of that time running around like crazy gathering those final documents. It was a wild goose chase trying to get everything to our agency.

We had to redo many documents so they would be region specific. There were new medical requirements and new forms to get filled out. We had to... more

John was sick and could not come on the trip to visit our daughter. We were told that we would get to visit her twice before flying back to Moscow. The Orphanage was an hour drive and I sat back hoping that John would be ok and trying to calm my own nerves. I could not believe that I was doing this alone. I laid back and closed my eyes for some of the trip and then stared out the window soaking in the view. We pulled up to the Baby House; the turquoise painted windows seemed to brighten it up and was a stark contrast to all the white snow.... more

After getting the referral it was a flurry of excitement, activity, applying for our visa’s, booking flights, getting last minute time off of work, and gathering any last minute documents needed. We were all set to travel Feb 6t-12th 2006. Russia was experiencing record cold temps. I shopped for long johns and warm boots. I packed, unpacked and repacked. I could hardly wait. Our trip to Moscow was uneventful besides missing our connection in Frankfurt we had a smooth trip on the way there.

We were exhausted but spent a day sight seeing.... more

Our adoption story Part 1

So I last left off that our Dossier was In Russia. We were told that would be hearing from our agency once it was translated. They said that they would contact us to discuss possible regions and give us a time frame. A month had passed and it was now mid January 2006 and I had not heard from the agency. We just finished remodeling the gender-neutral nursery. I spent a month shopping and getting ready.

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