Happy 1st Birthday Sweet Girl!

Dear Isabella,
I can't believe that today is your first birthday and we are not able to celebrate with you. It is a very strange feeling. I wonder if they are wishing you happy birthday are they going to sing to you? Does this day get to be special for you at all or is it just another day? I have also thought a great deal today about your birth mother and how she is today. Is she sad? Does she have regrets? Does she feel peace? I will never know or understand the circumstances which led to her very brave decision of choosing adoption for the both of you. I pray she is healthy and safe and that she feels our prayers. She has given us a gift that leaves us speechless. I wish she could know how much we adore you and will work everyday to not take the sacrifice she made for granted. We are so in love with you and can't wait to have you home and have our family complete. There are many "firsts" that we have missed and it saddens me but knowing we are so close to making you our own gives us comfort. We have so many memories ahead of us and before we know it we will all be together and this will all be in the past. We think of you so often and look and your pictures and video daily. We wonder how different you will look and how much you are growing. Are you walking yet? Do you still get a bottle? Do you realize you have us a world away loving and praying for you? Right now it is the middle of the night in Russia and you should be sleeping so...sweet dreams.. sweet girl and Happy Birthday!
Love,
Mommy

Dossier 2..signed, apostilled and delivered!!!!

We made what was a pleasant and oddly easy trip to Indy to the Sec of States office to have all of our documents appostilled. My mom and friend Beth went along. We left yesterday evening and stayed in a hotel so we could be at the Gov't Building at 8 am and not have to get up at 2am to drive there. Everything went so smooth. There was a parking spot directly in front of the building, the staff was so friendly and we were shopping in Circle Center Mall by 9:30. Did I mention this was a Gov't office and I was prepared to cry if I needed to get our document's done today. Not even close to necessary. Shame on me for not giving people the benefit of the doubt. Anyway we shopped..ate and headed back home and at 4:15 today I handed Inessa everything. She said she would look them over and they would go out in the morning. WOOOHOOO!!! Now we wait. The estimated time frame for a court date from the first trip is 3-5 months. There are currently 9 or 10 families waiting and we are one of them. Russia shuts down from Jan 1st thru the 10th for their winter holiday. Inessa said she expects to start receiving court dates after their break. If I have learned anything with this process is that it rarely goes as planned so the roller coaster continues!




I will keep you updated but for now I must go...because...


Guess what..Christmas is coming!!! Ready or Not;)

Dossier 2 complete!!

We have everything for dossier 2 (with exception to our FBI background check). On Monday, I am going with Mom and my dear friend Beth to Indianapolis to get it all apostilled. Indy is about a 3 1/2 hour drive so having the company will be nice. I can't wait to actually hand Kathy all the papers and hopefully just wait for our date. The judge can request additional information so we will see. Dossier 2 has not been nearly as painful as dossier 1 but it is just a crazy time of year and that made it a little more difficult. Derrick and I have spent a lot of time talking about trip 2. The second trip can be 21 or so days which is a very long time for us both to be away from the boys. To be honest the thought makes me sick. We both feel really torn. When we began this process this "10 day waiting period" was being waived. We are told the chances of the 10 days being waived is basically zero. We are praying (for all the families) that they begin waiving these days ..but in the meantime we are discussing several options.

So we are celebrating that our final dossier is DONE!!!
So excited!


Have a great weekend!!

Catching up..Fall 2009

Here are a few photos from fall. I am so behind on blogging anything that is not adoption related. We received our first trip travel dates on Oct. 20th and my brain turned to mush at that point. This is my attempt to get caught up. We had a fabulous fall. Derrick was crazy busy in the fields but the boys and I wasted no time. We had our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch. The boys continue to get excited each year about the hay ride and picking their very own pumpkin out of the patch. This was the first year that the boys were pretty opinionated about their costumes. Gavin was a pirate (captain hook) and Eli was Superman. They were so proud to show off their costumes at their Pre-K party. I guess our days of the "cute" costumes are gone. Thank goodness Isabella will be here next Halloween..stay tuned for the over the top girly costume!!

Better late than never...hope you had a Happy Harvest..we sure did!

Saying Goodbye..for now!

Our last visit with Isabella was on 11/24. We were picked up for the second visit of the day around 3:15 and we were able to visit with her for about 2 hours. She seemed to know us when she was brought into the room and was excited to play with her toys again. The time went very fast and before we knew it they were back to get her. We both quickly kissed her and she was gone. It is so overwhelming and at that very moment I was sad and angry. Why must we make 2 trips? Why do they have us fall in love and then leave our child? It seems very cruel but we will wait and when we get the call we will go back and get her. We are hoping for February and planning for March. I am almost done with dossier 2..yes there is more paperwork!

Thanks to many generous friends, family and even people we don't know we were able to take an entire (way over weight!) suitcase full of donations to the baby home. The director of the baby home was very thankful. She kept thanking us over and over again. A substantial amount of money had also been donated to purchase items needed by the baby home once we got there. We went with the intention of buying diapers but once we spoke to the director she said that they needed medicine. Lena took us took a pharmacy and we bought amoxicillin, Tylenol, vitamin D and stomach medicine. We were able to buy more than I could physically carry. We then purchased a few packages of diapers and took it all with us to our last visit. When we walked in with the medicine the director got so excited and the Doctor came to thank us. Funny how when we were going diapers seemed so important and when we found out that they had no medicine all of a sudden diapers became a luxury. I can't put into words all that we saw and the emotions that followed but it was humbling and sad. There are so many children in need of families. If our house was larger and money was no issue we would be racking up more miles. Please keep all of these children in your prayers because many of them will only know the life inside that orphanage.
Praying with you!
Amber