IT'S OFFICIAL - WE ARE TRAVELING TO RUSSIA THIS MONTH

We have our first dates in Russia. Our first meeting is December 22, 2009. The first time we see our little girl. I had chills when I thought about it after speaking with Kelly. We are so excited and now have so much to do to get ready for this.

To see her just before Christmas is the best present we could ask for. To see Moscow at Christmas time will be very cool. Although the celebrate the Christian Orthodox Christmas which is later than ours (around the new year), the Kremlin and Red Square will still be decked out I hear.

CAN'T WAIT TO SEE KAT!!!!!!!!!!

Seeing our little girl on Christmas

It is still up in the air but there is a decent chance we will be in Moscow seeing our little girl on Christmas. What a great present for us! We had to finagle to find coverage for Kelly but it worked out in the end. Now let's hope our agency can make it happen.

First Family Viewing

For the first time members of our family were able to see pictures of our little girl. Unfortunately I was unable to get the DVD to work on their computers. I am not sure if it is lack of software, bad disk or just a weird file type.

This of course is not the important part. What is important is that they all thought she was adorable. We had about 6 screen print pictures from the video which we could show them. She is such a beautiful little girl. We are quite lucky to have been given this referral.

We are so excited to get to travel to Moscow soon to meet her for the first time in the next month to month and a half.

What I am Thankful For

I am thankful for our little girl who we should be bringing home soon. It feels like she will never get home but we know the time is coming. After a few trips to Russia, Katerina will come home. And then we will be thankful for her health and those that provided for Katerina in the Baby Home for the first year of her life.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

A Long update

I haven't posted in awhile and we have had great news. I figured I would first post my facebook comments and then later give a long post about what has happened:

November 16 at 5:07pm

previous message deleted until I can call family with the news. I will repost in a bit. [this was deleted so I could give my family the heads up before my friends]

November 16 at 6:22pm - NOW THE GOOD NEWS

Ok now that the family has been called. And with time, we are a little less shocked, it is really happening! Mrs. Garc and I received a phone call this evening that there is a referral with video coming tomorrow for us to review. So we will get to see our little girl for the first time tomorrow evening. A little bit of nervous[ness] and a whole lot of excitement for Mrs. Garc and me.

November 17 at 12:12am

[I] want to thank everyone for the kind words and congratulations. It is awfully nice to have a bunch of people think highly enough to comment on Mrs. Garc and my adoption. We will keep you posted (meaning tomorrow night or Wednesday after we have watched the video). Once again thank you. It means a lot to Mrs. Garc and I to have all this backing from more than just family.

November 17 at 8:52am

Mrs. Garc looked at the weather in Moscow today: 32 and snowing. Assuming all goes well, we will be traveling to Moscow in the dead of winter it appears. Will probably be cold :). Lucky Us.

November 17 at 2:18pm

I have the video and some medical documents. Can't watch the video until Mrs. Garc this evening with Mrs. Garc. we agreed we would watch it for the first time together. Also, will not be able to show any of it to family or friends in any public domain until the adoption is final (read email or internet). I forgot we signed a waiver agreeing to this. We will post an update though after we watch it.

November 17 at 5:51pm

We have watched the DVD. She is a little cutie with chubby cheeks which surprised [us] because we were expecting a malnourished child. But assuming the adoption doctor does not say anything unexpected we will be accepting this referral. We have now seen our little girl and she is adorable!

November 18 at 12:34pm

I have been contacted by the international adoption doctor informing us to expect a call this evening from her. Once we have this call, we then make the final decision which is strongly leaning towards acceptance. Then the process of scheduling from Russia's side really begins.

November 18 at 6:22pm

It won't be official until tomorrow when we call the agency but after having a conversation with the Specialist from Tufts.......WE ARE ACCEPTING THIS REFERRAL!!!! This little girl will soon come home!!!!

Thu at 12:07pm

IT'S OFFICIAL! We have given the organization a thumbs up, a definitive yes, so they are running with it. First travel will be either just before Christmas, returning home just before Christmas or the middle of January.

A longer post will be made int he next day or so about our thoughts.

Primal Wound

The more I read of "Primal Wound," the more I just cannot agree with the author's primary basis. I have trouble believing a child could live with an issue such simply because they were separated from their birth-mother right at birth. I do believe there can be some problems but to suggest that the child could never love another as they do their birth-mother seems wrong. Also she does not explain the numbers in her sample sizes but rather uses a word like many.

Good news for today

We are going to use the following pattern for our little girl. This means our lilac color walls can stay. Very similar to the elephant. I will only have to address the molding which will be easy. We originally chose the light purple color because we thought we would adopt a little girl. But when looking at patterns we leaned towards green and light brown animal motifs until the below one popped up.

http://www.kidslineinc.com/products/infant/zola.php

Scary Thoughts

Just started reading "Primal Wounds" by Nancy Newton Verrier about adopted children and the wound of them losing their birthmother at an early age. It is a scary thought that our adopted child will never be able to bond to us fully because we are not her birth parents. We will do the best we can and certainly provide a good home to our little girl. But still a scary thought.

Room changes

This weekend will start the processing of remodeling the room as is needed. Pulling the old molding will be the first job. Then preparing the ceiling for painting. All while taking Mrs. Garc out for her birthday (breakfast and dinner).

In the end, the room will be painted a light green for a jungle animal design.

Adoption Changes

Been awhile since I last posted. I am going to swing mostly towards the coming little girl that my wife and I are adopting. The process started in June and is really starting to pick up steam now. I will throw in some other thoughts but will try to make this sort of a diary for my little girl as well about her adoption and our thoughts of the process.