Russia

Russia
We went to Yekaterinburg

Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Beginning: Questioning Where to Start

The Beginning:

I am not sure if I know where to start, but I would like to tell you about our adoption story. I know that there are many people who are, or will be going through a similar journey as my husband and I so perhaps reading this blog might help. I guess I should start at the beginning.

My husband, Mike and I were married on 4/15/06. It was a beautiful wedding that we shared with our family and friends. From the start we knew we would love to have children. Family is so important to both of us, coming from large families on both sides. However, from the start we knew that having children would be difficult. We went to doctors and they promised to help, but there would be no guarantee. Is it wise to spend so much money without a guarantee in the end? And the emotional costs as well. We finally decided to put the medical idea on hold. Mike actually brought up the idea of adoption. I was uncertain at first. Being a woman, I wanted to actually experience a pregnancy. Would we love a child even if he or she wasn't biologically ours? From experiences in the past, I knew that I could and definitely would. So we went to our first adoption information meeting with DCFS.

The DCFS meeting was a little scary I guess you could say. They were really pushing foster care instead of adoption. And adoption in the USA we found is quite a difficult and never truly final process. The whole meeting left me feeling sad. However, we did have the fortune of having a couple at the meeting mention an adoption agency that they were currently using- Wide Horizons. I went home and immediately looked them up on the computer. Boy was I amazed and surprised. The agency seemed well organized and the programs they offered looked well thought out and planned. We then signed up for an initial informational meeting. That was in Sept of 2007. The day my whole life would begin to change.

We went to the meeting on a Saturday and registered with Wide Horizons immediately. The program was great and the people were so nice and helpful. They answered all our questions and if they couldn't, they had a list of people who could. I knew right away that we would be in good hands. About a week later, we received the first set of paperwork. Then the journey truly began.

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