Adoption journey story part #1

So I am a little nostalgic this week. I've been reading in my journal and remembering the adventure that Mike and I had five years ago when we adopted our little girls. It's been fun and a little emotional also. It seems like a lifetime ago. Maybe that's because they fit into our family so well and truly are "ours" that it feels like we have had them their whole lives.

{"Today was the day that we had our appointment at the National Adoption Center in Kiev, Ukraine. It was a big building with no heat and we sat on hard chairs for a long long time before we were seen by the psychologist. She was the person that would help give referrals of prospective children to be adopted. She began by telling us that we looked very young and that was "good". Then she asked what we were interested in. Like it was a thing, not a child. It was weird. We told her that we were interested in sibling group of a boy and a girl. She frowned and I thought to myself that maybe we sounded too picky even though other people that had adopted before us and told us about it said that we should be clear in our wishes. My other thought was that she was frowning because there were no girls available for adoption, which was another thing we had been warned to expect. She then asked us what ages we were thinking of and we said that we would prefer under age five, since we had only been married four years. (We didn't want to have to explain that our whole lives) Then she asked "how about three children"? My heart kind of jumped because I wasn't expecting that, and we knew that I was pregnant already (a miracle), but Mike said to her,"well we are actually approved to adopt three. We did it just in case." She smiled and then showed us the pictures of three beautiful little girls. Two looked to be toddler age and one was a baby. We didn't know how recent the pictures were. I asked about their health and we were told that they were healthy (by orphanage and Ukraine standards). Then the woman continued to show us pages and pages of other children available for adoption, but I couldn't focus on any of them. I was stuck on the faces of these sweet little girls.

We told them that YES we would like to go and meet the girls. The psychologist then told Mike that he would have to get another job to support 4 women in his house. Ha Ha, if she only knew!! "} (excerpt from my personal journal)

That was pretty much the end of what occured that day. It was April 1, 2003. We were excited and could hardly sleep that night for wondering what the next days would bring as we met the girls.


Stay tuned for what happened the next day....tomorrow!