What's been happening for the last 6 months....

Well, here I sit in a hotel room in Stavropol, Russia - and on my second visit to Stavropol in three months. In January, I didn't even know there was such a city, and only vaguely knew about exactly where the region it is located in (the Caucasus) could be found. A lot has happened in these last six months. In some ways, you could say less has happened, if you consider "happening" to be activity from a variety of areas. But in one area specifically, there has been a frenzy of focused, obsessive activity.

Adoption. Ten years ago we would have never considered it, and would not even be capable of saying the word. Five years ago we briefly discussed the topic and quickly wrote it off as too risky a thing to even consider. Early this January, we both found ourselves joking about it with our friends - "Oh yeah, and Chuck wonders when the ten-year old is going to show up" - and then comparing notes and (totally surprisingly to both of us) agreeing to do it. What happened in between?

Well, you could say (in order) Natasha, Alicia, Tanya, Tasha, Masha and Nina happened. These people, all from a different country (Russia) and the same region (Novgorod), enriched our lives, taught us to love, taught us to learn and caused us to look at ourselves in ways we never would have guessed. They form the core of our family, and make us feel soooo very rich to know them. Today, they out there, building their lives, each in their own special way and phase of life. It is an awesome thing to watch happen.

The strength this whole experience as well as our becoming more willing to leave "the comfort zone" has given us is the faith to try being "real" parents to two young girls, from the same country, same culture, but a very different background. In two weeks, we will be parents to Diana, a 6 1/2 year of pile of energy, and Vika, a quiet 10 1/2 year old ready to build a new life with us. May the collective strength of the universe and whatever else is out there help us do our job well.

I will save everyone the boring logistics on doing an international adoption. Not only is it not for the feint of heart, it is a tremendous, time consuming hassle that words cannot possibly describe and few who have not been involved in adoption can appreciate. After doing our research for a month, we applied to a program in the end of January, and this began the paperwork. After literally 2 months of continuous paperwork, interviews and hassles, we received our first referral (well really the second, but we won't go there), and prepared to travel to meet these girls in mid-April. We then travels, visited each three times, and accepted the referrals. Then back to another 6 weeks of paperwork and several weeks of further waiting before we were given a "court date" - this is where things get serious.

Before the first trip was taken, the adoption process seemed almost a theoretical, disassociated thing - lot of work, reading, researching and fright from the possible outcomes. Then you see the girls, and the fright is replaced with elation and a different sort of fear - how can we possibly get our lives into shape and make a convincing family with a convincing home and traditions?

Then you finally complete that final dossier - and wait, and wait, and wait. They say this is the hardest of all, and sure enough there is truth to it. You literally do not know if you will be called in a week, in 4 months (there's that feared "summer vacation" problem, where Russia disappears during mid-July to August), or never if Russia were to decide stop doing external adoption at all. You worry about things, but at least to me it was date and program related worry.

Then you get that court date (in our case, we got about 13 days notice, about average). Suddenly, after arranging the tickets and last minute paperwork, you are really for the first time faced with near-certainty, that when you return from your trip, nothing will be the same again. Never. Its a feeling a bit like a roller coaster - you look at it, and decide to try it. You then stand in a boring line for a while. Then you finally start climbing the last flight of stairs to the top, and realize that once this thing takes off, you can yell all you want, but the ride will not stop. You just have to have faith that you will survive in one piece.

That's were we are about now as I write this.

Today we visited the kids for the first time since seeing them two months ago. They trusted we would return after those visits long ago, and were relieved and happy when they saw our smiling faces. They trusted us, now it is time for us to trust ourselves, and embrace their happy faces and hopes. We are now happy but scared parents-to-be. Tomorrow will be our first of two court days. That's the point in the ride where they have let you onto the ride platform and wait for the next roller-coaster cars to arrive. Then a ten day waiting period (mandatory wait), the judge declares them yours, and you're off.

Whhhhheeeeeeee!!!!