My husband and I sat at our dining-room table filling out the forms that would decide the future of our family.
For two years, we’d tried to have a child. But infertility forced us to rethink our plans. We’d prayed and prayed about what to do and every sign had led us here, to this form that would officially start the process of adopting a child from Russia. Now I felt an incredible, powerful surge of confidence that we were doing the right thing. I signed the bottom and wrote the date, March 17, 2004.
That confidence carried me through the grueling months ahead. Costs for background checks, processing fees and other requirements were high. Putting together the documents that described us, our home, our health and our finances took months of paper-chasing, visits from a social worker and repeated trips to government offices. Finally we completed everything and waited to hear from the adoption agency.
Then the Russian government changed its international adoption laws. What should have been a few months of waiting lasted more than a year. Had we really followed God’s will? I started to wonder about the sense of confidence I’d felt the day we signed the forms.
In the spring of 2006, we got a call from the adoption agency. “There’s a boy in one of our orphanages in southern Russia,” the person said. “We’re e-mailing you the pictures.”
He was a sweet little redhead, two years old. It was love at first sight. We made our travel plans. Halfway across the world, in Volgograd, Russia, my husband and I found what we’d been praying for. The boy was shy at first, but soon he was playing and cuddling with us. I held him and didn’t want to let him go.
“He has some minor medical problems,” the orphanage director warned, reading through the boy’s file. “We don’t know who his parents were. He was abandoned when he was just a few weeks old.”
I looked at my husband. Did any of that matter? He was meant for us, wasn’t he? The director peered down at the boy’s file again.
“He was found by a police officer,” she said, “on March 17, 2004.”
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