Four Feet More

It was on September 27, 2005 that we received "the call" from our agency. They had two children, a boy and a girl bio-siblings, living in Murmansk, Russia who were avialble for adoption. The girl, Viktoria, was a bit older than we had requested (she was 4 at the time), but the boy, Nikolay, was within our age range (he was 2, about to turn 3). Might we be interested in seeing their pictures and reviewing their medicals?

This call came after months of waiting and two previous referrals which we had declined. To those of you waiting for a referral or who are still in the adoption process, it may be hard to understand how we could decline two referrals before accepting the third. So, here's the story, which hopefully will make things a bit clearer.

Our first referral came in late June, 1 month after our paperwork was submitted to Russia. It was a blind referral for two brothers, age 1 and 3. After much agonizing, we declined this referral for two reasons. The first was that it was a blind referral, and we were unsure about whether or not we wanted to spend all the money to travel to Russia only knowing the boys' ages. A year ago, blind referrals were not as common as they are today, so we didn't know much about what to expect. The second reason, which really clinched things for us, was that the referral was for two boys. We really wanted both a boy and a girl, and since this referral came so quickly, we decided to decline it and wait a bit longer for a girl. Since turning down that first referral, I have thought often of those two nameless, faceless boys and wondered what happened to them. I hope that they found a loving family and are living a happy life today.

Our second referral came a month later, towards the end of July. This time it was for a brother and sister, and the agency had medical info and pictures of the two children. The kids were within our age range and came from generally healthy regions. However, there was a problem with this referral as well. The boy was available for adoption right away, but his sister would not be available for another 6 months. They also were living miles apart from each other, in two separate regions, which meant that we would have to make 4 trips to Russia in order to adopt them both. 2 trips to adopt the boy, and then 6-12 months later, 2 more trips to adopt the little girl. Financially, this was just not feasible for us. Plus, we didn't like the idea of either traveling back to Russia with a young child that had only been a memeber of our family for a short time, or leaving him in the care of relatives for a couple weeks while we went to adopt his sister. There just seemed to be too many things working against this referral, and so, with heavy hearts, we declined it as well. We did not see the children's pictures or review their medicals because we did not want to become any more emotionally entangled than we already were.

Then came the August break. As many of you know, In Russia, things practically shut down in August because this is the time when adoption officials take long vacations. So we had to wait. However, since the other two referrals came so quickly, I really expected to receive a referral at the end of August. When we didn't, I began to have doubts as to whether or not things would ever fall into place. Jeff and I had researched blind referrals and by this time felt more comfortable with the idea of accepting one if the children were a boy and a girl. I was even ready to adopt two boys because I couldn't quite shake the feeling that we should have accepted that first referral. I began to think that maybe we were being too picky, and should just put our faith in the idea that the kids found for us would be the right ones for our family.

Finally, at the end of September, we got the referral for Vika and Eamon. Like I said at the beginning of this post, Vika was a bit older than we had requested, so we were a bit unsure as to whether or not to accept the referral. Did we hold out for an infant girl, as we initially wanted, or were these two kids the right children for us? After some discussion, we asked our agency to send us the pictures and the medical info, just to see if that would help us to make a decision. This was the first time we ever saw the children who were to become a part of our family.




Unfortunately, the referral information only confused matters further! While the pictures showed these beautiful children whom we could see being a part of our family, the medicals has some scary information, and we weren't quite sure what to do. We sent the info to our International Adoption doc up in Washington and he helped put a lot of our fears to rest. There was still the age issue to get over though. First of all, children who are adopted at an older age can have problems adjusting which younger children do not. Problems with attachment and issues relating to spending a long time in an orphanage setting were very real possibilities. Also, would we be happy adopting children who were well out of the infancy stage? It would mean never having a baby around the house and not experiencing many of the developmental milestones that go along with that. However, after much soul searching, we asked ourselves, what are a couple of years in an entire lifetime? Not much, really. Sure, we would miss some developmental stages, but there would be so much more that we could share with these children, and in the end, it was the lifetime of sharing that was really important to us. So, we contacted our agency and accepted the referral. Soon after, we shared the kid's pictures with close family and friends, and even before we met them, they began to feel like part of the family. Now, a year later, I can't imagine not having Vika and Eamon in our lives. I'm so glad we held out for that thrid referral and that we accepted it despite some of our concerns. In the end, I beleive that everything worked out just the way it was supposed to.