Amost there

Tomorrow will be a crazy day for sure! We need to get packed (no, I haven't done that yet!) and make sure everything is in order. I have several errands to run along with getting some laundry done and making sure the house is cleaned up a bit. I was hoping to get my taxes done before we left, well, I guess that isn't going to happen unless I stay up all night tonight getting them done. I have serious doubts about that too. I am getting nervous about the trip, mostly because we are leaving the country and Travis. I know he will be fine, we just have never been away from him for that long before. I am also excited because hopefully we will meet our child in just a few days. That is an amazing thought alone! I will try to post some updates from Russia, but I don't know how easy it will be to find internet services from where we will be. You can bet that if I find the internet you will for sure hear something from me!! Hopefully things will go smoothly and we will be back in no time with lots of news! Just so you know, I will not be able to post any pictures and I will have to limit any details until after the adoption is final, which will be a few months until all is said and done. I will share what I can though! We leave this Saturday morning (EARLY!!) and return the following Saturday evening. I had better go, I have a million things to do!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Did the leprechauns come to your house last night? They stopped my our house and left a shamrock headband, some straws, Lucky Charms cereal and they left their magic wand behind. However, they also made a mess in my kitchen! Can you believe they turned the milk green and they baked my shamrock cookies??? They even had the nerve to take a bite out of one of the cookies!! As the day has gone on, Travis has found other messes they made around the house...hmmmm....I am not too sure about those little green guys!

Just FYI, our trip is on for sure!! We found out that there is a baby for us to meet when we get there, yipee! Now I can pack knowing that we will be boarding that plane!!

Spring Break Part 1

Last week Travis and I were on Spring break, part 1. We are lucky to get two weeks off! One more week to go. Hopefully there will be more time for "fun" this week, although I am not too sure about that since I still need to get our taxes done, pack, and get things around here ready for our departure. I am sure we will squeeze something "fun" in! Here are some highlights of the past week.

Travis wanted to move bedrooms and said he wanted a Raiders theme. So, after MUCH convincing mom it wouldn't be too bad, we did it. I have had a lot of compliments on it, I am pretty proud of how it turned out. For the record, the gray is called "Mickey's Shadow" and the black is called "Cinema Star". I am really impressed with the Disney color collection at Home Depot. Also, this border is actually a big adhesive sticker! Having scraped a lot of wallpaper out of my house in Memphis, I am not eager to go down that road again. I was so happy to find a border like this, it went on well and looks really good. He hasn't officially "moved in" yet, but here is a glimpse of how it turned out.

I am not sure the pictures do it justice, I think it looks better in person!

At this point, Friday the 13th seemed to be going ok, not much, I finished painting his room ( I was so worried about using black paint, phew, no catastrophes with that!) and we decided to try out the brand new McDonald's just down the street from us for lunch. We got back home and Travis went out back with the dog and I was putting some items into the dryer. All of a sudden I heard a loud "CRASH!!" I had no idea what that was, it sounded really bad and not normal. I ran out and looked at the sliding glass door by my kitchen ... the entire door was shattering before my very eyes! I ran through my bedroom to the backyard yelling for Travis and Rock. After a total panic meltdown from mom, I finally got the story out of Travis. I guess it was a complete accident, he was digging in the rocks and one rock flung up and hit the door and shattered it. I compare it to something that could have happened from the weed eater kicking up a rock or something. I was FURIOUS!!! I figured dad would be just as mad, if not madder. Well, he got home, talked to Travis and ended up telling him all about the time he kicked a soccer ball through the window when he was younger. Male bonding I guess. Anyway, I am still mad, this window is "energy efficient" blah blah blah and will be over $400 to replace!!! AAAHHH! I don't need that right now, however, I am very glad that nobody was harmed and that I didn't have the $800 window in my house that the man on the phone was asking me about. Here is a picture of what it looked like this morning before Daryle cleaned it up.

I thought the bad stuff would end there, but no, just this afternoon I tripped on the sidewalk, fell, ripped my pants, scraped my knuckle, scraped the palms of my hands and was bleeding on my knee and down by my foot. I guess I should be happy I didn't break any bones!!

So, that is how our break is going so far. Aren't you happy you stopped by??!! I am hoping things will start to look up for the Hawes Clan. I am hoping and praying that Alla finds our child and we are able to make our trip. If all goes as planned Daryle and I will be on a plane to Russia next Saturday! I can't believe it...actually, I don't think I will believe it until I am sitting on the plane. I am just nervous that it will all be called off at the last minute, and that is a very real possibility if Alla does not find us our child within the week. Until then, we are staying inside where it is safe and cozy.

Decisions

Yesterday was a better day. First we went to Travis' soccer banquet, that was very nice. He got this really cute trophy/bank with soccer balls and cleats on it. He loves it and has already started putting change in it! I will have to take a picture of him with it. He just loves sports!

After that we drove down to Tucson to meet with our agency representative. She is so nice and really helped us talk out all of our options and she answered many questions we had about traveling blind vs waiting for May and adopting that little boy born in June. There are a lot of unknowns with each situation. We talked for awhile and really thought it all out. Finally, we decided to go ahead and travel blind. I know it sounds scary, but we are really at total peace with it and we believe it is the right decision for us at this time. I could go on and on explaining why we chose this decision, but it could end up being a book! So, just know we did not make a rushed decision, we weighed it all out and this is what we are going to do. We are hopeful that we will find our child while we are there. If not, we will have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

Then we got to the nitty gritty of what we need to know and do before traveling. I was so relieved to find out more information on the gifts part. One thing I do need to do is bring an entire suitcase full of clothes for the orphanage. Evidentally they have had a change of heart and will now allow clothing from places like Goodwill or Salvation Army, etc., provided tags are still attached. So, I guess I will be combing clearance racks and thrift stores for the next few weeks! It makes me feel good to be helping children out like this, it makes it a little easier when we leave with our one child to know the others left behind will have something to help them out a bit. If anybody knows of a great place to get good clothing please let me know!

Basically we are pretty much prepared to leave on March 21! All of our paperwork is in order, nothing has expired, all we have to do is get packed. Now I feel like I can be happy that spring break is here!! Get out the paintbrushes and then the suitcases!

Sad turn of events

I received a very sad phone call early this afternoon. Our agency called to inform us that our representative in Moscow had gone to see our referral at the orphanage. The way it was explained to us is that when she got there a doctor told her that the baby was seriously ill and that he has "severe neurological problems." The doctor said this child should not be placed with a family. It all ended, just like that. I just kept thinking "What? How can that be? What happened? Why? Why is this happening? This sounds like a really bad dream." Well, it was not a bad dream, it was as real as it gets. We have no idea what happened to this precious baby boy. Maybe he started having seizures. Maybe he got meningitis. Maybe he got hurt somehow. I could go on and on hypothesizing it all, the truth is we will never know exactly what happened to him. We were not legally tied to him in any way, so we have no rights to know any more about him. We are heartbroken. It is hard enough for adults to grasp this whole thing, imagine how it is explaining it all to a 5 year old. I told him that the baby was too sick for us to bring home so this wasn't going to be his little brother after all. Travis said, "Mommy, we can make him better, can't we?" No, I did not break into tears, but it did break my heart. I told him he was too sick for us to help him, that Russia would not let us have him anymore. Then he said, "So, no more Matthew Connor?" I told him no, no more Matthew Connor or Connor Matthew. He said, "So it might be a boy or a girl?" I told him yes, we are back to that again. He seemed to be OK with it, although I don't know if Daryle and I are. We know adoption is a roller coaster ride of emotions, but it is still hard to deal with when you are dealt a blow like this. After that news settled in she went on to discuss our options and where we can go from here. Basically we have two options. Option A- travel as planned but travel "blind". This means we would fly over there with no information. When we get there we would be taken to an orphanage and be shown a child. One good thing about this is that we can take a doctor with us to evaluate the child. There is a doctor we know of in Moscow who could come with us as we are looking at the child. If there are any red flags we would say no, and be shown another child. We could be matched with a child or we could come home still empty handed and no referral. It is a huge risk and a leap of faith. Option B- there is a baby boy who will be turning 1 in June. He is not "officially available" right now, but we could take a look at him and if we wanted to persue him we could travel to meet him in May. The problem with this is that we would then have to deal with all of the summer closures in Russia and some of our paperwork will begin to expire. This all leaves us with some very big decisions ahead of us. We are still going to Tuscon tomorrow to meet with our agency to go over travel information and we can discuss this more with her as well. We have to have our decision made by Sunday. If you could please keep us in your thoughts and prayers we would appreciate it. We are feeling emotional and vulnerable right now. We need to be in the right frame of mind to make a clear decision, one that is in the best interest of our family. I will write more when we make our decision. One thing I am VERY grateful for is that we did not already go over and see him and THEN have this happen to us. That would have been even more devastating for us to deal with. Or even worse, for us to bring him home and then find out he had severe neurological issues that weren't disclosed to us. I need to go to bed and sleep on this, I hope in the morning things seem more clear.

Truckin' Along

Edited: I guess I jinxed myself!

Not much new here, at least we are checking things off the to-do list each day, and that feels great. My last class was tonight, next week starts my fourth class. I got my final back and I got a 97%! Not too shabby for somebody who hasn't taken a final in over 14 years! I am pretty proud of myself for that one. And of course, my three errors, I could kick myself for those. Oh well, I can't complain. I will be so glad to have a year of classes under my belt, but even happier when I am DONE! For now, I will take it one class at a time!

Tomorrow is a full day of conferences, until the evening hours. I will be happy and relieved when that is over. It is hard to smile all day long and appear "happy" and not stressed out.... LOL

We are really looking forward to Saturday! We are meeting with our agency at 2:00 down in Tuscon to go over everything regarding our travel plans. I am nervous but also very excited. In just two weeks we will be on our way to meet our son, it all seems so crazy and wild. With Travis, we only went one time and I never had to leave him. (Well, we had to leave him at the orphanage after our visits, but I never left the city, region or country without him in my arms!!) I have no idea what my emotions will be like when we have to leave him there. I am saying lots of prayers that I will be strong and not too devestated. Hopefully I will be able to focus on all of the positives! I am sure I will keep you all posted as to how that goes. I have heard that once things are moving in our region that things go quickly. I hope that holds true for us....because it just seems that if something is going to go wrong, it usually finds us! Of course I don't want to jinx myself either...

I can't wait for Friday at 12:25...I will be doing a BIG HAPPY DANCE because I will officially be on Spring Break!!! (On a side note, we FINALLY got renters for our house in Tennessee...they move in on March 15th. We had a renter, it fell through of course, but the next day we had one again. That was one heavy load lifted off of my shoulders for sure!!!!!)

Our weekend so far...

I guess part of this weekend is to help us prepare for when we have to be away from Travis for so long when we go to Russia. We have been away from him for two nights, we have never been apart from him for more than one night! It is really wierd. We agree that if we weren't at home it would be different, but we have been home each night with no Travis. It is good for all of us because in just three weeks we will be gone a whole week from him. Now I feel more confident that we will all survive!! (Oh, and as a side note, I was joking in my previous post about being a "bad adoptive parent" for leaving him with the grandparents. Some people are so sensitive...) ;-)

We have been pleasantly surprised at how much we have been enjoying our pre-adoptive parenting classes. We have met a lot of new people and have even met others that are also adopting from Russia too. It is nice to start building a network locally. We have one more session today from 12:30-4:30 and then we can put that behind us. We have learned some new things and have also been validated about a lot of things we have done with Travis. Attachment and bonding can be so tricky, but at least we know that we did the right things with Travis when we got him home. I can only pray we will be so lucky the second time around. Attachment is so important and having a child that is not attached can be scary, but the good part that we learned is that it can be "healed" with a lot of love and patience. So now I know what to do if things aren't going well and what we can do to start correcting things as soon as possible.

I need to go get a little bit of housework done before we head out for our afternoon session. It will be a whirlwind week, I will be so happy when it is all over so I can start putting 100% of my attention towards our trip and getting both of the boys bedrooms ready for them. I am so ready for some of the "fun" parts of our whole journey!!