Grief

Well, this has certainly been a really hard two weeks for our family.
I have had to pick up one of my kids from school this week, I think the sadness of loosing two little kids that we have all been dreaming about for the last 6 months, was making her feel physically sick.  The kids are heartbroken, and I wonder for them how easy it is to deal with.  As adults we discuss this all the time, so I know for kids it must be harder to process.

Grief hits you at strange times too, I was talking about the boys with a good friend who took me out for coffee all morning and was ok, but as soon as I mentioned it to one of the kids teachers I burst out crying.  Slightly embarrassing!

There are those who possibly wonder why this is so hard....we only spent a week with them, they are not biological, and we haven't seen them for 5 months.  Having children in general is an idea, or dream that grows in your heart, not just your belly.  The journey itself to adoption is just like a pregnancy, but in some ways having done both, adoption is a very emotional journey because you meet the child and then have all this time in the middle to plan and dream for that particular child, knowing you are at the mercy of 'the process'.

We have been so grateful for all the love and support we have had, but it is really sad to really believe they are gone.  Transitioning in our minds from being their parents (having just named them for court) to, we will never see them again or know what their future will be.  Going from, we would have been seeing them in a few weeks to never seeing them is so hard to wrap your mind and heart around.

I know we will get there xx

Part of our Dream is Over

Instead of news that we are traveling back to see our boys and go to court, we have had news that they have been adopted by another family.

I won't post all the details publicly as somethings are quite sensitive in the adoption process, but I will do my best to give the main details of our devastating news.

When we returned from our first trip to meet the twins we were in love!  They were happy, easy to amuse children who we felt would fit right in with our family.
I was a bit concerned that they started being heavily advertised, more than usual, and put on to a list called the "Train of Hope", which until last week we had no idea what that really meant.  A group of families from around Russia signed up for this "train of Hope" and travelled to Vladivostok this week to meet children who were put onto that list.  'Our' boys have now been adopted by a family who participated in this.

 I am happy for kids that now have found their families of course, but I am devastated that out of all the orphans in Vladivostok, why did the boys have to be put on to a list when we had signed to adopt them.

Our kids are very sad, lots of tears.


So where to from here:
We will have to now wait for a new referral, hopefully it won't be too long.
When we started this process it was two trips to Russia, now because of this we are looking at four trips total.  I do hate the feeling of starting again.

Thanks for all the love that has been poured out for our family so far, it has helped us a lot.

Very Grateful

I would just like to say a HUGE thank you to the couple of people who have given

Money to help with our journey to bring these Little boys home.  

Some of the funds have been put in to an adoption bank account so wont 

show up on the "chip in" counter, but last week we had about $1900 nzd given.

One family are missionaries, so really not made of money themselves, 

but really wanted to help.  

I fell really grateful, that people are so with us in this huge, scary, wonderful, adventure, we are on. 

I have had lots of other people help in other ways which is just as wonderful.  

My lovely hairdresser charges me silly prices to help, and pays for my coffee when we go out!  

The lawyer we use to get all the stack of documents notarized has been amazing, 

given the amount of times we have been to him.  Usually it is $80 for a one page

and the last couple of visits have been about 20 pages each, and he has charged

me only $75 for the bundle!!

I have other stories of similar stories,  and at this point every little bit helps.

It is starting to feel a little closer

This is just a short update to let you know that our court documents were submitted to the Russian court on Tuesday 6th March.  So we are hoping that we will have a court date really soon.  

What does all this mean in the process:  

Well, as soon as we have our court date, we will be able to travel back to Russia to visit the boys, have an 8 doctor medical, and finally go to court to ask the judge to allow us to be the parents of these two wee boys.  

Once we are approved to adopt them, we will come back home, and return 30 days later to pick them up. They are not allowed to leave the orphanage until the 30 day appeal period is up, and then we can get them both passports to travel back to New Zealand.  

This waiting, waiting, waiting is really hard!  I hope we get a timeframe soon, so they can put us out of our misery.  We just want to bring them home.