Anniversaries...out of sorrow comes joy

One year ago on Saturday, September 6th Paul and I prepared to board a plane to Russia. We had started the journey to adopt our second child in October 2007 and had initially requested to adopt a girl to even out our family. From the time we started more and more families were requesting girls from Russia and thus the wait became very long. Alexander was growing older and I didn't want him and his sibling too far apart in age. After about 9 months we decided we really didn't care about gender and switched our request to be open to either. Of course that really meant we were now pretty assured of adopting a boy. Also over the course of that time many issues were cropping up with our agency - frequently changing coordinators, rumors of issues in our region, cancelled first trips due to lack of relatively healthy referrals (even for boys), etc. We were getting nervous but had invested not only money but time and the road had been long and hard with Alexander's adoption and they had carried us through before. In mid -August we got news that we had a referral and would be leaving on Sept 6th to hopefully meet our next child. The next two weeks were excruciating as we got news that another family's trip had been cancelled the day before they were to leave and ours was also in jeopardy. We also learned, just days before our departure date, that our 'potential' referral was actually a young girl with a cleft lip/palate and how did we feel about that? We felt totally fine with that...but of course thrown for a loop of what we were now expecting our family to be.

One year ago on Saturday, September 6th we were extremely nervous of what the upcoming week was going to bring and how we were about to possibly change our family forever. One year ago we got to the airport but did not get on the plane. We were devastated and heartbroken. It was not our agency or Russia but an issue we should have addressed long before that day, which became known as "Black Saturday". It's still somewhat sensitive so I won't post the details but many of you know and/or can ask offline. One year ago I thought our dreams for a second child were completely destroyed. In the coming days we saw no other road...other countries or domestic scenarios did not feel right in my heart nor in some cases what we could do for numerous reasons. After what occurred I know many thought we were done with Russia and potentially adopting another child and I know a few thought we should give up and move on...this was just not meant to be. But we were not ready to give up just yet and painfully worked long and hard to get back to square one (including switching our home study and adoption agency along the way which was no small task). Little did we know that EXACTLY 9 months later to the day (June 6, 09) that our now beloved Lucas would be arriving on US soil to a welcoming crowd of friends and family.

Today marks Lucas' 3 month anniversary of coming home and the beautiful and perfect completion of our family. But it also marks the one year anniversary of a very painful day that is now part of our history and Lucas' story. Who knows what things would be like today if we had boarded that plane one year ago and who would now be sleeping upstairs but it was not meant to be...Lucas was...and so I am forever thankful for Black Saturday.