" Despite some paperwork glitches, an international adoption scandal, a volcanic plume, and seemingly endless flight delays, we brought him home" Home 4/15/2010

John and I were committed to starting a family as quickly as possible after our marriage.  When natural conception didn’t happen for us, I raised the idea of adoption.  To my surprise, John was willing to explore the idea, and we quickly decided to welcome a child into our hearts.  After researching the dizzying array of countries and their requirements, we were drawn to Russia.  After calling many, many references, we were impressed with what we heard of EAC, and decided to pursue our dreams of family through this agency.

As we worked on our paperwork, we wondered what our child was doing at that moment.  Was he or she born yet?  We submitted our initial paperwork in September 2009, and were done with the dossier in December, when our home study was completed.  To our great surprise, within days, we got an early-morning call from EAC.  They had a referral for us: Alexey, a boy of 18 months!  I stared and stared at his photo, and so did John.  He had a lazy eye, but we knew that was a minor issue.

We rushed to complete the remaining paperwork, and traveled to St. Petersburg in January 2010, which the locals seemed to take great delight in telling us was the coldest winter in recent memory.  The orphanage was 2 ½ hours away by car over icy roads.  All our discomfort fell by the wayside, though, when the caretaker led a little boy into the room.  Although he was reserved, he stole our hearts after two days of visiting with him, and he wouldn’t let go of John when we returned him to his caretaker.  When we left, we left a photo album with our pictures in it.  (Later, he would call us Mama and Papa when he saw us.) Leaving him behind was so very, very hard, as was the uncertainty about when our next trip would be. 

The eight-week wait before we were able to go back to St. Petersburg for court passed, though not as quickly as we hoped!  We made the trip to the orphanage again, and heard our little boy laugh for the first time the day before we went to court.  Our court hearing was nerve-wracking, but at the end of it, we were granted parenthood!  We returned home without our little boy to wait the mandatory 10 days.  On all of our trips, as well as between them, EAC staff was incredibly helpful.  We became friends with all of them.

Finally, we returned to St. Petersburg, this time with clothing and supplies for our little Dillon Alexey.  Despite some paperwork glitches, an international adoption scandal, a volcanic plume, and seemingly endless flight delays, we brought him home.  We were prepared for a struggle with attachment and bonding with him, but even in the hotels and on planes, Dillon began to attach to us, blossom, and show his fundamentally happy nature, always laughing and smiling.  He is a healthy, loving, truly joyful little boy, and we firmly feel that he is the child we were meant to have.  We are so very lucky.