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I’d originally intended our story to be three parts long…and now I’m on part V and we haven’t even met the kid! Imagine what kind of saga I could write if we’d had problems. Once we’d gotten our referral photo is when it gets more interesting, in my humble opinion.
Here’s our referral photo of Little J:
We actually got two photos of him, but one of them turned out NOT to be him! It was strange – I could tell by looking at the pictures that they weren’t the same kid, but our SW insisted that that’s what she’d gotten from Russia.
It’s kind of funny, actually, because the kid in the other referral photo was a tad bit cuter than the actual one of Little J! He had more hair, for one, and was smiling. He also seemed a little fatter. Little J seemed pale and scared to us. Probably because he was!
Luckily I didn’t take this as a sign of problems to come (because it wasn’t), but we were awfully confused. I also had decided ahead of time I wasn’t going to fall in love with a picture. That was a good thing because if I was going to fall in love – which picture would I have fallen for?
At this point things started to get exciting. We contacted an international adoption doctor** and made arrangements for him to evaluate information about Little J while we were in Russia, and we dealt with things at our mutual workplaces and we bought stuff for the orphanage, and we waited and waited…
For 3 weeks (not long, I know, for most people now – but long enough for us!)…
And then we went to Russia!
**We used Dr. Patrick Mason at Inova Fairfax Medical Center in Virginia. He was cautiously optimistic and fairly priced. For a list of other doctors and clinics who specialize in International Adoption, go to this list on Comeunity.com.
Part 1 of our story is here.
Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.
Part 4 is here.
The next part of Our Story (part #6) is here.
