More to the story

Hello Family/Friends. We thank you all for your best wishes and we honestly couldn't be happier. Andy is actually going to get on here a little later and do his own blogging so I'm just going to tell a bit more from my side.

Monday we went the the CSS office here in Moscow to meet the Moscow represenative for the first time. She is very loving lady and no nonsense. I love all of the staff in Moscow is just as awesome as what we've been working with stateside. We were told to make sure that we don't "get upset", over react, and don't pay attention to the pictures. Listen to them. Our guide was also fantastic and helped us so much.

For those of you following our blog about to get into the adoption process yourself, the agency told us to get educated about things in international adoption. Reading, going to the International Adoption Clinic Seminar, online workshops, etc. All these things make you have the knowledge you need to make good decisions. Also, we get our own independent medical assessment of the children. We used Dr. M like a lot of CSS families, though I had the Internationl Adoption Clinic as backup if I needed them. The situation with the first child, we knew fairly quickly after being there that it wasn't going to work for us. I won't go into a lot of details for a lot of reasons, but knowing what I knew ahead of time and having a medical assessment from a competent medical professional made all the difference.

Once we met Alina it was also obvious, but we still had her examined as well because you can't jump into a life altering decision without knowing what you are getting into. It's best for the children and yourself.

I know it's hard to make such decisions because i just did it, but when it's the right child you know it. We met with her for about 3 minutes and held her. We were pretty much sold instantly, no matter what.

I can't beleive this WE HAVE A DAUGHTER!! The grandparents of course were all choked up and sniveling over the phone (yes even you Daddy I heard it). We've sent them pictures, but we cannot post anything about her photowise online until she's legally ours in March/April when we come back and have court and then wait out the 10 days.

I'll type somemore tonight, but I have to go get ready and eat some breakfast. Andy's blogging next.