Well, this is the beginning of our journey to meet our child. What do you say about something that will so drastically change your life and the life of a little one. We are leaving on January 24th and expect to meet him or her on January 26th, 2009. Here's a little about how we got here: We've been going through fertility treatments for the last 5 years. I don't say this in a complaining way but factual. I used to be so sad about the idea of not being able to have a child, but I truly believe God had another plan for us. We were married in 2001 and wanted to wait a few years to be together before we had children. Pretty normal...you don't expect to have your life plan to not work out like you expect it. When we started trying to have children, it came up pretty quickly that we would have trouble having kids. We went through all the pills, shots, and not-so-fun stuff with the doctors. If you've been through it...nothing more need be said. In our 5th year in the process we starting looking at adoption as an option. I had prayed through every bit of the fertility process for success or guidance on what God's will was for us. Everything with fertility was a trial and nothing seemed to be working. When we started to focus on adoption it seems like a path opened up before us. In February 2008 we decided to actively sign up with Catholic Social Services to try for international adoption in Russia. We chose them because they were a Christian based organization and also because they focused on two countries were interested in (Russia and China). Russia was one of my first choices because I had studied there in 1996 and I know a lot of the history and culture of the country. CSS had been in Russia since right after the Russian Federation opened their borders to international adoption in 1992. We had our homestudy in the Spring and by mid-summer our paperwork was sent over to Russia. It has gone amazingly quickly and we were originally expecting to travel the week of Christmas 2008. It all sounds so simplistic, but at the end of it is the life of a child. Who is this little one? We registered with Russia as a no preference family, but most likely (99% chance) will end up with a boy. It is a blind referral which means we know absolutely nothing about him until we get there. Some districts would send you a referral in advance. Our referral could have been in many different parts of Russia, but we have been assigned to the Moscow Region. International adoption procedures are different from country to country. In Russia, you must go for two trips during the process of trying to adopt. The first trip is what I've been calling the 'meet and greet' trip. During this we will meet our referral (son--yikes what a thought), assess their health with the help of a local doctor (or an International Adoption Clinic doctor in the U.S.), have an 8-doctor physical done on ourselves, and deal with all the legal paperwork involved in accepting the referral and requesting the court date. This trip is just one week. We will be going from January 25th-31st. We've pre-packed a small amount of children's clothes of various ages (unisex), toys, gifts, and contingency stuff to be as prepared as we can. Delta only gives us 50 lbs per back (2 bags each) so we're trying to take as much as we can now so we will have enough room on the 2nd trip. The 2nd trip will be 6-8 weeks after our return. It takes that long to get a Russian court date. This trip will be between 2-4 weeks because you go to court, then you have to wait on the Russian passport, and then you have 10-day waiting period, and then you go to the U.S. embassy and wait on the U.S. passport and can then go home. We're excited and scared all at the same time. So many unknowns, but we've put our faith in God on this. I feel such an unexpected love for this unknown child. I hope you will follow us on our journey.