I will title this post as "Last Year". A lot happened last year, but it all revolved around one thing....trying to adopt a little boy from Russia. I think we all know how this is going to end before it even starts. Last January, we started the process of adopting sweet Joshua.
My dude. I fell in love instantly. How can you not fall in love with his sweet face? His eyes threw daggers into my soul. We all know that instant "awwww" moment in the movie Shrek, when Puss in Boots gives the "look"........
It's the same look. So it was decided....we were heading to Russia. We tried to live a normal life, but let's admit, you can't live a normal life when you're trying to trudge through an international adoption. But with 4 little kids at home, we had plenty of great distractions. We visited Joshua for the first time in September 2012. He was everything we imagined. At first, he was excited to have a playmate. But he gave me this look alot....
It was the "Why are you hanging with me" look. And the "What's up with you smooching on me" face. I couldn't help it. I had waited 9 months to smooch those cheeks. Yes, he smelled like boiled cabbage, but I loved on that boy like it was going out of style. Soon enough, he warmed up to us and we got plenty of great laughs out of him.
We already had our dossier complete, except now Russia decided they wanted a heck of a lot more adoption training. And the kicker was that it was supposed to include face to face training. Well now, where in the world do you get face to face Russian training in Montana?? The only training you're getting in Montana has to do with either ranching or ......ranching. Maybe a training course on how to drive on gravel roads during a snowstorm. Anywho.... we ended up flying all the way to Florida in order to get this training done quickly. I won't complain about going to Florida.... I see why retired folk go there in the winter. It was pretty nice. We finished our training and had our court date set for January 15th....and then the ban hit. No more American adoptions. Just like that. My dude was stuck. No one could tell us exactly what was going on so we went for our court date anyways. We saw our dude again and loved on him even though we knew there was a big chance they wouldn't let us bring him home.
It's not easy to hold the boy you were planning on adopting, knowing you may never see him again. Some people may not understand this, but when you make that decision to adopt, your heart begins to ache for them like they are your biological child. Leaving him in Russia is like leaving my biological child in Russia. The courts denied our adoption based on the ban, so of course we are appealing. We came home and grieved. I've gone through all the typical emotions of denial, anger, grief and acceptance. Heck, I've even dropped my share of "f" bombs with fantasies of punching a few Russians in the throat. But in the end, we are still fighting and praying that one day our boy will come home. He's a part of our family, whether he's here or not. And that smell of boiled cabbage I mentioned earlier......I miss it. I'd give anything to smell that again.
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