We felt fortunate that we had brought many donations and insisted that we leave some with the orphanage. We were allowed to play with a group of children that this boy belong to. We had brought M&M Candies to share. We met another child, a girl who captured my husband's heart, but we had little time to find out about her. She was one child that we would remember after our journey home. Her destiny changed that day as well, for she was etched in our memory. We found a family to adopt her 6 months later.

We returned to Verkhnyaya Pyshma Children's hospital a day later and accepted the referral of our son. It was the happiest day of our lives. We truly had found the child who was meant to be with us. We were able to visit him over the next several days, and begin to bond with him and come to know the love and comfort he received from his caregivers. A few days later we had to say a heartbreaking good-bye to him and return to the US to wait for our court date. Although it was hard, we were confident that he was in good and loving hands.

We returned 5 weeks later to finalize our adoption. It was December 5th, 2000. Our facilitator and social worker did a fantastic job and we even managed to have our 10 days waived, something that rarely happens in Ekaterinburg. Two days later we returned to the hospital to pick up our son. The entire staff had a party for us and the other family who adopted with us. It was filled with joy and heartache. We ate delicious cakes and celebrated with tea and champagne. The caregivers presented us with a book for our son about Russian Heroes. We were all filled with tears of joy and pain.

We left the hospital a few hours later with our son wrapped in many layers of clothing. We were about to embark on the real adventure, raising our son !!