Mostly Annual Cheers to Russian Thread.

In 2007, my husband and I traveled to Russia 3 times as part of our independent adoption of our son. Our adoption was independent due the the escalating tensions between the US and Russia and took place during the first closure of Russian adoptions through US adoption agencies. Shortly, we were on our own.

In this walk of Faith, God sent us many people along the way whenever we were confronted with things unfamiliar and terrifying. Part of this miracle is that our adoption was completed, start to finish, in only 7 months!

This extremely expedited timeline meant we were given very short notice of travel all 3 trips leaving us little to no time to research locations, customs and processes. I can easily say that standing in court before a Russian judge and a Panel of 3 attorneys to argue, personally, our case for our adoption of our son was the most intimidating and terrifying experience of my life! Emotional and frightened, I could only pray God gave me the words.

A week before our first trip, the same day we were given our date of travel, I reached out on TD searching for someone who was familiar with Russia to answer questions and provide insight. Someone saw my post and “paged” LSURussian to my thread. He immediately responded answering all my questions and providing additional tips. He continued to offer info and support through our next 2 trips and was a real source of comfort and support, even giving tips on where to watch the LSU game while we were there.

We met our son at 10.5 months old and on 10/17/2007, 1 week after his 1st birthday, the court declared us his parents. That infant turned 17 last month and we celebrated the 16th anniversary of our adoption!

So Russian, here is my (mostly) annual toast to you. You helped change our lives forever and I am so thankful you took so much time to help me feel more informed and prepared for our trips to that strange, new culture. You say you did little but you were just some stranger on a sports board who didn’t have to do anything at all.

So, thank you. This year, I will share the short video we created for our adoption in 2007 showing pics and thanking everyone who gave us support.

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