Merry Christmas!

I received the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER this year: a referral from Tver, Russia. I'm adopting! My referral is a little girl, 16 months old with blonde hair and blue eyes.

About Me...

Wait a minute. Let’s back up a little. I am Kelly, a single woman living in Wisconsin. I am a hopeful adoptive mother. I own my home, have a cat named Peaches, and can’t wait to be a mother!

I started working on the paperwork for adoption back in June 2005. This process has been a journey of discovery about myself and what's important in life.

I received “the call” from my international adoption agency, Children’s Hope International (CHI) on December 14, 2006. I was sitting at my desk, typing an email, when the telephone rang. I had been working with my social worker to update the dossier during the previous few weeks, so when Caller ID displayed CHI, I assumed the call would be about paperwork.

Was I surprised when my social worker said that I had a referral! I couldn’t believe it. I kept saying my favorite phrase, “Shut up!” She emailed me pictures and a medical review. I was stunned. Amazed. Thrilled. And it was really hard to breathe.

I ran out of my office, wanting to scream at the top of my lungs, but I didn’t. Instead, I found some friends and dragged them into my office to look at the pictures. In one picture the little girl is standing up and looking at the camera with a little bit of surprise. In another picture she is squatting next to a toy truck and holding another toy in one hand. Developmentally, she was doing well.

To Russia with Love...

I received travel dates on December 22, 2006. It was a holiday from work and I was driving to downtown Madison to pick up documents that were getting apostilled at the Wisconsin Secretary of State’s Office. Once again, I thought it was just a standard phone call about paperwork. Instead, I heard that I had an invitation to travel on January 8 through January 14, 2007. Just two and a half weeks away!