Chapter 1 How do you decide to adopt?

How do You decide to adopt a child?  Iv'e never really had an answer for that.
     My Wife and I married in 1995 and had tried to have children for several years. It was fun, but after a few years with no results it started to become obvious it was not going to happen. We met in our mid-thirties and approaching forty it looked like we were not going to have children.
     Years pass and a month after my fiftieth birthday, my wife, Teri is reading through the local new-paper one Sunday morning , she reads an article talking about an organization called 'The Bridge of Hope'  helping couples adopt children from Russia. I am deep into the sports section, it January and baseball will be starting soon.  Half listening,  my wife says to me "Iv'e been reading about this Bridge of Hope program and you get to host visiting Russian orphans for a month in the summer and then you have the option to adopt them." Long ago I decided that I would be Uncle Joe for the rest of my life. It was a pretty cool job too. I got to rile the kid up, feed them sugar go crazy with them and then send them home. I got to be that big kid who never grew up.
I didn't want to adopt or host, but I also wanted to give my wife something she wanted and I also thought that I could stop it later or even better she would lose interest.I hear her say they are having a meeting in Westchester next month and We should go. It's a month away I figure, so I say OK , I don't have to worry about it now. She continues to go on, I hear you'll see a Russian flag outside our house. There was more, I'm sure, but it was soon to be baseball season. So I said "If you want to." Teri takes her usual position, the lead and and runs with it, doing all the paperwork finding out where and when we were supposed to meet the local branch.
     Several Years earlier, We had tried to adopt a child from China. We'd gotten the paperwork and attended a meet at St Anthony's Church in Nanuet. They had meetings every month or so and they had a regular support group. It looked like that was the direction We would head. Reading through the paperwork one night, my wife discovers that We would not qualify. We lived in a one bedroom house, in Nyack and the child would need to have their own room. It end that night, I thought. A couple of  years later we'd moved from that one bedroom house, in the town, my wife grew up in, down the street from her parents to twenty minutes away, to an old farm house in Congers. I'd never put the two together. My Wife was determined.
     February has arrived and so has the meeting. The People sponsoring the meeting live in Yorktown over in Westchester. They have the meet in this very nice house on a Thursday night in February The two women running the meeting are Liz and Terry,both had adopted children from Russia and wanted to help others do the same. About Forty people attended the meeting. They gave us the general outline of the requirements for hosting kids for a month in the summer. The requirements for hosting are very simple. You 'Camper' a term I would not fall in love with would arrive from Russia and they would be required to be in a day camp during the week. On the Weekends You would need to do things with them and on the day they were to go back they were to have a photo album of their trip. It seemed simple enough. I knew in the back of my head that if We ever got the children over to America there was no way We would not adopt them. I still wasn't on board with the program.
     We got the paperwork and again Teri took the lead filling it out getting all the information needed and dragged me to where ever it was we needed to go to finish the paperwork before the deadline of sometime in April, it was an amazing feat.
     There are many times I think I feel the hand of God on my shoulder. The Day I got on board with the adoption was one of them.
     It's a sunny warm day in March. I'm working as a salesman and I'm visiting a Dunkin Donuts shop in Stony Point. My Phone rings, it's Rene from The Bridge of Hope. The Cell Phone reception in the area is awful. Her Voice fades occasionally and at other times disappears completely. She tells me She had tried both of Teri's numbers had she had not picked up, so Rene called me.

We were being given a choice and it had to be made soon. The Program never gives parents a choice whom they can adopt, but We were being given a choice between two girls ages seven and nine or a boy ten years old. One of the Girls is listed as mentally retarded. We had been warned that a lot of the physical and mental problems listed on the reports about the orphans is made up to allow foreigners to adopt, Russians are not eager to let non-Russians raise their children, as a nut case I was to meet later in the summer would say, 'How could you possibly ever know how to raise a Russian child not being a Russian.' and this nut case lived in America, god help us all. Rene was giving us a choice, but not really. We got the pluses and minuses of the two children and we were told we had to make a choice. Teri wanted a girl and here we were being presented with a pair. As Rene gave me the information I felt the hand of god on my shoulder for only the second time in my life, not that it hadn't been there before. Suddenly they weren't this abstract concept, they had become flesh and blood people and I suddenly wanted to become a part of this adventure. I got all the information from Rene and I called Teri and I would like to say got through to her but I didn't. I had to leave her a message to call me back and when she did I gave her the news. She was scared about the mental retardation issue because she said she would not be able to deal with it. I kept reminding her that she had wanted girls and here we were being presented with two, take a chance. We could always back out after the summer camp if we couldn't deal with it if it was too bad. So we went for it knowing We were never going to be able to send them back.


The magic day for me was I think a Tuesday in the beginning of May end of April 2008. I was working talking to a Dunkin Donuts owner in Stony Point, in a bad cell phone area when I get the call from a 301 number. I figured that since I was in a bad area it was a mistake and it was not for me so, yes I answered it. It was Rene from the Bridge of hope or the parent group calling to tell us we were going to get a child. The phone kept breaking up and I asked her about the child. She said that we had a choice of two girls or a boy. I asked about the girls and why the choice. She said their names were Anastasia and Elaina. And the reason for the choice was one of the girl paper work said she was retarded and if we could not deal with that we could have the boy. There may have been a simple reason for me to receive the call, but the fact was that I had received it and I was the one who was not going at this full speed. Rene said she could not get Teri on either of her phone numbers and she would give me the information. At the sound of your names I got all choked up and again felt the hand of god. I fell in love with you guys and all my doubts were erased, for the time being. I would have doubts and fears and wonder if I did and am doing the right thing for you two and for myself. After the call I called Teri and asked her if she would like two girls to be hers. I got a cautious response from her and we discussed the information we had. It took a few days to decide that we would take the chance and bring the two of you over to America for the month of July and see what happens. Both of us knowing we would likely fall in love with you.