The Cain's - An Adoption Story
For A Child Waits
It truly
has been a ride. Shortly after my husband and I were married ten years ago, I
read a story in our local paper about a young woman who was seventeen years old
and was so happy that she was going to be adopted. At the time I didn't understand
why she was so happy, because soon she would be on her own and be an adult. But
what she wanted more than anything was a family. The story went on talking about
the children who age out of the system without being adopted-without having a
family. Time had past. We started our own family with Shelly (8), Jordan (6),
and Dylan (2 and a half). A year after Dylan was born, my husband and I started
talking about adoption.
We thought about adopting an older child, a boy and because I am black and my husband is white, a child of mixed heritage, because he may have the same concerns or questions growing up as our children. We started our process domestically. We knew that we could open our hearts and home to one more child, but we didn't have the extra large amounts of cash for various adoption fees.
We contacted The Children's Home Society in Greensboro, NC and our case worker said that since we were interested in an older child that was bi-racial, the child would be classified as special needs and we would not have to pay an agency fee. That information was some good news. So off we go. We gathered our papers needed for adopting in the state of North Carolina and finished our parenting classes.
One week after finishing our homestudy, Frank adoption center in Raleigh, NC sent out a message to local agencies saying that they were looking for a family for a nine year old, bi-racial boy from Russia. I was at work when our case worker called with this information. She said that she would give Heather West at Frank Adoption Center our information if we were interested. I told her of course we were interested, but I had to ask if he was in Russia does that mean he speaks Russian? She Said "yes". I'm sure she was laughing quietly to herself.
Within the hour, Heather called me at work and told me a little about Sasha. She also e-mailed me more information and a picture. I double clicked on the picture , it opened and filled-up my screen with this adorable little boy's face. I called my husband Darron at work and gave him the low-down and sent him Heather's e-mail and the corresponding picture. Darron read the e-mail and saw Sasha's picture then he called me back and said, "Okay, what do we need to do?"
Heather called me back and said if we wanted we could host Sasha, because he would be coming with other children from Russia with Frank Adoption Agencies annual Cherry Orchard program. Things were happening fast now. He would be here in two weeks, but we couldn't host him because we would be gone on vacation part way through his visit. We were preparing to move into our new home, and go on vacation, but we were still able to visit him several times before we left. We found that besides being adorable he was shy, pleasant and had a smile that could light up a room.
After our vacation, Heather called to see what we thought of Sasha. We said we were very interested and would like to hear about the process of international adoption. We had moved into our new larger home and started the international paperwork, when Darron got and accepted an offer for a great position with Denver Post in Colorado. That was the end of the summer in 2002. We were originally thinking that Sasha would be home for Thanksgiving 02 in NC. But that didn't happen.
We moved in and got settled into our new home- déjà vu. I decided to stay home with Dylan and start back on the adoption paperwork. Most of the paperwork didn't carry over from North Carolina to Colorado or had expired. After first thinking that we were going to adopt domestically with some financial assistance and then moving twice in four months, we didn't know where the money was going to come from for the international fees and services or our travel. Heather told us about A Child Waits Foundation. I thought the organizations name was quite ironic, because I would get pretty bogged down in paperwork and say to myself to keep me going- A child waits. While we run around gathering signatures and filling out forms, Sasha waits to have a family. He had no idea that we wanted him to be a part of our family, but we wanted him to know.
On September 11,2003 in Rostov, Russia, Sasha became our new son. He went from a scared little boy in an orphanage to a little boy who smiles often, is excited about learning English, riding a bicycle for the first time, and playing with his new sisters and brother. Sasha was understandably nervous about being adopted and coming to America, but he told his translator that he wanted a family. We can give him love and the family he spoke about at the orphanage. Thanks to all the pieces to our adoption puzzle- The Children's Home Society of NC, Frank Adoption Center of NC, A Child Waits Foundation, our adoption team in Russia and everybody who has touches our lives along this path. Sasha has been home for 3 weeks now and last night when I tucked all the kids in bed and Sasha in his broken English Said " Goodnight I love you mommy ".
