September 30, 2004
Dear Child Waits Foundation Board and Staff,
We want to thank you yet again for helping us to realize our dream of having such wonderful children. Your Foundation not only lends itself to very worthwhile causes, but help in the realization of dreams.
Thank you A
Child Waits Foundation for all of your
help.
Our adoption journey began early May of 2003 when my
wife and I started discussing about our desire to become a family. Due to an
earlier medical procedure, we are unable to have any children of our own. We
had discussed the pros and cons of domestic versus international adoptions and
had our minds made up to pursue an international adoption.
My father called a short time thereafter and mentioned
a news story about a summer camp where they brought over Russian orphans who
were eligible for adoption. We knew this was for us and attended all of the
meetings. The plan was for two dozen children to fly from the region of Krasnoyarsk
in Russia to Tampa, FL and be matched up with prospective parents for two weeks.
We jumped at the chance and we were among the
first to turn our paperwork in before the meeting was over. We chose two siblings,
sisters, as fate would have it, Anastasia and Elena.
Due to circumstances beyond our control; students returning from summer break abroad and the outbreak of SARS; the children were delayed in Moscow for two weeks and one of our girls caught a really bad cold and was subsequently sent back to the orphanage in Krasnoyarsk.
Undaunted by this, we continued to complete our paperwork
in the hopes of our same two girls returning for the winter camp in December.
As luck would have it, our two girls were only two of three children that made
it to the winter camp from the summer camp. Our joy was tainted with a bit of
guilt at the knowledge of the other families that had waited and hoped to be
paired with the same children from the summer camp.
During those two weeks, Anastasia and Elena left an
impression on our hearts. Their personalities, sense of humor and curious nature
was infectious. From the first night they arrived here all we wanted to do is
to make them feel comfortable and loved. The first night they arrived we tried
our best to make them feel welcome with cartoons and candies on the table. Right
away, you could tell that the candies had their attention, but they would not
let us see that they wanted them. We watched for almost an hour as the little
one, Elena; while looking out of the corner of her eye at the table; would reach
sideways and very subtlety set her hand on a few M&Ms, then slide her hand
back cautiously to eat and share with her sister. The girls’ drive to learn
surprised us both and after a few days they were repeating the English equivalent
of Russian words as if it was second nature. We felt like the students at times
with the girls trying to better our extremely limited Russian vocabulary.
As with all good things, the winter camp had to end
and our girls boarded a plane for Moscow on January 11th 2004. The house just
did not seem the same, as if all of the life and happiness had been suddenly
ripped away. It took weeks for anything in our lives to get back to anything
to be considered normal. We waited and prayed for a court date with the other
families that participated in our camp.
After further delays with the agency and the Russian
Federation, we were given a court date in August. Excited wouldn’t even
scratch the surface of what we felt. Amanda continued to go over the paperwork
and replace any expiring paperwork in the hopes that this court date wouldn’t
be cancelled; we received the call from two other families stating that our
court date had been cancelled along with theirs. We were devastated, our hopes
were smashed and we were starting to wonder if this would happen at all.
Then we got the call; we received a call stating that
we would be traveling with two other families to court in Krasnoyarsk. Apprehensively,
we gathered our paperwork and discussed everything over dinner with the
other two families who just happened to be from the same camp as our girls.
The date approached and the agency mentioned that nothing would interfere with
us this time.
Three flights and sixty hours later, we were resting in our hotel in Krasnoyarsk when we heard the knocking of small hands on our hotel door, since then, we have been a family of four.
We have been home for over a month now and the girls are doing phenomenal. They are both in school and doing well. Their teachers comment that the girls are on the same levels as the rest of the class, are attentive and willing to learn. Anastasia and Elena are participating in youth cheerleading two nights a week and on weekends. They are doing there best when it comes to the cheers and their coaches praise them for their effort and hard work although it takes them a bit longer to get the words down.
Anastasia has pretty much learned how to swim without drinking half of the pool in only a matter of weeks and Elena is not far behind. Our evenings are now filled with the sounds of the cartoons on the television, the ABC’s, counting and laughter. Thank you A Child Waits Foundation for providing such a wonderful program and helping us make all of this possible.
Sincerely,
Amanda, Anastasia, Elena and John Correia