Trip 2 - Day 20: Packin' Up

Well, this is it! Our last night in Moscow. Aside from what we'll need to shower and dress ourselves & feed Ilya in the morning, we're all set for our flight HOME tomorrow! Oh, don't worry, the boy will be clothed as well...but minus a few layers than he's been required to wear most of his 14 months!

Please pray for us to have safe & uneventful travels tomorrow. At some point during a 10+ hr flight, you're going to experience uncomfortableness and I pray we're able to make Ilya as comfy as possible.

The picture above was taken May 27, 2008 - - the day 3 lives irrevocably changed forever. The day Ilya left the only home he's ever known to join our family and bless us beyond measure. What an awesome, amazing, miraculous journey we've been on since October 2007. Our road to Ilya has brought Norm & me closer than I ever imagined 2 people already in love could be, and more importantly our relationship with and trust in God has reached a point I never knew possible.

Many people have made many comments along the lines of what a "great thing" Norm & I are doing, and what a lucky kiddo Ilya is to now have us as parents. While we truly appreciate these compliments, neither of us feel like we have done anything great. We are the ones blessed by God to have Ilya as our son. We are the lucky ones! We know that every step of this journey - the good, the wonderful, the bad and the ugly - was orchestrated by God. We hoped for children early in our marriage but in hindsight, we were nowhere near ready to be parents in all the areas that parents need to be strong...from housing, to finances, to careers, to spiritual maturity we were not ready. He chose for Ilya's life to intersect with ours at the exact timing that it did, and for that we are so very grateful and humbled, and never will we stop believing in God's great goodness!

I can't believe I blogged every day of our 2nd trip, and on some days twice! Yikes! I hope I didn't overwhelm any of my readers by giving "too much" information. In case you haven't noticed by now, I tend to ramble when I write. It was important to me, though, to document as much as possible so we can share this with Ilya as he gets older, and also to help families who are either in process or considering pursuing international adoption. If you fall into that second category, remember that no matter the frustration, no matter how many times you suffer from exploding head syndrome, no matter how many times you experience a down day as opposed to an up day, it IS do-able and your reward will be something close to the absolutely cheesy grin I have in our family photo above!

With that said, nothing really official happened today, other than Pasha going to the Russian Consulate on our behalf to register Ilya. Don't ask what that means because I'm not exactly sure, just that it had to be done. We did show up at MOE (Ministry of Education) to have our names taken off the list of prospective adoptive parents, but they decided to shut down their office for some reason so the trip was pointless...except for the flower vendor who benefited from us buying roses from him to present to the MOE staff! Our agency has a power of attorney for us, so they will stop by on Monday to have our names removed. When we returned to the apartment, we just hung out, did laundry, played with Ilya and packed. Pasha is picking us up at 11am tomorrow for our flight. We're supposed to land at Dulles at 5-something and hopefully be home a few hours after that. We don't know what to expect for Ilya's entry into the US and we're obviously hoping it doesn't take long to get through.

On March 21, 2008, the last day we spent with Ilya on our first trip, we left behind some toys for him to play with until we could return to see him again: stacking cups, a teething ring, a stuffed donkey and our family photo album. From March 22 - May 26, Ilya's caregivers would use these toys and looked at that album with Ilya to help reassure him that we would be returning as soon as we possibly could. These 4 items were placed in a plastic bag with his Russian last name written on it, and they were the only possessions Ilya ever had in his entire 14 months. When we picked Ilya up forever on May 27, his caregivers gave us those toys and that plastic bag. It brings tears to my eyes to think that this precious little boy only had 4 things to call "his." Ilya has no idea right now of how many things we've accumulated for him - - how much "stuff" is waiting for him at home. I'm keeping the plastic bag as a reminder to Norm, Ilya and me of the path that God took all 3 of us on to find each other and become a family!