The Making of a Family

As we prepare for a small get together celebrating our son’s first “Gotcha Day”, we are remembering all the events that took place one year ago.

When we got our referral slightly over a year ago, we were elated and in shock at the same time.  We first got word of our baby in early February 2001.  Misha (Mikhail) was just under 7 months old when we flew to Siberia to pick him up.  After watching the 9 minute video we received on him over and over, we felt like we had a connection to him and we were ready to be united.  We had a flight on April 1^st from Chicago to Moscow.  We were taken to the Children’s Hope office in Moscow and were given snacks and drinks.  After a few hours, we took another 4-hour flight to Novosibirsk.  To be honest we felt pretty intimidated for the entire experience.  Our flight was delayed for at least an hour, but we didn’t know what was going on since we couldn’t understand Russian.  I tried to find words in our English/Russian book like ‘where’ and ‘going’ that we could point at to other passengers so we knew we were in the right place.  Once we finally landed in Siberia and were met by our wonderful coordinator, Marina, we found out that Misha was sick. 

After we got to the hotel and settled in a bit we were taken to see Misha for the first time at the baby house.  As we washed our hands and put hospital slippers over our shoes, I thought to myself how unbelievable it was that we were actually in the same building as our son.  We had waited for this so long and it was finally here.  It felt unreal.  As we walked into the isolation room he was in, due to his illness, we saw him for the first time.  His blue eyes were absolutely beautiful and big, but the rest of him was so small.  The nurse handed him to me and I couldn’t believe it…I was holding our son!  We were really there and so was he. 

His daddy and I passed him back and forth a few times, but were not able to stay too long because of he was so sick.  We were told that he had a cold, but from the first look we knew he had more than a cold.  He was breathing so fast I thought he was going to hyperventilate and he was very raspy.  We were both scared for him and so was the baby house staff.  They decided to put him in the hospital that very night to be treated for his pneumonia.  When Marina called to let us know that, we both breathed a sigh of relief.  We would have done just that if we were at home.

The next three days we spent running around town with Marina doing paperwork and stopping by the hospital for about 30 minutes each day.  We would video tape our visits with him so we could watch it at the hotel that night.  We took daily photo’s to show his progress.  We purchased some medications that were too expensive for the hospital to buy so he could recuperate faster.  Everyday he got stronger and happier and by the end of the week he was smiling and laughing a little bit.  He seemed to be recognizing us too.  He smiled when he saw us and snuggled up to us when we held him. 

We found out on Thursday, April 5, 2001 that we were going to have court that next day.  The judge asked us both a series of questions regarding our home life, our families and friends (how they reacted to our decisions) and views on discipline.  The judge ruled to make us his parents and to waive the 10-day grace period in order to get him to the states for proper medical care.  We were parents!  Marina kept saying in her cute Russian accent “real parents” and patting us on the shoulders.  We sent an email home to share the good news and to let everyone know that we were doing well.  It was nice to have some type of contact with our family since we were both getting pretty homesick.  That evening we celebrated with a nice dinner at Marina’s home.

We got a call on that Monday, April 9, saying he was infected with salmonella when he first got to the hospital a week ago.  They gave us the option of picking him up that day or to have him transferred to the infectious hospital where he would be quarantined for a minimum of 14 days.  Of course, we decided to take him with us.  We packed an outfit to take him to the hotel in and were off to pick him up.  He was so cute and seemed very happy to come with us.  Once back at the hotel we looked him over and saw just how skinny he really was.  We were ready for the challenge of nursing him to health.

We flew back to Moscow the next day and took care of all the immigration paperwork. CHI was able to get us on a flight returning home that Thursday, April 12.  We could not wait to get on that plane.  It was a very long flight home, but we were ready.  We started to call Misha by his new name, Jack (Jackson Misha).  It took us a while to get used to.  Jack slept a lot in the plane and had quite a few bottles.  He was pretty happy and so were we. 

After a 2-hour delay on the runway in New York, we were finally on our way home to Chicago.  We had invited our families to the airport for our arrival, but figured it would be just his Grandparents because of the delay and that we were coming home 3 days earlier than planned.  Due to the lack of sleep and food, all we wanted was to gorge ourselves and go to sleep.  We picked up our bags, went through customs, and were ready for Jack to meet his Grandparents.  To our surprise, our entire family was at the airport!  As we came down the corridor and into the lobby there was a roar coming from Jack’s new family. 

There were balloons, chocolate cigars, flowers and stuffed animals everywhere.   Everyone got to hold him and he took it quite well and although had a pretty bad case of jet lag, he had fun.  He had a greeting party of 14 people!  It touched our hearts to see the immediate acceptance of Jack into our family.  We found out that not only our world was put on hold during the trip, but so was that of our whole family. 

After the long party at the airport, we all came to our house to welcome Jack to his new home.  There were 4 lawn ornaments announcing his arrival and signs all over the house.  We all ate pizza from our favorite place and homemade desserts, there was even a Russian Apple Pie.  Not only is Jackson a lucky baby for being instantly loved unconditionally by so many people, but also we are all very fortunate to have him to light up our world even more.  Our prayers were answered that day when we got home.  The child we had dreamed of for 3 years was finally with us and we were all at home, together.  We firmly believe that this family was meant to be.  We knew now that the best things come to those who wait and dreams really do come true.