Gathering Speed

I'm awake and twiddling my thumbs this morning.

Can't make anything super nice for Sunday breakfast, bc I have the kitchen implements of an 18 year old boy in his first bachelor pad. Not even a serrated knife, people. You try cutting Russian black bread with a filet knife- it's lethal! So I am eating a mauled piece of bread ripped off the loaf with a bit of delicious butter and the best sour cherry jam I have ever come across in my life. Basically while we are here, I am devising ways of eating as many cherry products as possible, because I love them so. I'm actually not much of a jam fan back home bc I tend to find everything way too sugary, and not enough tartness in the fruit. But here, let me tell you, I can fully understand how somebody could go at a jar with a spoon. All I can think about is getting a hold of some Greek yogurt and a pair of elasticated pants!

Last night after breaking our Yom Kippur fast, we met up with a great couple from our home city that we met at last winter’s pre-adoption classes. We went out for super cheap perogies and borscht, then to an Irish pub for a drink and to continue the chat as the restaurant closed pretty early. I will not go into their story as the details are personal and private, but if there was ever a couple on this earth who deserves a happy ending to their quest for a family, it is them. I even wish it more for them than I do for ourselves. And I just know it’s going to work out for them, so it’s an exciting time to see them as a couple, before all of this becomes just a happy memory of how everything started.

I don’t really have anything to say in terms of an update. Friday brought no news from our facilitator, but in this case, no news is good news. I’m betting by tomorrow or Tuesday we’ll hear when our last appt will be, and we’re guessing it will be for next week.  Last night at dinner, “Mrs. Smith” shared a story of another example of how amazing our facilitator Xenia is. We are so lucky to be dealing with an agency like ours where the people here especially don’t just do their job for a paycheck, but they do it with passion and personal satisfaction and a real love of creating families from their gut level. Another couple who was here from our city had had no luck with finding their child weeks and weeks into the process. She was at the Dept late in the afternoon with the Smiths, who were also there, waiting for their 2nd appointment but she had a feeling there wouldn’t be anymore new files for them, so they were hanging around bc sometimes at 4pm a single new file will turn up of a healthy kid out of the blue… so she was stalling to see what would happen. Indeed she got wind of exactly that situation. The child was not in the age category for the Smiths, but he *was* in the age category of another couple from our city who had been waiting multiple weeks. There was yet another couple from another country who were also in line at the Dept, and she knew this foreign couple would definitely take the child if they went into the office first. Xenia went nuts! She was on that phone quicker than a flash, telling the other couple they needed to RUN over there literally in 10 minutes to grab this chance, or the little boy would be gone forever. The Smiths said she was chain-smoking and pacing like a panther, waiting for the Browns to arrive. When they arrived breathlessly, she practically pushed their bums up the stairs and into the office, while the other foreign couple waited on the stairs, not having a clue of what was going on, bc their facilitator was not there to wait with them. What happened in the end? The Greens are leaving today to get their new son, who they wouldn’t have met if Xenia wasn’t as dedicated and amazing as she is. She may be tiny, but she’s a human dynamo! To know she is fighting in all of our corners is the only thing that is keeping us from going off the deep end.

People like this are few and far between. Facilitators especially. She’s been doing this for 20 years, and has such good contacts within the Dept, plus she says she lives for her job on both a moral and personal level, you could not ask for someone more dedicated and professional. We just continue to thank our stars that she is overseeing the process on our behalf.