Forever Family Day!! 1-24-13

This is a day that we will not forget - it actually started out a bit crazy!  We were to meet Petar (our driver, and also our lawyer) at 730am to head to Targoviste, which is 5 hours from Sofia.  However, we all overslept!  Katrina woke me up saying that we got a phone call from the front desk saying that a Mr. Petar was waiting for us at the front desk.  How embarrassing!  We had set our 2 alarm clocks - one for Doug, and one for Katrina.  Unfortunately, they did not go off.  I had woken up at 430am, as I was sleeping restlessly and looked at my phone and saw it was too early to wake up.  I forced myself to go back to sleep, and finally fell asleep after tossing and turning as I was so excited to get our son.  Well, after rushing around to get dressed, and grabbing some breakfast to eat in the car, we were well on our way!  Right before we entered Targoviste, Doug managed to get a picture of the town's sign.

 

Upon seeing the sign, I immediately start feeling anxious, and excited!  I could not believe we wereso close to seeing our boy after 4 months of waiting!  We arrived, and parked in front of the orphanage. Seeing the orphanage brought back so many memories of when we visited Andrei back in September.  We walked up to the front door, and Doug rang the doorbell.  When I looked through the glass doors, who did I see come walking up with a worker?  It was Andrei!!  Unfortunately, we do not have a picture capturing the next moment, but it is forever etched in my mind.  Andrei saw us, and started running to the door and opened it for us.  He immediately came running into my arms!  Praise God!  I had been anxious that he would have forgotten us, but Andrei didn't!  Andrei was so excited to see us, and right away said that he was going to leave and fly with us.  I was floored that he understood the concept that he was leaving to come home with us.  We went inside and waited for the Director to be available for us.  Andrei kept talking to us, so excited and ready to go.  We told Andrei we had to wait and do some paperwork first.  We went into the Director's room and sat down and waited while Petar and the Director talked and went through the paperwork.

 



Here I am signing paperwork that releases Andrei into our custody.  It is such a poignant moment for us that we actually are now responsible for our son.  We gave the Director a gift, and gave gifts to the workers to thank them for taking care of Andrei until we were able to come for him.  The Director starts tearing up while I am thanking her for our boy.  We asked if we could have a group picture of her and the workers who took care of Andrei, and she said sure.  It wasn't long before the workers started coming in to get pictures taken.

 

 

It was a very emotional moment, because right after this picture was taken all the workers came up one by one and said goodbye to Andrei.  You could see some were tearing up, and how hard it was for them to say goodbye.  Andrei hugged them all, and some gave him kisses and one told him to be good.  The Director was very emotional, and said goodbye last.  We then grabbed the bag of things that we had bought him on the first trip, and headed out the door to get into the car as we had a 5 hour trip back to Sofia.  Andrei was super excited to be leaving, and kept saying let's go.  It was very bittersweet, because I knew he was leaving behind the only thing he ever knew.  Andrei had been at this orphanage since he was 3 days old.  Despite being so happy to leave, I know that eventually he will get sad and grieve.  We have made sure to take lots of pictures of the orphanage (we were so fortunate that we were allowed to take so many pictures!) so that he has something to look at to remind him of where he came from.

 

Here we are, just as we are leaving Targoviste!  I am such a proud mama!! 

 

I am so very thankful to have been led down this journey to adopt our son.  God opened so many doors, and enabled this to happen.  I cannot imagine doing this without our heavenly Father leading us the way.  Praise God for all he has done for us.  I look forward to our future with our family knowing that we have been blessed.  Thank you, Lord, for everything you have done to make this happen.

 





Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.