And then we had...four?

It's been a while since I updated this. A long while. I know, I know. I am the worst blogger ever. I guess I was waiting until the whole Russia situation played out. Well, it has.

Russia is done. Caput. No more. The end. El fin. In a series of negotiations between Russia and the United States it has become clear that Russia will not allow any families other than those who had already legally adopted russian children to proceed with their adoptions. The Russia program in our adoption agency closed and we were given other options of "transferring" our adoption to another program through the same agency, to save a few thousand dollars. A nice gesture, and all they could do, but it did little to assuage our heartbreak and shock over what transpired. So we sat on that decision for a while. I am due to start residency in just a few months and we are moving, so our home study will have to be redone anyway. Plus, adopting a child, especially internationally, in residency will be no easy task. But I am not willing to give up on adoption. I have always seen my family being grown through this process and I will not let politics get in our way. Tim and I talked and researched tons of countries for adoption, but in the end we decided that international adoption is just too crazy for us, the uncertainty is not something we can really deal with. I think I was more stuck on sticking out an international adoption than Tim, but after a lot of research on domestic adoption we both felt that domestic adoption is the best way to go for our family now. So...we filled out the paperwork with our current agency and will be adopting a newborn baby girl in the next few years...hopefully! She will be of any race and from any state. Only time will tell what our future family will look like. After we move to Richmond we will look into starting a home study . We will likely hold off on starting things for several months, though.

For, you see, once again we find ourselves in the absurdly ridiculous position of signing adoption contracts while pregnant. Who does this...twice?

We both lost hope in Russia pretty quickly. Even before our agency officially "closed" their program it became quite clear to us what the outcome would be. I knew it would take years to adopt another child, especially because we'd have to re-do our homestudy in the late summer/early fall. So..within days of deciding we'd adopt a 4th child and have a 3rd ourselves, we were pregnant. (Its true, people can call me a lot of things, but infertile is not one of them.) We pushed the adoption decision back until after the 1st trimester because we wanted to see how things played out with this pregnancy. Obviously, I have been fraught with incessant nerves. And I've also been sick as a dog--making it next to impossible to work, let alone think about adding another child or update the blog for you fine people. I hope you'll forgive me. Almost 16 weeks pregnant, I am still quite nauseous and exhausted but much better than in the earlier months. We are due 10/24...the same due date I had with Matthew.

I have reiterated to Tim about 1,000 times that if this baby is healthy--which we pray to God it is--then this will be my final go at gestating the miracle of life. I cannot do this again. Adoption seems so much less....nauseating.

And so...here we go. Another crazy Larson adventure is about to begin at the exact same time as other major life changes. But hey, that's how we roll.

We are delighted about our pending adoption, even if it is a few years away, and I am glad to be able to share in this new journey with you as it plays out. At this point, we signed the contract (our agency basically forced our hand into a decision because they had to close our file from the Russian adoption) but that's all. We will wait several months until we start our homestudy and start our family profile which goes to birth mothers. I think it all depends on how things are going once we have this third kid. I've heard 3 is a shock to the system, and anything after that is sort of negligible (our neighbors just had their 5th child in 8 years.)

We hope you'll follow our new journey. We remain saddened and disappointed (and a few other choice words) by the outcome in Russia. We still think about those orphans, about that girl that would have been ours, and pray they will find good homes soon.