Elena is 9

Am not sure what I was doing this day 9 years ago but....far away on the other side of the world a tiny baby girl was making her way in to the world... a precious girl who less than a year later would have us standing before a judge in Taraz, Kazakhstan and being granted the privilege of being her parents.....

Am sure the 3rd October 2002 was, I thought 'just like any other day ' for me.... But, of course it wasn't.......



Before another couple of months would have passed I was carrying around this precious picture...there was one beside my bed, one under my pillow, one in the car, one in my bag, grandparents also had this photo... this baby , in our minds, already a daughter, already a granddaughter in other eyes.....Off course a wiser person  today would know that there are ' no guarantees' and would be guarding their heart until all procedures had taken place but back then in the early months of 2003 all I knew what that this small photo of a baby girl in her carer's arms was the link between me and her and a step towards finally gettting to take her in my arms...

It would be another 7 months (September 2nd 2003) before we would get to 'meet' and hold this tiny girl ...Right before we were to travel in June the Kazakh authorities decided that we, as a couple would be unable to adopt her as we were 'a mixed citizen couple' and our agency advised us to 'pull' our dossier out of Kaz and switch to the russian programme.....Devastated, what followed was a frantic attempt to prove to the authorities that I was more Irish than Canadian!!!!!!  and thankfully God was on our side and long story short we were on the plane to Almaty on the 31st August 2003 and on the train to Taraz on 1st September and finally had our scared, tiny 14lb 10 month old in our arms on 2nd September 2003...

It's been a long road....the road less travelled and today I look at our 9 year old and know that there is no other road I would prefer to travel... I know the bumps we have met and yet have to meet will challenge and have challenged us and we will always have the surprise and trepidation of wondering what is around the next corner but there are lots of days when the sun shines overhead and we stroll the smooth unlined even surface and there is never a moment that I don't realise how blessed we were the day we took the first step onto this very road...

Happy 9th birthday my precious Elena..

And so I must finish as our bouncy excited 9 yr old birthday girl 'cannot sleep' and my early trip to the computer to do this unaided and uninterupted  is now truly up and ready to start the day...!!