June 3, 2004 Tears tears and more tears.......

This morning we woke with heavy hearts. How can you say goodbye to your child? I guess we are getting ready to find out. I'm still not sure that I can handle this. No matter how much we have mentally prepared ourselves for this moment I don't think that you can ever be truly ready.

We packed our bags and checked out of our hotel because we would be leaving from the orphanage and heading to the airport to fly back to Moscow. Our hearts heavy and our stomachs in nots we headed out to meet Lena and Sasha. Once we got to the orphange I tried my best to be strong and not let Alex see how upset I was. Silent tears streamed down our faces. The sobbing would come later I'm sure of it. Lena sensed how upset I was and even offered to let me bunk with her and her husband until our court date. You don't know how close I was to taking her up on that offer. We had just about broken the bank with the adoption and I knew that for Alex I had to go home and work until we could come back for him. We hugged him and kissed him and told him over and over again that we loved him and would be back soon to bring him home with us. He just smiled as if to say I'll see you tomorrow. Not knowing how long it would be until we were reunited.

The drive to the airport was almost an hour and we rode in silence. Lena tried to teach me more Russian with the childrens book she had bought for me. My heart just wasn't in it. Tomorrow we would be flying back to the US to wait for "the call" with a court date. There is a lot to do at home and a baby shower to be had. Plenty of stuff to help pass the time but it didn't make it any easier. Once we arrived at the airport we said good bye and thank you's to Lena and Sasha for their wonderful hospitality and that we would see them again soon.

I cried all the way back to Moscow and when Vladimir picked us up at the airport he took us to the hotel and we checkedin for our 1 night stay. He would be back to pick us up early early in the morning for our flight home. Michael still being the strong one did his best to hold himself together but you could tell inside his heart was breaking.