Robin here. First of all, just a reminder to those of you who might have missed it, click on our video link for a picture and music montage of our adoption journey.

It is 6:20am Wednesday and I’ve been awake and out of bed since 4am. Today is the big day! Today we’ll take custody of Kristina and bring her to the apartment. Our attorney was here last night with some papers for us to sign and she assured us that she would be at the courthouse first thing this morning so that the judge can sign off on the 15 day waiting period!

Now we have a little secret to share with you. Greg and I have been going through this process with a dark cloud looming overhead. On the day we met Kristina we were told that her biological mother was still “in the picture.” She had apparently shown up at the orphanage in May, and because of that, Kristina had actually become unavailable for adoption. The good news was that there were no subsequent visits and enough time had elapsed since her appearance to allow Kristina to be put up for adoption again. Still, since the mother had never formally had her rights taken away, she could show up again during our process and put a halt to it while she petitioned the court for time to get her life on track in order to regain custody of Kristina. With this knowledge, we were asked if we wanted to see other children with less potential for problems.

Kristina was a year younger than the youngest child we thought we might choose; she had a mother who could show up and possibly thwart our adoption at any point up until the waiting period was over. And so, we were asked what we wanted to do; proceed with Kristina, or take a safer route and choose another child?

But you see -- we had already seen Kristina and heard her cheerful little voice as she entered the director’s office and greeted the room with, “Z-DRAHS-tvoy-tyeh!” It was a simple choice for us. If God put us on the path that led to Kristina, then we would have faith that he intended for us to become her parents.

Once we said, “Yes, we want Kristina,” we immediately knew that Greg would not be able to leave after court as planned. He would have to stay at least through the waiting period for fear that Kristina’s biological mother might show up and cause us to fight for Kristina in court.

So now, here I sit wide awake at the break of dawn after having my best night’s sleep in a month. I was very good about not dwelling on the possibilities during the day; nighttime is when my mind would race and keep me awake for hours on end. Greg is still sleeping. This is one of the few mornings when he has slept past 3:30am and there’s no doubt that he too has felt the dark cloud pass.

The fear of losing Kristina before we ever really had her is now over. She will sleep in her bed at the apartment tonight and in ten days we’ll head for Almaty to finish up the process. We’re going to splurge and spend our last few days at the glorious Hyatt Hotel.

Greg’s company has been so generous to agree to the length of time needed to complete Kristina’s adoption. Our friends have been lifesavers to us by taking on the added responsibility of Julia all this time and our kids at home have been patient and understanding. Thank you Lord!