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I’m not really sure of what the etiquette in this situation is. I’ve never adopted before and I certainly have never had a failed adoption before.

So, what to say? How to proceed?

The Rules.

Here are the rules if you choose to read this blog post.

1. I will explain what happened.

2. I will also still be mama bear and will protect my girl. So, please, if you choose to comment, understand this -

  • Latvia is a beautiful country of proud, hard-working people. The language, food, and scenery are all amazing and wonderful. Their history is inspiring. Yes, their economy is suffering, but it is a country with rich culture and I love it.
  • Our girl lives in a safe Children’s Home. (The words Children’s Home translates to “Bernu Nams” if you’re curious). It’s in a VERY small town west of Riga.
  • She’s smart, beautiful, strong, and also a bit stubborn. :) I love her dearly and always will.

The Background Story.

Last December, we hosted a 15 year old girl from Latvia through a mission organization New Horizons for Children.

The purpose of New Horizons is this…

We are a Christian based, international hosting program, which brings over orphaned children from Eastern Europe twice each year to share with them the love of God and the love of a family. NHFC is the largest, faith-based host program, facilitating orphan hosting nationwide.

The Sad Facts…

Without intervention, upon leaving the orphanage, 60% of girls will end up in prostitution, 70% of boys will be on the streets or in jail, and 15% will commit suicide within the first two years on their own.

One person can revolutionize the life of an abandoned child.

My friend, Steph, introduced me to NHFC.

It was getting close to the deadline for Winter Hosting and there were many kids left who had not been claimed yet. So, I printed out the list of available children (several pages long) and handed it to my husband and said “pick one”.  I didn’t ask if he wanted to host a child. I just gave him the papers and asked him to choose. That’s how we roll. ;)

Oddly, he chose the same two girls from the photolisting as I did. But then I was stuck. I couldn’t choose between these two girls… and it was killing  me to decide. I was stressing about it when my friend, Stephanie, called and told me that one of the girls (K) had just been chosen. So, I took the other, my Ivita, who was obviously meant to be mine.

The funny thing is that I eventually met the “other girl” (K) in Latvia and am now friends with her mom. Yes, she was adopted and they are the perfect family for her.

So, we started on this journey to host a child and nothing more. We’d always been open to adoption, but weren’t by any stretch actively pursuing it.

That is, until in walks this sweet, funny, brave girl right into our hearts.

Four Weeks in our Home. (Dec. 2011 – Jan. 2012)

There are so many amazing memories from those four weeks that she was in our  home.

I took over 400 pictures and it was easily the best Christmas of my life.

Here is one of my favorite pictures from that month together…

She said she was afraid of dogs. But, that didn’t last long when she met my wrinkly Luke. :)

And, here’s a pretty picture of her at the beach.

My favorite memories are too many to count.

I adored watching her English improve so quickly – simply because it allowed us to talk, and talk, and talk.

It was really thousands of tiny moments that added together. For instance, I remembering hearing her giggle and yell “In my pants, I has sand!” when we were at the beach.  It still makes me laugh.

We all enjoyed our time together, until it was time to send her back.

That’s when Joe and I started to panic. “What if we never see her again? What are we sending her back to? How can we just let her go?”

It’s also the time we both started to hear the whisper in our ears. “Mine”.

She felt like she was ours and we were absolutely in love with this child.

Legally we had to send her back. So, we put her on the plane to go to Latvia and we drove 5 hours back home in total silence.

To Adopt or Not? That Was the Question.

So at this point, we had to very quickly decide whether to pursue adoption or not.

The problem was twofold.

  1. We didn’t know if she even wanted to be adopted.
  2. Even if she did, we had only 3 months until she turned 16 – which was the date she would no longer be able to be referred to us for adoption. We were told that it would be next to impossible to get the referral from Latvia in time to even be ABLE to adopt her unless we moved some serious mountains.

We asked her if she wanted to be part of our family, and while it was a difficult decision to leave her friends and her language behind, she said “Yes”.

We started pushing mountains and with a whole lot of massive action, we got her referral just a few days before her birthday.

Those of you who saw me at the February 2012 NAMS, I apologize. I was a mess. We were in the middle of our  home study and I was tears on feet. So, if you were at NAMS and walked by me in tears more than once, this was why.

Our Trip to Latvia. (June 2012)

When adopting from Latvia, you go on three trips overseas. Our first trip started June 3rd. We brought our kids with us, so the four of us headed off on our adventure.

When we showed up at the Children’s Home, Ivita squealed and jumped into our arms. We’re not sure if she was that happy to see us or just shocked that we actually came. Either way, we were thrilled to see her again. We scooped her up and took her to our apartment in Riga.

Here are the kiddos in front of the Latvian Freedom Monument. It’s basically their Statue of Liberty. (Look at how blue the sky is!)

We quickly got back into family mode and we had the best little translator in Latvia showing us around.

Funny side note. We went into a shop to get Ivita’s Visa pictures taken. I watched Ivita and the lady talking and Ivita was looking frustrated. I was confused, so I just waited. We turned and walked out with no pictures. I said “What happened? Can she do the pictures?” Ivita looked at me with exacerbation and said “I don’t know. She speak Russian!” lol. I almost fell over, I was laughing so hard. I just thought she had a really weird Latvian accent.

During our time in Latvia, we did a ton of stuff. One of my favorite things to do was to hop on the train and go to Jurmala – which is an adorable beach town near Riga. Jurmala is on the Bay of Riga, which is part of the Baltic Sea. On one of my favorite days, we rented bikes and rode all over town.

Here’s a picture from Old Riga that I just love.

Oh, and a picture of the infamous “Cat House” building. The builder designed it to point the catt’s butt at the building behind it to prove a point.

Anyway, suffice it to say, the three weeks in Latvia were life altering in many ways, and Ivita was a huge part of the best summer of our lives. We fell even more in love with our girl.

The trip ended with us going to Orphan Court, where Ivita signed the papers stating that she did, indeed, want to be adopted.

The Wait.

We found out our next court date in Latvia was scheduled for October 5th.

So, basically, we had nearly four months between trips. This is obviously not good when dealing with a teen who can let fear and doubt build in her mind.

And, that’s exactly what happened.

To protect Ivita’s privacy, I won’t get into details here, but at this point, we knew that she was having serious doubts about coming. It wasn’t because of us. We know she loves us dearly. It is the whole picture of leaving what’s safe and small and known – for a big city, big schools, and a difficult path.

While we were waiting to hear what was going on, I was posting in a private Facebook group for families adopting from Latvia. We all use the same *amazing* Latvian Attorney (who handles nearly all of the US adoptions from Latvia herself) and we all use one of two adoption agencies specializing in Latvian adoptions.

Here are a few things that my Joe and I had posted as we were waiting to hear…


And, my husband posted.

As we were going through the waiting stage, several friends told us that it would happen as it was meant to be.

This was my husband’s response.

We found out this week for sure that our adoption is over.

My opinion is this.

  1. She is in a safe place now and has a good life… now.
  2. If she had come here, she would have had to struggle now, but would have probably had an easier life as an adult – with a much bigger safety net, having a large family behind her.

She’s 16. She chose now over later.

The adoption process is over.

The Aftermath.

We are ok.

The Positives:

  • She’s not dead. She’s just 5000 miles away in Latvia.
  • She loves us. We know that for sure.
  • She wants to still have a relationship with us.
  • It gives us an excuse to go to Latvia and see her – and see her brother and sister who we love dearly, too.

Negatives (There are Too many to count.):

  • No keeping her safe.
  • No making sure she has pineapple juice in the fridge. (Her favorite.)
  • No big big hugs.
  • No cooking and baking together.
  • No painting her ticklish “feet fingernails” (There’s no word for “toes” in Latvian, if you didn’t know. There are just hand fingers and feet fingers.)
  • No watching her swim in the pool when it’s too freaking cold for me to think of getting in.
  • No taking care of her when she’s sick. I can’t make her soup or bring her a blanket or sockies if she’s cold.
  • No Christmas morning together by the tree.
  • No Birthdays or Latvian “Name Days” spent together.
  • I don’t get to bring her up to Wisconsin and introduce her to all of the people who have been waiting to meet our girl and who already love her.
  • I really really wanted to be Mother of the Bride at her wedding and to be Gramma to her beautiful Latvian babies someday.

ok. Well, that sucked to think about, but I guess it’s good. I just love my girl so darned much. Part of what I adore about her, though, is her bravery, optimism, and stubbornness… which is part of what’s put us in this position.

The good things to come of this is because we chose to host her and pursue the adoption…

  1. she got to come to the United States, see the ocean, fly on an airplane, try new foods, and experience tons of new things.
  2. her english is ROCKING.
  3. she was “chosen” to come and got to feel special
  4. she knows she’s loved because some crazy Americans spent months doing paperwork and got on an airplane to see her.

The blessings to me through this process were…

  • I met many incredibly remarkable friends through the adoptions groups who inspire me to be a better person.
  • I am a completely different person than I was earlier this year. I have a new-found sense of peace, learning through this experience to let go of things outside of my control.
  • I am so thankful that I didn’t do fundraising so it’s only our money that we’re losing. I would feel awful if others had contributed to our adoption. Thankfully no one else had.
  • This experience has brought my husband and I closer together. He has jumped through hoops, sweated blood, and done everything asked of him to bring our girl home.  He is my personal hero.

And, most importantly…

  • If she hadn’t said yes, we would have missed out on the BEST summer vacation of our lives – with the best little translator in Latvia.

Regardless, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.

ok. Enough rambling. I’d better get to work and let you, as well.

I would also like to personally thank  everyone who prayed for us. (Please direct those prayers to the 178 million orphans on the planet. They need the prayers more than I do now.)

Thank you for reading.

Hugs,
Nicole

PS. If you can help spread the word about New Horizons for Children, that would be another blessing to come from this experience. Thank you.