Dear Marat

Dear Marat,

Today is December 17, 2009. According to the adoption world, our adoption agency and the Russian Ministry of Education, we are now one step closer to being legally able to adopt you. You are officially on the international adoption waiting list.

Last nite, as I tried to sleep, I realized it was already 8 am in Russia and that December 17th had already arrived. I wanted to be happy and thrilled because you are now so much closer to becoming our son! And yet, I felt so sad. Sad, because I felt your loss. Your birth mother, your birth father, and other biological family are gone away. They have a story Marat and they have their reasons that they had to goodbye. I have learned in my own short life that everything in our life happens for a reason, but why? What are the reasons? You will ask us and we may never know. But they decided it was best that you be given a new life with a new family, somewhere else in the world.

I promise you Marat, that I will do my best to find out all of the information I can about them, because you will ask me someday and I want to share with you how you came to be our son. I cannot promise you that I will have all of the answers, but we get one shot next week to find out what we can and so, we will do our best.

Now Marat, I don't expect you to be thrilled to meet us on Monday. Its pretty scary stuff, for all of us! Scott and I look different, smell different and we certainly talk different. But, we are ready to meet you and get to know who you are. We hope, as the week goes on, you will want to know a little more about us too.

In the meantime, sleep soundly and stay warm! It's in the low 20's (Fahrenheit that is!) in St Pete's, cloudy with some light snow. Its not much warmer in the US today, it is winter after all.

But in the midst of the dark freeze of the coldest season, there is sunshine. You will see the sun soon, Marat. It will be brighter than you could imagine.

I heard its supposed to warm our hearts and faces on Monday.