Oh the places life takes you

At one time in my life, I was on the note-taking side of a reporter's notebook. I'd meet people to interview, jot down their quotes, think about how to start and end the stories I'd write about them with just the right touch of color, the absolute perfect quote.

Today I sat on my couch on the other side of that reporter's notebook, as a feature writer from the Kansas City Star went on an abbreviated version of our adoption - well, really our entire family building - journey with me. Thankfully, she was very kind and considerate and genuine, and I'm not entirely shy or un-talkative, so I think I gave her plenty of color and, by my own accounts, absolutely perfect quotes.

I think I'll look back at the last two days in this remarkable story we're living as definining moments. There are a few days that stand out with remarkable clarity: the day we sat on our deck and decided on Russia and there were flutters of excitement in my heart and soul, the night we sat on the aforementioned couch and discussed two little sisters thousands of miles away, the morning we boarded a plane that was the first part of our first trip to Russia, the day we walked into an orphanage and heard the pitter-patter of little feet running into the room.

I really don't want to remember with that singular clarity my absolute despair yesterday morning that all in-process Russian adoptions had been frozen. It was not pretty. I was broken.

Then I got an e-mail from an Associated Press reporter in Moscow and was suddenly "in demand" to discuss what's become an international story.

While I literally sweated through the entire interview - I mean serious sweat rolling down my back - it felt so, so good to DO something. Something positive. Something to demonstrate the TRUTH about what I've come to know...through living it...about the mass, huge majority of families who adopt from Russia. The lady in Tennessee is an anomoly, an abberation of everything real that I see every day about international, and domestic, adoption. It felt like I had a responsibility to shout that from the mountains...and the AP interview gave me a chance to, if not shout, state firmly in a calm, controlled and professional manner.

It was surreal to see the story I was quoted in listed as one of the main stories on msnbc.

Then today found us getting a request from our local metro paper to share our story. While I've been very open and honest about nearly all parts of our family building journey - probably to the annoyance of some - with friends and family, and even strangers through this very blog, the thought of sharing some personal pieces and parts in a newspaper setting was a little scary. It still is. I'm sure the story will be wonderful, but I'm still scared spitless. Just writing about it now has my heart beating a bit faster.

But you know what? That's GOOD. That's what I needed. A burst of energy, a reconnection to the girls by being able to take advantage of an opportunity presented to me, us, to repeat the truth we've come to know.

Now we'll have some interesting, entirely unique pieces to put in the girls' scrapbooks. Someday we'll sit on the same aforementioned-twice couch all snuggled together and read the story and we'll tell them about how much we already loved them. However scared I might be, it was something real and tangible we could do for the girls. Until I can be their day-to-day mother, it feels good to do something in their best interest - and I so hope, in the best interest of so, so many wonderful children who need the loving homes waiting for them here in the United States.