Monday, February 12, 2007

The strangest thing happened on my way to Russia today...

If documents could speak, that's what they would say. This morning I received a phone call from our adoption coordinator who informed us that one of our documents was not correct, and they needed the correct one in Russia ASAP so could I please mail it today. I did the correct amount of eye-rolling while speaking pleasantly on the phone and assuring her that yes, it could be done. Then I loaded the kids up in the car and ran around Maryland getting all of the necessary paperwork done in order to fix this little error. It took 6.5 hours. The last thing I had to do was FedEx the package to Russia, and when I went to Kinko's to grab an international airbill (I have tons of airbills for the US in my desk at home, but didn't have any international ones on hand, go figure) I decided to check and see how much this was going to cost and when it would get there. The guy at the counter took my package with his right hand, and proceeded to do almost everything with that hand while only using his left hand for balance. When I snuck a closer look, it seemed to me that he had the same issue in his left hand that Samuel (our hopefully soon-to-be son) has in his left hand.
It wasn't until I was driving home that the pattern struck me. Before each adoption, we have met someone specific who had the same issue that the child we were adopting had. The day before we flew to Russia to meet Inga we ran into a man with no arms coming out of Best Buy. Before we adopted Andrei we met a guy who had prosthetic arms and took him out to dinner so he could tell us all about them. Before we adopted Elena we "met" a girl online who ice skates and has two little arms just like Elena's one arm. I didn't actually have a conversation with the man behind the Kinko's desk like I did with the others, probably because I was trying to be overly sensitive due to a heated conversation on my Yahoo child amputee chatlist that involved annoying "all-bits" people (people with all limbs) who ask all the wrong questions. But it was fun to see this guy behind the counter nonetheless. It kind of validates this adoption. Which is what I need right now, because it looks like we are not going to make the March 1 deadline (when our agency loses accreditation) so who knows what will happen at this point. Please pray for us!
The package is going to cost about $130.00 to send, by the way.

2 comments:

Megan said...

I have a friend whose dad has Samuel's little dealio on both hands.

bkessler said...

documents = not fun