I am currently struggling my way through life, working full time to pay current bills and trying to put myself through college. When i was about four years old my mother died and since my father was not involved in my life i was orphaned then adopted by a guardian. Throughout my life i have had to overcome this obstacle. I still can remember my birth mother and how she used to sing me to sleep every night before her passing and carry this through my life everyday and think about her and what she would want me to do with my life if she where alive today. I want to go to college with every fiber of my being and I strongly believe that with her memory in hand i can achieve my goals and become a successful and vital person in the world. I struggled through High School when i was finding myself and discovering my past because of my mothers death but with my dreams falling further away with every failure i came across, my drive became so intense to make my passions become a reality in going to college and i managed to succeed at school and in my life. I really need help making my dreams become a reality so i can become a teacher and have a succesful life but without the proper fundings, i fear i will not be able to accomplish such goals and will be stuck working a minimum wage job the rest of my life.

Okay, here goes.

We met 10 years ago, married almost 7. We each have 6 adult kids. 3 years ago we decided we have lots of room in our home and hearts for a child of our own and began the process of adopting a little boy from Russia. It was love at first sight. He was 9 months old. It was late November, and my husband turned 50 during the trip! We thought we'd have him home by Christmas. Little did we know it would be 9 more months before we got him home. The longest 9 months you can imagine.

We missed him so very much, so much so I travelled alone to spent time with him again, and spent 3 weeks in Siberia in late March of 2004. We finally brought our son home in September 2004 at the age of 20 months. 9 months. We were thrilled, yet the faces of the children we left behind haunted us endlessly. We are not wealthy, and will likely be paying off college loans til my husband retires (I have chosen to stay at home and raise my son). Still, something burned deep inside and we decided to return to Russia for another child. We were thrilled to learn that our son had a biological baby brother available for adoption! We petitioned the court to make him our son, and returned home. That was June 2005. It has been 2 years, 2 weeks, 6 days, and 2 additional trips to be with him. The little boy, the biological brother of our now 4.5 year old son, who was 10 months old when we met him, will be 3 soon and we still do not have a court date. This region is very difficult to adopt from. Financially, we chose to adopt independently this time, but bot adoptions have already cost us well over $40K.  Each time we return we fill our bags to the maximum with donations for the children we have left behind, who stand little or no chance of finding a forever family. We have so much and have nothing. When we were there at Christmas time we were invited to the Orphange Holiday Performance. At the end of the show, "Father Frost" (Their version of Santa) passed out gifts to the all the children (a banana and a piece of chocolate). They were thrilled, yet sadly, this is all they would be getting. A banana and one chocolate!

Now, here's my plea:  I would love to pay off my $40K debt, and "pay it forward". So, I am proposing and promising that for every dollar we receive, 1 ruble will be donated to the orphanage where my son lived until he came home to us, and where the youngest still lives, and waits for us. With the exchange rate, $40,000 would mean I would donate in all your names, about $1600 to the orphanage.

But it goes beyond that. You see, most of the $40K was our first adoption, using an agency - when were clueless about international adoption. This time, the costs are minimal. Our hope is erase as much of our debt as possible and put us into a position where we can "reasonably" think about another child.

Feel free to participate in this public group space.

Two easy ways to do this:

1. Add a comment or a question here - on this page... or on any other page in this space.
   
2. Or, if you want to start a separate thread - make a new page.

Either way is good - the important thing is your participation. On Aidpage, people support each other by speaking out and by paying attention to each other - as simple as that.