new

Joe and I just put our son to bed.

One year ago, we rung in the new year with friends and said goodbye to what had been our most challenging year together. The memories of our experience in Ukraine were still fresh in our minds. After three long years trying to adopt from overseas, we found ourselves no closer to parenthood than when we first met.

Part of Ukraine is still with us, so much so that we returned to Kiev this past September. We did not return for a second shot at adoption. Rather, we went back in order to strengthen a connection that we forged while we were there last year—a connection that was both transformative and, in many ways, prophetic.

A year later, almost everything has changed. We are parents to a twelve-year-old boy from Maine, who has turned our lives upside down. Our time is no longer our own. All of our priorities have shifted. We have no idea what new parenting challenges tomorrow will bring. We couldn’t be happier.

What has not changed is that our home is still a place where our friends gather and connect with one another. We still depend as much as ever upon our friends and family for support and encouragement, and they have not let us down. There were a few bumps—nothing that a little patience and understanding can’t fix in due time. As always, new people entered our lives. These human connections, new and old, are no less than our sustenance.

Goodbye, 2006. You were a year that changed us forever. We will never forget you.


The top photo was taken at Cape Elizabeth in Maine. The bottom picture shows the coffered dome of the seventeenth-century Boyim Chapel in Lviv, Ukraine.