The Journey to our Russian Princess!
The Cavanaugh family
Our adoption story starts out like most others: years of trying to get pregnant, fertility treatments, in-vitro and even surrogacy. After 5 years of all of this we started looking into adoption. My husband and I met with a family that is friends with my aunt whom had adopted 3 children from the Ukraine. We spent over 4 hours talking with them about the process and what to expect. We spent a couple of weeks taking about the possibility of adopting internationally. We decided to make the call to set up an appointment with an agency. After speaking with the agency we decided that we wanted to look into adopting. We interviewed several agencies and signed with an agency in October of 2005. We gathered all of our paperwork, completed our home study, and our dossier officially went to Russia in May of 2006.
Two days before we submitted our dossier to our agency they lost their accreditation. We did not worry at the time, because most agencies were starting to loose their accreditation and Russia was changing the way things were done for international adoption. Although I did find other agencies that were receiving referrals out of the same region. I questioned our agency extensively but I kept getting the same story that “they were expecting accreditation any day.” In January 2007 my husband and I were getting tired of hearing the same old story so I decided to research some other agencies. I contacted several people on the chat rooms and got personal testimonies about their experience with their agencies.
In February 2007, I contacted Adoption Ark. My husband and I talked it over, and after being with our 1st agency 1 ½ years we decided to change agencies and loose the money that we had already given them. In February 2007 we signed with Adoption Ark, although it was the hardest decision I think we ever had to make, it was the best! After signing with Adoption Ark we were assigned to Alina as our caseworker.
We traveled in April 2007 and we met our little girl on April 23, 2007. Alyssa was absolutely beautiful; she was blonde haired, blue eyed, tiny, very friendly: a true Russian Princess!! Our 1st visit with her could not have been better! Now the hard part was to begin: wait to come back for court!
We traveled back and Alyssa officially became part of our family on August 20, 2007! Alyssa has been such a joy to us and our family. She has bonded so well and she is a happy and thriving little girl. She is healthy and developmentally on track for her age. Alyssa is absolutely perfect for our family!
Our family is now complete thanks to Adoption Ark. I would highly recommend Adoption Ark to anyone who is considering adoption!
Thank you Adoption Ark for making our family complete!!