A sleeping baby is proof that angels exist on earth. Our daughter reinforces our belief in angels on earth! We adopted Josephine Alice-Ann ("Josie") from Klin, Moscow Region, Russia. She was born on September 21, 1999 and we became a family on July 11, 2000. We were the first family (one of the first?) to have to travel twice to adopt from Moscow, following Mr. Putin's announced changes to the Russian adoption procedures. During the first visit, we personally had to formally submit our petition to adopt/dossier to the Moscow family court chief clerk.

We thought the hardest thing we'd ever do was to have to wait the three months for her to be released from the database. (We'd received her referral before she'd actually been placed on the database...) We were wrong. The hardest thing was having to leave her in the clinic at the end of that first trip, after having spent six glorious days with her.

Our second trip was about two weeks later, a mercifully short wait. The second trip was wonderful and happened without any problems!! We arrived late Sunday and Josie was in our arms, officially our daughter by Tuesday afternoon!

I'm the oldest of six children and as a young girl I remember asking my, once again pregnant mother, if labor and delivery pain really hurt and if so, why did she go through it so many times?

Her response was that, at the time it hurt unlike any other pain one would experience. But once it was over, one quickly forgot about the pain and only remembered the joy and happiness of the birth. I was reminded of that on the plane ride home while Josie slept in my arms. Yes, the wait for "the delivery" was at times painful. But looking into that angelic face, watching her peacefully breath while she clutched her daddy's finger in her tiny fist, the waiting of the previous ten months just melted away...

We've been home just over three weeks now. Josie has cut two more teeth (for a total of six) and gained 2 1/2 pounds since our return. And like the "energizer bunny" she just "...keeps going and going..." walking around her new home to explore every corner. (No matter how spotless you believed your floors to be, a crawling/walking baby will quickly prove you wrong....)

A huge debt of gratitude is offered to all of the CHI staff, here and in Russia, for all of their wonderful help and support!!

Mark, Linda and Josie Long