The Big Deal

Although I didn't make much of a big deal about the birth certificates being done, that wasn't for lack of interest, but more so for lack of time to write about it.

In reality, it is a very big deal!!

You see, from day one of committing to Wesley's adoption, we have said to God that we will press on through every open and cracked open door to bring him home, and that if God closed it, we would also recognize that.  We then got everything done quickly, tons of open doors, and went about being submitted and traveling.

What we haven't said a whole lot about is that even as we met him and went through the process before court, we didn't feel that we had that "he's ours forever" about him... or Aleksa.  Things are so up in the air here with the political things involving adoption-- which we have been very involved in while here-- that we couldn't convince ourselves to let down the last of that guard in our hearts and say "they're our children!" and rejoice in it quite yet.

YES, we were excited about each step!  YES, we loved on them without reserve and told them we love them and visited every chance we got.  YES, we announced their court (tho I've yet to be able to post about the details! I will... I promise!) and their official "yes" from the judges.

But until yesterday, when those birth records were officially changed, there was still this small hindrance saying "maybe they won't be yours... it happened before (with Aleksa) and it could happen again."

Yesterday I saw with my own eyes an official birth certificate with the name "Aleksa Faith Cornish" which said "Mother: Meredith Cornish" and "Father: Michael Cornish".  In Russian, of course... (yes, I can read the Russian tho!).

Now that we have their birth certificates, they are our children in every legal way!


It is a HUGE deal, the official changing of their names and their birth records!!  It was amazing to me the day I first saw each of our children's birth certificates!  Each child we've had to wait a bit after they were "officially" here (about 6 weeks after birth and James' adoption, and about 2 weeks after each Ukraine adoption), and each time it has been very special!

So we rejoice that GOD IS GOOD and He has given us two children through this miracle of adoption!

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Today we just souvenir shopped then went to the Ashan and looked around there.  We called mid-day and we can apply for Wesley's passport tomorrow, which is good!  We'll go in the morning and pick Wesley up from his orphanage and take him with us to the passport office.  Then we will bring him back to the orphanage after.  My facilitator asked if we wanted to take him for good tomorrow, which I would love, but just like us putting Aleksa's off until we have Wesley's passport done, we also put Wesley's "gotcha day" off until after we go to Aleksa's region and do her running around.  We plan to go to Aleksa's region on Friday and do all her running around then it will also be her "gotcha day" (gotcha meaning the day I take custody!).

Off to dinner with friends here in Kiev.  It's been a day of frozen toes for sure!! (-9C was the high I believe...)

We are so blessed by