So, why did you pick Ukraine?

One of these days when I am feeling brave (or have had too much wine) I am going to look the questioner straight in the  eyes and respond with, "Because we wanted WHITE children." I don't think I could ever bring myself to do this in real life, but in my imagination, it would be pretty hilarious. I honestly wonder if this is what some people think when they ask this question.

The most honest answer I can give to this question is this: Ukraine chose us.

Prior to Ukraine finding us, we had visited an adoption agency in Maine. The lady we talked to was painfully honest and told us that they hadn't placed a baby with a family in 8 years.  Her best advice was to get on social media and try to find a birth mom.  I wasn't even on Facebook yet, so I just couldn't imagine doing what she was suggesting. She had some other helpful advice that included marketing ourselves to high school guidance counselors.  If we did this, she said, we might be able to find a good teenage mother.  WHAT???  "Hi! We are the Roach Family. We really want a baby. Will you give us yours?"  I now know more about what she was advising us to do. There are plenty of people who are matched with their Forever Child in this way, but it sounded it bit crazy at the time......and (get this!).... it seemed like Too. Much. Work. Hahahahahahahaha.....we were so naive! Too much work!  I have no idea what I thought the adoption process was like, but we obviously had a bit more education in our future.

Our next thought was to research International Adoption.  We contacted multiple out of state adoption agencies and had them send us their information.  We may have over-done it, but I remember the next few weeks receiving all these beautiful, colorful books in the mail with pictures of happy families and babies. OH THE BABIES!  Beautiful, beautiful babies!  Stacks and stacks of "baby catalogs" to dream over.  I obsessed over these baby pictures and researched all I could about the requirements for adopting children in different countries. We had set our minds that our future family would most likely include a child of a different ethnicity than our own and we were ready to embrace this.  Something that was important to us, however, was that we wanted to raise our next child in an area that had more diversity than where we were currently living.  We wanted to be in an area where we might even be able to make friends with people from the same country/culture as this future child.

So we moved.  
Without selling our house.
Without jobs.
Without our friends and most of our family...
We left small-town Maine and landed in the Raleigh, NC area.

Some would say this was crazy, but I say it was just good preparation for what we were in for down the road! It was also where we were meant to be because no one in Maine had ever mentioned hosting an orphan from Ukraine before. But here, this was a "thing".  There were actually people who did this! 

And here is where I must end my writing for the day.  I haven't even come close to explaining how Ukraine chose us yet, but one of my beautifully, generous, Ukrainian children has shared a case of influenza with me.  We are currently cohabitating in the big bed coughing and passing the thermometer back and forth admiring each other's scores.  It took me a decade to get to the point where I could be sick in bed with more than one child, so now I need to put on my sick uniform and fully indulge myself in a day of Sponge Bob and Kleenex.  This is a big family milestone to be celebrated with shots of Nyquil!