*Not her real name.

Today at a restaurant eating lunch with our facilitator, she said, "I don't know if I should tell you this or not, but there is a 3 1/2 year old little girl at Antoshka that will be available for adoption on Monday. You could process her adoption along with Sergei's if you wanted. Are you interested in meeting her?"

Our chins dropped onto the table.

She continued, "This is HIGHLY unusual, because healthy children are never pre-selected, but because you are already here and can meet her, it is possible to do this. Maybe. She is completely healthy and you can meet her after lunch if you wish."

My chin was still on the table. Mark was able to utter an "uhhhhh...".

She said that if we were available to be in Kiev, one of her partners would have to be at the SDA on Monday at 9:00am the moment that they opened, because on that day her file would be available, and probably the very first person there would have her referral, so if we were interested, we had to do something about it over the weekend. She could be included in our court session, though court would have to be postponed a few days or a week.

After wiring my jaw back into place so I could speak, Mark and I agreed to meet her. How could we not??

We waited in the therapy room and they brought in a gorgeous, bouncy, friendly, smiley, cheerful, blonde little imp who promptly took her shoes off and set them neatly by the wall. A very, very cute and appealing little girl!!! We played a little while and Mark and I nervously conversed with the director, his wife, and our facilitator, searching desperately for an answer to give. I silently prayed, "God, please tell me what to do!!"

After she left (after charming the pants off of everyone in the room!), we discussed it. Of course, both Mark and I were reluctant to be the ones to give our opinion first, but he confided that he didn't think we were prepared for her financially, emotionally, time-wise, or space-wise. I somewhat silently disagreed a bit on a few of his points, but I did agree that financially we probably couldn't cut it. My main thought was that if she would be placed SO easily, then so be it. Our family is one in which we enjoy including the kids that aren't as fought-over, the harder to place kiddos. Let the easy to place kids go to the families that aren't as able or willing to accept the other ones. We CAN accept them, and willingly so, and so it was my thought that we ought to let her go. We will wait and if we adopt again, we will adopt a child that is less wanted and needs us that much more.

She left and told the director our decision and said he was happy with our explanation.

But it was hard, let me tell you. She was so cute.

*sigh*