[swmphoto]

As soon as they brought him out I burst into tears
of Joy, triumph & a billion other emotions of the
years worth of wait. It's kind of strange only spending
3 hours with a baby and then leaving to head home.

I think I really didn't start to fall for him until the 4 hour plane back to Moscow from Novokusnesk.
My husband seemed to fall for him right from the beginning.

I can say from the bottom of my heart I love this little
boy as if he was my own flesh and blood. There is
no indifference between my two bio daughers and him.
My father who thought we were crazy loves this little
guy more than my girls.

Happily Ever After

[jroc]

Thank you all for sharing this! I love seeing how each of you had these different emotions, but in the end, you are all so in love with these kiddos. It is nice to know that the worry, objectiveness, doubt, etc... didn't last long!

[Butabzig]

Definitely love at first site. I wasn't going to allow myself to feel this way but I couldn't help it. We heard her coming down the hall telling everyone hello in Russian of course. She walked into the room (she was 3, a month shy of 4). They shut the door behind her so it was our translator/facilitator, DH and myself. She looked over at us, smiled REAL big and yelled out, "Mama y Papa, zdrustvature!" She ran over and gave me a BIG, LONG hug. She would look at me as if she couldn't believe I was really there. I tried to be cautious but she made it quite difficult.

Now home 9 months she is able to tell me her views of that day. She told me that she was in her prettiest dress. They had told her that we were coming. We were running late because of those little issues that are just beyond our control. All of her friends were taking naps and she was sitting on her bed all dressed up waiting for us. She kept asking her caregivers when we were coming. She tells me now that she always looked at her pictures we left her on trip one and asked when we would be back. She still takes her pictures with her if she leaves the house overnight without us like spending the night at Grandma's. My mom says she brings out the pictures and looks at them and smiles. She tells everyone her favorite is of her family because she loves her family and her family loves her.

We are so blessed! (Below is a picture DH took of the way she looked at me and still does.)

[another2]

Having adopted so many, I think I was bound to fall into more than one poll category and I ended up selecting 3 of them. One of my children was absolutely love at first sight and tremendous fear something would happen to prevent the adoption. Two were somewhere in between, mainly because they had minor medical issues I had concerns about (turned out I had nothing to worry about). The final one was "I hope I can love this child" because I would have said "no" at the referral stage, but my husband was already in love. I'm still adjusting -- a little. The personality and looks are completely opposite of mine. But, fortunately, my husband is still head over heels...

KT

[Micky Rose]

I was "somewhere" in the middle." A very surreal experience. We were in the room with these 2 "just met" little people and within 1 hour we were supposed to make up our mind if we were going to take them home forever. I kept asking my husband, "What are you thinking? How are you feeling about this?" And he just kept asking me the same questions - we both did not know how to respond. I have told friends that it has been like any other relationship - the more I get to know them - the love keeps growing and growing. On the 10th will be our 6-month mark - I have to say that I can't imagine life without them now.

[wtjames59]

I think we all want love at first sight and we also want the children to have the same feelings. We've already had the opportunity to view pictures and build up anticipation and expectations. Don't let them run wild and know if the feelings aren't an "in-love" feeling at first that doesn't mean there won't be that feeling or that there won't be a "love" feeling.

We've adopted two children - bio. brothers at two different times. We have had a great experience with both love at first sight and falling in love over time!

[GCS]

I checked "love at first sight" but it was a little more complicated than that.

They had Sophia for me first and she was just beautiful - but there was a room full of people staring at me as I picked her up so I just held her close and started following the director to the music room where we would meet Sam. I didn't really get to look at her, but I had her snug in my arms.

As we walked past the main room, the door was open. A half moon of 8 chairs backed to us. I paused for a moment and at that very same time, Sam whipped his head around and made eye contact with me. It was just a second, but I recognized him from the little information we had gotten. He was excited and nervous and very much wanted to get out of that chair. We locked eyes and then our facilitator who was behind me, moved me along. I knew at that very moment that this was my son.

It was about 5 minutes later before he joined us. I fussed over Sophia and told her that her big brother was coming any minute. She just soaked everything in - she always had a very serious look on her face like she was trying to understand me. She was only 4 months old. The minute Sam walked in, he was all she would look at. They were in different buildings, so had never met. I can say without question that for Sophia it was love at first sight when she met Sam. He made her laugh with everything he did. He still does. She never wants to do anything without her "Gammy".

Greg fell in complete puppy love with Sam. He was all that Greg could talk about. Thank goodness we had a short time between trips, because Greg would have made everyone crazy with his constant bragging of his wonderful, brilliant, athletic son waiting for us in Russia. I would remind him that we had a daughter there too, and he would laugh and tell everyone that we spent more than 20 hours with her and we had never seen her cry...she was the best baby in the world. It was definitely love at first tickle fight for Greg and Sam. That occurred a good 20 minutes after we met him. It took Greg a little longer with the baby, but I think that was largely because she was so tiny and he didn't know what to do with her.

Christina

[heikewould]

I always have said it was very surreal. I loved a little girl I just met for 1 hour? I wasn't sure. I think I was protecting my heart for the "what if". When the call for the second trip came and I saw her and held her I knew she was meant to be our little girl.

[dvona]

I was absolutely unable to move, speak or do anything but smile, cry and hang my mouth open at the sight of my daughter. I tell people it was like seeing an angel...I just sat there amazed at the sight of this little one beaming at me and kicking her legs in excitement. It really looked at though she knew who I was and was waiting for me (at 8 months)...it was totally unexpected and atypical...but what a moment! Now with all that said I still won't say it was love at first sight, but rather a disbelief that this little one might actually be mine one day...and that was quickly followed by a feeling of OMG what a responsability this is...I hope I can figure out what to do with her!

[Lo-la-la]

I feel in love with Olya the first time I saw her referral picture - there was this little sparkle in her eyes, and I just felt something immediately. I worried and worried that I would lose her before my court date, but knew that if I did, then she wasn't the child that was meant to be with me. And while I was so glad to have a picture before I traveled, I also felt that it would be harder if I did lose her, for whatever reason, because I had this picture of her and had fallen in love with her before I met her. Olya was 13 months old when I finally did meet her, and I remember when her caretaker, Julia, handed her to me, Olya turned around and started waving - it's like she was saying goodbye. I did learn on my 3rd trip that Olya was seen by another family in November of 2003 (I met her on March 1, 2004) but that family adopted a little boy from Olya's group instead. I just know that Olya was the child that God wanted me to have . . . and that's a wonderful feeling!

[tbristow]

I too was pretty enchanted from the referral on, but getting almost NO sleep the night before (what if it doesn't go well, what if he doesn't like us, what if he ISN'T the one...), I was terrified as we waited and I kept reminding myself not to go grab him up when I first saw him. So what did I do when they walked in the door with him?? Yep, I walked over and scooped him out of the woman's hands. I was a goner from that moment on. It was surreal and pure magic at the same time. He was scared, but allowed us to hold him, cuddle him, etc... right away. He was 10 months old at the time and by the third visit the next morning he was excited to see us. By the end of trip 4 later that day, the translator walked in and he started crying and tried to climb me like a tree. She said that he knew we would have to leave and didn't want us to go (did I mention that the night before I was up all night again...but this time I was crying because we were leaving him??).

And yes, I did do the assessment for a little while until I realized he fell into the 12-18-month category (except in size because he was VERY small) at 10 months and we didn't really need to worry about development.