Enough of the thinking. It's time for a leap.

Fran and I have talked about it a lot for the last couple days, ever since the doctors phone call didn't provide us with exactly what we wanted to hear. But in the end, we went with our guts and what we think is right, and what we think will eventually work out just fine.

We're going to adopt Yana. Ruslan just got himself a big sister.

There were too many positives and almost no negatives for us. In fact, outside of the fact that she wasn't speaking that much on our first visit, there were nothing but positives for Jana until we spoke with the doctor, who temporarily put the brakes on our optimism. But he may just be protecting himself by offering us all the possible issues that could arise.

Ultimately, he was basing his pessimism on the birth weight and the fact that Yana's mother drank and smoke. To what degree, we really don't know. But since birth, she has had tremendous growth: her weight and height are very good, and her head circumference is in the 50th percentile -- which would be extremely good even for a US child much less a baby in her situation. Her motor skills have dramatically improved since she arrived at the baby home, suggesting all she needed was a little more care and help, and she seemed very bright when she was with us for that brief period. At that was all just in one visit; just imagine how much she would open up and improve even more if we had multiple visits. Her health record was almost crystal clear since her arrival in the baby home (which can't be said of that many children), so there are really nothing but positive markers that suggest that she will have a great, happy, healthy life with us.

And even if she has some issues, we'll love her anyway. She'll be our child, she'll be afforded a great life with us, and we're excited to have her join our family.

Whew ....

Now that's over. We'll inform the agency today that we accept her referral, and a court date can start to be set (though we are waiting on our police clearances, which we had to redo because the previous ones expired because the adoption has taken so long).

Somewhere out there in Baby Home No.2, we can hear Ruslan quietly say 'Darn. A sister? Now I'm going to have to share."