Home			In early June of 2002 we set off in our old van to begin our "big adventure" to drive 2200 miles to Dayton, Oregon. My Dad was turning 80 years old and this was going to be a surprise visit. Our three-year-old bio-daughter, Samara, and our two-year-old adopted daughter, Leah Tatiana, along with my husband Greg and myself had just no idea how big an adventure we were getting into. The trip was planned shortly after our move to a small farm just outside Columbia, Missouri. We moved into a home that needed a lot of fixing up but gained some precious land where our children could run, explore and more freely play than the subdivision where we used to live. In a happy coincidence, our planned trip took us through Portland, Oregon where the adoption agency is based that we used to adopt our precious daughter Leah Tatiana in August of 2001, so we planned to stop in and visit them. Leah had been a cleft lip and palate baby. We'd fallen in love with her giggle and spunky spirit. Both girls were high spirited pre-schoolers and kept us very busy. Over the long miles of driving we often looked back at the girls giggling together and thought how blessed we were and how lonely Samara would be without her sister. The agency was glad to see us and especially Leah. The changes in her appearance since her surgeries were remarkable. During our conversation over lunch in the adoption agency office, they casually commented they had a baby boy for us. We laughed it off because of lack of money following our farm purchase and the disorder we felt from the move so we left with no information. We remembered later that several Russians we met during our adoption had commented to us that we'd be back soon for a son. The thought seemed so far from our minds at that time but they said it in a way so welcoming, hopeful and knowing. Our surprise visit for my Dad's 80th birthday was wonderful. We returned home to our usual chaotic lives. The remodeling left us with only one habitable bedroom which we all shared for awhile. There was dust everywhere. For some reason, even in the midst of all this chaos, that casual mention of this baby boy lingered on in our minds and later that summer we asked for information about him. They had shown no one else his information and told us the Russians had asked for us since he was a cleft baby. It didn't make any sense to us but we were willing to accept the story. We thought that maybe Leah's successful surgery impressed them so much and they wanted the same for this boy. I told Greg that if his name was Anton or Alexei, since I so favored those names for some reason, then the deal is cinched, especially if his name is Alexei. He was an eight-month-old baby with a cleft lip and palate and the biggest brown eyes you have ever seen, and it just so happened he was named Alexei. It took us nearly seven months to raise the money and wade through the paperwork and rule changes to get him home. When we tried to prepare our three-year-old daughter, Samara, that we planned to adopt a baby brother for her and Leah, we asked her if that was that was okay with her. She thought hard and said, "Okay, but I need two 'brudders' (brothers)". We thought it a strange comment but we started considering how it might make sense to have two girls and two boys and we had learned it was cheaper to adopt two kids at the same time than separately. So, we also made arrangements to adopt a slightly older boy, Vincent Sergei. His birth mother had a less than desirable, questionable history so that had made this really beautiful child harder to find a home for. We aren't a family with a lot of money but I can think of no better place to invest it than in the life of a child. I guess cleft lip and palate babies are rare enough that caring for them is a challenge at the orphanages. Alex was left in his crib and isolated a lot so he was seriously deprived of the social stimulation that he needed. Alex was pretty difficult to get home since he spent a lot of time crying, well, screaming is more like it, during the long trip home. Though this story is mostly about Alex, Vince was a different challenge because he was very happy around us and thrived on our attention but would shriek in anger when he didn't get his way. On our first night with the boys Vince fought being taken out of his new, going-home clothes until he saw we were changing for bedtime and he was going to have new pajamas. He slept on some blankets on the floor next to our bed in the hotel room and we were surprised to find him sleeping under the bed in the morning. To be frank, Alex's wide cleft was shocking at first and certainly not attractive but we quickly came to see past this 'flaw' and see the potential in this otherwise handsome boy. He also had some behaviors that was similar to autism but during Greg's first solo trip to visit with him he could see Alex would make eye contact with the right kind of interraction. At home, he only wanted to stay in his crib at first and refused to budge without breaking into ear piercing shrieks when we moved him into another room and took him out of his comfort zone. We often wondered if we had lost our minds bringing home two challenging boys with us but slowly both adjusted and we did too. Vince dropped the temper tantrums when he felt more secure and he's grown especially attached to his sister, Leah. They've fit the description of 'Action and Reaction' since Leah is a born leader and Vince is right behind her. We also finally could move Alex into different rooms in a play pen. It has been very slow going but we have finally broken through to Alex and he now tears through the whole house like any other three-year-old boy. He is a special light in our lives. He is a delight and everyone who works closely with him loves him and his mischievious, loving personality. We often hear the phrase "Alex has the best laugh, I love to hear him laugh". -Kathy Harvey