Molly

I have debated for a long time whether to write this post.  At the end of the day, I don't think that any account of this process would be complete without acknowledging Molly -- the role she played in my decision to pursue a foreign adoption, her encouragement and support throughout the process, and the profound sadness I feel that she is not around to see this process completed, and the sense of loss and disappointment that my child will grow up without ever knowing her, and that I'll have to navigate the waters of being a new mom without Molly's guidance and support.
I am sure almost everyone reading this knows that my friend Molly died tragically and unexpectedly last September -- right about a week before I found out that while the door adopting from Kazakhstan has pretty much closed, there was a "new and exciting opportunity in Moscow, Russia".
I remember that right before I was ready to sign my contract with my adoption agency, and send off (the first of many) large checks to start the process -- I was talking to Molly about "trying to decide what to do".  Her response was characteristically no nonsense and no drama:  --"there is nothing to think about.  It's a great thing.  just pull the trigger".
She also allowed me to have a close relationship with her children -- let me spend time with them, take care of them and develop a true attachment to them.  That experience taught me (aside from how to change diapers, and bathe a screaming toddler), that it is absolutely possible to develop a deep  connection with  and fall in love with a child that you have no biological connection to.  I would step in front of a bus for those kids, and have no doubt in my mind that I'll be able to have the same attachment to Peri.
Throughout the frustrating and maddening paperwork -- Molly was a rock -- I could call and complain, I could brainstorm with her, and she paid attention to the various details of the process that many of my other friends didn't/couldn't keep up with .
Molly was going to come with me on one of my trips overseas -- obviously, with her job and having to little girls, I understood that she might not be able to do it -- but I felt so much more confident heading into the process knowing she'd be next to/behind me.
She was also going to the guardian for my child if anything were to happen to me.  Obviously, being a single parent, I worry about what would happen to my child, who I just uprooted from overseas -- if something happened to me.  A lot of that anxiety vanished knowing that she'd be in a family where I had 100% trust in the way she'd be raised, with "sisters" that she'd already been close to.
And when the issues in Kazakhstan started to pile up -- Molly said:  "we'll figure it out, and we'll come up with a plan B if we have to" -- like it was "our" problem and "our process".
One of the last emails I got from her was on her birthday last August, thanking me for the presents I got her, and telling me that she was "looking forward to a year filled with fun, and meeting Alexandra".
I started the adoption process in April of 2009.  Since then, I have imagined the day of meeting my child - completing the process etc so many times, and so many different ways -- different countries, children of different ages, ethnicities.... I've even imagined that day would never come.  The one thing I simply NEVER contemplated was Molly not being around for it.