Just another reason why I love my husband...

I came across this today while cleaning out some files on our computer. Clay wrote this to enter me into a Mother's Day contest that the local spa was having...while we were waiting for Evan to come home. Ahhh, my sweet darling husband...I love you!


January 2005

My wife Brandi Hodges, is a first grade teacher at Oak Hill Elementary. We have been married for seven years. For four of those years, my wife worked full time while attending college at night. She graduated in June of 2003. It was one of her dreams to become a teacher. Another of her dreams was to become a mother. We had been trying to get pregnant for about a year and a half when in September of 2003, we felt led to international adoption. We researched it on the Internet, talked to friends who had adopted, and finally went to a seminar. We decided on Russia, and began processing what seemed to be bottomless piles of paperwork. We have been fingerprinted four times, had our blood taken twice, been visited by social workers, and even had our septic tank inspected. We were told that we may possibly have a child by the summer! Then on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 we received a phone call that we will never forget. A baby boy, less than nine months old, was available for us to adopt from Irkutsk, Russia, in Siberia. We went to the adoption agency, where we were shown pictures and video. He was healthy and beautiful, and he was going to be ours. The weeks that followed were a blur of excitement, nervousness, and planning for a trip to the other side of the globe. The way Russian adoptions work, we were to visit the child, sign some documents showing our intent to adopt him, and come home and wait for a court date. We were told that it usually takes ninety days. I was very concerned about my wife. Three months away from her child would be unbearable. I didn't know how she could stand it. She is the most tenderhearted person that I've ever met. If only we'd known.......

We arrived at the Angarsk Baby Home to meet our son on April 5, 2004. That is the day that Brandi became a parent. She bonded so strongly with our son, and by the end of the week that we spent in Russia, he preferred her over the caregivers that had been with him for the entire seven months he had been in the baby home. It was a bond of a mother and her child, and it was beautiful. On April 8, 2004, while signing additional paperwork, we were given some very discouraging news. The courts were behind already, and about to be shut down for three months for the judge to go on vacation. Our ninety day wait had been extended indefinitely.

Brandi and I are doing okay. We have been informed that our court date could likely be in April, and we will once again hold our son in our arms. We have accepted that our adoption has a specific destination, a happy ending that waits for us in God's time. The journey, however bumpy, is the path that we had to take to get our son in the rightful place that he belongs.

I apologize that I have rambled in this letter, but I felt that, to appreciate why Brandi deserves to be pampered on Valentine's Day, you must understand the whole story.

For the past ten months, Brandi has not only been strong, she has been there for others. Brandi has talked on the phone, the Internet, and even opened our home to others who are going through what we are dealing with. She has found others who are going to our baby home and gotten pictures. Now, as our son grows older, he will have photos and videos from his earliest years, which my wife has stored neatly in a scrap book. The woman that I didn't think would be able to handle a three month wait, is on ten and counting. She has been knocked down countless times as month after month we hold out hope for our date, only to be disappointed again. She has her cry, and then gets up again, and emails all of our friends, always putting a positive spin on the situation, as she asks for prayers. When a woman she had befriended and consoled left to go and bring her son home in December, Brandi got a key from her neighbor and decorated her house for Christmas. She has been an inspiration to me, and will always be, my Valentine.

Thank you for your consideration.
Clay Hodges