Meeting Lera and Lena

We arrived in Izmail and met the girls...we met Lera first, she's beautiful and reminds us much of Caelia. We accepted her referral immediately. We met Lena second, she's beautiful as well, but unfortunately we are not going to be bringing her home, we were both shocked at how small and fragile she was. The way her heart condition was explained by the staff at the orphanage (and consulted through an interpreter with another physician) it is unlikely that it could be repaired. She has multiple issues which would make her unsuitable for surgery, even in the US and we don't even have confidence that she would survive the flight. It's heartbreaking for us to have to make this decision knowing what fates may be held for her here, but it is one we had to make for our family. If we were to attempt to bring her home, she would require everry bit of Sheila's attention to care for her and being the one who goes to work everyday, I can't ask her to do that alone, there would be little time left for the other children. We also worried at what this would do to Michael, he is very sensitive and if we were to bring Lena home knowing that so little could be done for her and he were to get attached and something were to happen to her, he would be absolutely devastated as would we. It was a hard decision we did not make lightly. We ask that everyone respect our decision.