We're still digesting things from the meeting yesterday. They talked alot with us about grieving the loss of V.

We discussed what options we have open to us, we didn't learn anything new on that front than what we already knew, but it was good to go over things. For us personally, it comes down to three options, really. 1. Continuing in Russia in a different region 2. Switching over to open-domestic where a birth mother chooses us out of a book 3. Quit.

After we left, hubby and I talked and he said, "ok - if we had to say right this minute what we would do - I'd say go to Russia in the new region, expand our age range and consider being open to a boy or girl" I said, "go to Russia in the new region, raise our age range a bit (not as far as hubby considered) and I'll keep trying to come to terms with switching to the boy or girl thing."

We decided in the meeting that for the month of August we are going to take a break from the pressure of deciding. Nothing can be done in Russia until our agency is re-accredited anyhow.

That's easier said than done, though. We've been "living" adoption for pretty much 7 years! D's adoption process started in 2000. After we got home with her, we concentrated on paying off her adoption so we could start the next. Now we've been in the process of this adoption for 2 1/2 years itself - and counting.

So, we'll see how we do on that. Day by day, one step at a time.