Aidan's Story
By Dan & Eileen D
On New Years Eve 2001, my wife and I looked at each other and said, "What should we do this year?" and I said let's adopt a baby. We had discussed it before but now was the right time. We had a 2½-year-old girl (Maggie) and a new home with plenty of room. Four days later we had contacted Wide Horizons and began the process of adopting our son Aidan.
After several months of paperwork and interviews, we were offered a waiting child from the Yekaterinburg region of Russia. His given name was Sergie and he was in a baby home in Serov, a town several hours drive north of Yekaterinburg. Since both my wife and I grew up in New York City, this was truly going to be a life-changing experience.
We were fortunate to get a picture of him in June of '02 (he was 14 months old) and our excitement grew incredibly. No longer was it about paperwork, but about a real child. So on July 7th, 2002 I flew to Russia. My wife Eileen stayed home with our daughter, so doing this trip alone was even more intimidating.
For the rest of my life I will remember the moment the aide turned the corner and I saw Aidan. He was as scared as I was. To help calm him they had me feed him. Fortunately, he was very hungry and ate well. While he was finishing they gave me the paperwork to sign for him. I was sort of stunned because this made it official, he would be our son once I signed. I looked up and said, "God help me, this is a big decision and I need help, I need a sign." At that very moment this scared little boy sitting on my lap rested his head on my shoulder and I had my sign! I returned home with pictures and stories and we waited anxiously to go back and bring Aidan home. On October 10th 2002, Eileen and I brought him home. Introducing Maggie to Aidan was another moment I will never forget.
Eileen, being a great mom, immediately started working with the county we live in to get Aidan therapy for speech and motor skills. We are very fortunate that he responded well and today is a wonderful and active 6-year-old. I think my sister said it best: "Aidan should be the poster child for adoption, he is the sweetest, kindest and most well behaved child ever." His smile lights up a room and when people say to us what a nice thing we did for him, we say back that he has done so much more for us!
So on New Years Eve 2002, we toasted to our son and what a great year it was!