Our Bridge of Hope Story
By Teri Fainberg

Life can be strange and not always predictable and just when I'd given up the idea of ever being a mother! To say I felt disappointed and empty when my third and last in-vitro fertility treatment didn't work would be an understatement. At that time, six years ago, I felt like there were no other alternatives left for me. My husband, who has two grown children from a previous marriage, was not really interested in adopting. What could I do? I decided to just let go. The ache and sadness finally lessened, but I still felt cheated. You know that feeling when you see a happy family. They look like the perfect family and you ask yourself, Why me? I have wanted a little girl to call my daughter for as long as I can remember. I always dreamed of being a mommy. After all, I’ve been an elementary teacher for more than twenty years, so children have been a big part of my life.

Then, I went to a picnic hosted by Cradle of Hope Adoption Center in Silver Spring, MD.  I found out about a wonderful program, Bridge of Hope, which brings Russian orphans, ages 7 to 12, to the United States to spend a month with an American host family. The objectives were to give these "older" children an enriching summer experience: to attend a local day camp, to provide an opportunity to participate in a family experience, and to introduce them to the American culture. The ultimate goal of the program was to find loving, permanent adoptive families for all the children who came.

Living with an American family in a home gives both the children and the prospective adoptive parent(s) the chance to get to know each other.  It also gives the prospective adoptive parents significantly more time with the children than the traditional approaches used, prior to making a final decision regarding adoption. This is the part that really appealed to us. My husband felt that if we had a child living in our home over the summer we could get to know her and then base our decision to adopt on a real experience.

The phenomenal success rate of the children placed through this program after the first year helped convince us that it was a viable option.  In 1997, the first year for Bridge of Hope, all thirteen children who participated in the summer camp program found adoptive families and are currently residing in the U.S.  I decided to get involved as a volunteer and host family for the summer 1998 program, in order to help even more children participate and allow families in the DC Metro area to enjoy this experience. As the Deputy Director of the DC area program, I helped fundraise, as well as plan and implement a program that would eventually change my life and help me to have the child I’d always dreamed of. After months of planning, we finally saw Anya's photograph. As soon as we saw her picture, we knew that she was the little girl we had been waiting for. We were very fortunate to have gotten to know and love Anya for five weeks that summer when she lived in our home.

June 27, 1998 was the day we met Anya. It was love at first sight. She was a dream come true! She immediately sat on my lap and bravely held our hands and walked out to our car and came home. Anya bonded to us immediately, and we fell in love with her within the first few days. Right away she was calling us mama and papa and our home "nos dom." We arranged to have a number of our Russian-speaking friends help us with interpreting, and we soon learned that Anya was a little girl who very much wanted a mommy and daddy.

And we were a mommy and daddy who very much wanted Anya to complete our family. Actually, Anya seemed to be a part of our family right from the start. We truly fell deeply in love with her the more we got to know her. In fact, people often commented when they saw us together on how much she looked like both of us. But most importantly, we knew we could give her a loving and nurturing home!

Anya made lots of new friends during the summer. She attended camp and was with a number of other Bridge of Hope children and even had a Russian-speaking counselor. My husband spent lots of time with Anya teaching her to swim and by the end of the summer she was swimming. The lifeguards at the pool gave her a pool party before summer’s end. Everyone who met Anya was truly touched by this little girl from Russia. Anya also got to play with many of our relative's younger children. We have a large extended family here in Maryland and everyone welcomed her with open arms. She also spent time with her new grandma and grandpa and got to talk on the phone to her grandma in New York.

One day, toward the end of the summer, we took Anya to a family picnic. On the way home she told us that she wanted to be our daughter.  This was truly a special moment for my husband and myself.  The night before she returned to Russia, Anya wrote a make-believe letter: "I’m in the desky dom and I am writing to you. I love you mama and I love you papa, please bring me home soon."  August 1st was Anya’s last day and it was a very sad one for all of us.  The five months we had to wait to get all our paper work done were very difficult for all of us.

We traveled to Russia in December 1998.  The trip was one I will never forget.  That’s another story.  The customs, the economy and the cities we visited kept my husband and myself intrigued as we waded trough the final stages of the adoption.  Seeing Anya again was everything we had dreamed of.  She certainly was ready to come home and was greeted with open arms.  We returned in time for the holidays. A family at last!