ADOPTION INSIGHTS • PARENT PROSE One NEW Family Picture BY sharon m. yager joyce roberts "I know it's here. I know it is!" Olya said, sounding more frustrated by the minute. Olya, our nine-year-old daughter, adopted from Russia two years earlier, was hastily thumbing through photos in photo boxes in our living room. I was determined to finally start putting  pictures in photo albums this year. After our son Liam was born twelve years ago, I didn't have time to continue with my photo albums. Riley followed two years later, and the pictures continued to pile up. I finally decided I would not get to them anytime soon and started simply plopping them into photo boxes. I told myself, Once the boys start school, I'll get around to that. That was followed by, Once we finish remodeling the new house, then, Once I finish my degree, then, Maybe after we get back from Russia, after the adoption. Lately, Olya had been fascinated with looking at all the pictures in those boxes. She wanted to know everything we had done before she joined our family. She wanted to see what the boys looked like as they had grown. She wanted to see what her grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles looked like when they were younger. I had been hesitant to let her see these pictures. Usually, she would ask, "How old was I when you took this picture? What was I doing in Russia back then?" After learning her traumatic history, I was not sure how beneficial it was for her to now how much joy we had experienced over the years, when simultaneously, on the other side of the globe, Olya's young life had been unbearable. She had seen her father's murder. Her mother committed suicide. She had watched her sister be attacked and nearly raped. Olya begged strangers on the street for money and food. The tragic events went on and on. But tonight, she was on a mission. "I want to find the picture of when I first saw you guys," Olya said. "The first picture of all of us together." "Sweetie, the picture of us meeting you in the orphanage is in the frame in the dining room," my husband Will said. "No, not that one," Olya sighed. Her brother Liam offered, "there is one right here on the window sill from when you first got here." "No, no, no," Olya insisted. "the one where we are all in the picture." I shot a look to Will. We had yet to take a family portrait. There actually was no picture of all of us together. What was she talking about? "I'm getting close," Olya said. "I know it's in this box right here." Liam glanced at the lid, marked 1996. "Olya," he said, "you've never even seen these pictures before. Besides these are from 1996. You weren't born until 1997!" He rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Here it is!" Olya squealed. "I found it! I found it! Look, here it is!" She waved a photo over her head. Our curiosity piqued, we scrambled around her, but quickly became more confused. "Olya," Riley exclaimed, "I wasn't even born yet in this picture! Look, I was still in Mommy's tummy." "I know," Olya said, beaming. I looked at this picture, which my parents had taken of us a month before Riley was born. We had been vacationing at the beach. Will had one arm around me, the other holding Liam. I was holding my pregnant belly as we stood in the sand, the blue sky and the white fluffy clouds behind us. We all stared at each other, not knowing what to say to Olya. "Where exactly are you in this picture, honey?" I asked slowly. "Right here!" Olya said, pointing to one of the clouds. "I was up in heaven, and this was the first time I saw my family. I smiled when God showed me. He told me I was just going to have to wait a while before we could all be together." A chill ran down my spine. I remembered that day so clearly. My father had remarked on the clouds in the background. I precisely remembered him getting ready to snap the picture. He had paused and said, "Look at those beautiful clouds. It's as if they are smiling right down on us!" Now, we finally knew. It was our first family photo, long before we knew who was going to be in it. Sharon M. Yager and her family live in North Oxford. Her essay and about 100 others were published in Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul: Stories Celebrating Forever Families (Health Communications Inc, $14.95) earlier this spring. Health Communications, Inc. granted Bay State Parent magazine permission to publish this essay from the book. Sharon and her husband Will are currently working to reunite their daughter with her two birth siblings who had to be left behind in Russia.