She gave him life, then let us show him how to live

My first born...

While I was struggling with desperately wanting to have children, on the other side of our planet... There was a lady who was pregnant and scared... Scared that she could not afford a child, scared that she had no prenatal care, no way to take care of a kid, she had no husband nor did she know who was the father of her son... 

She did not have the money to buy healthy food for herself. Her water was not pure, clean, or clear. She was in danger of losing what little she had due to this pregnancy. She had no job and was barely getting by.

But she opted to not kill her son.

She could have aborted her baby. Life would have gone back to normal. It would have alleviated some pressure from her life. She could have avoided the stares from peers in public when they heard she was not married or in a relationship. She could have had more time and energy to find a job.

But she opted to give me a son.

On June 19, 1997, she walked into a hospital and gave birth to a boy. She checked out of the hospital the same day. She did return though. She went back and filled out the appropriate paperwork so that her baby could have a chance. She wrote a letter giving the state the permission to find a better choice for her baby (I have a copy of this letter).

Little Kirsonov Alexander Pavlovich was tiny. The nurses felt compassion on him. They knew that as soon as he left the hospital he would get little/no food... They invented things to test him for.... Polio, rickets, ibs, measles, etc. Each test prolonged his stay in the hospital by a week at least. Instead of sending him to the orphanage at three days old, he stayed in the hospital receiving full strength formula until October of 1997. But then they could do no more for him and he had to go. 

The orphanage that he was taken to was a home to 60 children under the age of two years old. He was never given a bottle again. He had no baby food. His formula was given to him in a cup with no lid. Instead of four scoops of formula to a cup, he was rarely given one full scoop. At nine months old, he would occasionally be given cabbage or potatoes- not baby food, just boiled. The orphanage was only given money when a child was adopted... But no one had come in over a year. The women who worked there had not been paid in 9 months. The workers had sold the orphanage van (their only transportation) in order to have money to buy seeds and lights- they used their dirt floored garage to plant cabbage and potatoes and then would padlock the garage to keep their garden safe.

Little Sasha ("baby alex" in Russian), had never tasted meat, fruit, or other veggies... Every Sunday he would get one shortbread cookie with his meal...

He would stay in this orphanage, living in a room with 13 kids total, until October 1998... Until this couple came... The man had a beard that he could not help but stare at because he had never seen a man before. The lady was weird. She was smiling and laughing, yet crying at the same time. He was covered in scabies, parasites, and lice... Yet was the most beautiful little 16.6 pound boy she had ever seen.... 

After visiting him for three days, they took him from that place.... The kind nurse cried as she handed a naked, little boy to her. They could not even spare a blanket because they needed to keep everything. 

I had no idea what my 16 months old would need. We had taken a ton of stuff... Gave most of it to the orphanage... But we took our son, SCOTT ALEXANDER SUBLETT, away from that place in a sweet little 9month outfit that was way too big on his little frame....

We took him to Moscow,feeding him everything we could along the way. After arriving, we gave him his first bath of his lifetime. He ate his first McDonald's. He loved everything he tasted. He slept with me. I clung to him as if he was my life support...

It was a crazy week in Russia... A crazy few months after getting him home... It has been a wild ride over the last 16 years for this kid... His rough start, his transition to an American family, his baby sister arriving just 6 months later, starting school, being diagnosed with some cognitive disabilities (ADHD, OCD, and asberger tendencies), new schools, new churches, and now getting ready to become an Eagle Scout this summer...

But none of this would have been possible

without a kind hearted decision

 by a lady I have never met.

She gave him life, then let us show him how to live.....