Our Adoption Story-The Beginnings

November is national adoption month!  I am frequently asked about our family’s adoption story, so I thought I would take this post and give you a shortened version.  I’m going to speak at length about this in next week’s podcast, so if you want the longer version, be sure to check back Monday.  Enjoy!

It was December 2003 and my husband and I had been married almost a year.  In light of the fact I was 40 and had also experienced some infertility issues in my 20’s we knew our time to conceive was limited.  My sweet husband Tom wanted children.  All I had ever wanted was to be a mother, but by this point, I had just about given up that dream and was really enjoying my life as it had turned out.  Lots of travel, a speaking career I loved and lazy Sunday afternoons were my norm and I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to change it.  In addition, I had an aversion to adoption.

But doggone it, during a lovely December week in Maui, Tom made it clear he wanted to explore our options.  So since I was teaching this thing called “Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone” I knew I must not be a fake and I better live what I was teaching.  So I bought a book.  (Of course!)  That book, Adoption For Dummies, was just what I needed to get the conversation started.

Interestingly, it was one of my audience members who helped me make the shift.  During a program in Boulder, mid-December of 2003, he had volunteered the fact that he was an adoptive Dad.  When he spoke of his 2 girls, he literally “glowed”.  As he was leaving that day, I stopped him at the door and asked if I could get a bit more of his story.  He lovingly described how he and his wife had adopted from both Korea and Vietnam, and how the adoptions had enhanced their lives more than they could ever have imagined.  He highly recommended we look into international adoption.

International adoption.  Now that was interesting to me.   I had always loved to travel and had spent a high school summer in Spain and a year teaching english in Hungary.  So with a renewed focus I continued my research and discovered that China was a perfect fit for us.  At that time, Chinese international adoption was a smoothly running machine.  In addition, their adoption requirements were a perfect match for Tom and myself.  They liked older, financially secure, stable couples.  So China was our choice.

But where to get more information?  In those early internet days, information was spotty and in our small town, even more so.  But in a way only God could orchestrate, I was actually in town, speaking to a group of women when I mentioned I was looking into adoption from China.  At the end of my program, a woman came up and said she recommended I call a friend of hers who she believed had adopted from China already.  I called the woman that afternoon and discovered her children were adopted from Korea, but that they were going to participate in a Chinese New Year celebration THE NEXT NIGHT right there in Redding.

The timing was impeccable.  Not only was I home that week (at that time I was traveling 2-3 weeks a month), but the fact I had connected with her just 1 day before the once a year event was just beyond words.  The next night we headed to the event and met 40 other people who had either already adopted from Asia, or were in the process.  We also met a couple who had just signed up with an agency we had not heard of before and they were generous to share all their information with us.

The Chinese New Year celebration was the last weekend of January 2004.  We signed with the agency in February.  Our paperwork went to China in May.  December 20, 2004, in Chongqing, China, we met our daughter Amelia.  It was the best Christmas ever.

So now, 10 years later, our travel has included an additional trip to China in 2008 to adopt little brother Graham, and is mostly family trips.  My speaking career no longer includes non-stop travel and Sunday afternoons are rarely called lazy.  But motherhood.  Now that’s another post.  It’s really been the Best. Thing. Ever.

Question:  What do you think about adoption?  Have you ever considered it?  Would you ever consider it?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Please comment below.