A Call To Love

Deep in my heart, I've always wondered how God chose who he wanted to go forth and to adopt, whether it was to build their family or to add to it. To love one that was not your own. I truly feel that there are those that have this desire from day one and for others, this desire comes in time.

After two years had passed since trying to complete our family, my husband and I began to wonder if God had other plans for us. We knew that we very much wanted to complete our family with a baby girl, but how would this be possible if we couldn't conceive. After having had many tests and trying several methods, we felt like it was not meant for us to round out our family like we had done 2 times before.

We started talking about adoption on our anniversary. Shortly there after, we met with an agency to discuss our options and to find out all that we could about the process. Many months went by and we changed directions several times. But eventually God brought us onto the same page! Ultimately we knew that it didn't matter where our child came from, but that she was a part of our family. We were originally set to start our adoption process (domestic) at the beginning of this coming year. Then one day, a couple of months ago, my husband out of the blue says that he just didn't have peace about adopting domestically. He wanted to go internationally. So immediately I began my research, once again, looking for the right agency and the right country for us. After hours of searching on the internet, I came across an agency that seemed like a good fit for us. There were 3 countries that we were interested in and this agency worked with all three. After much discussion with the agency and my husband we felt like China was perfect for us.

We hesitated in going with China after knowing the continued increase in time for referrals for the NSN program. The agency explained to us that they had a great SN/Waiting child program that is separate from their regular China program. Because of this, our wait time is greatly decreased. We were told that from start to finish the process should take us about 9 months depending on how quickly we accept a referral.

Unfortunately for us, our greatest enemy right now is my age! I'm not quite "old enough" in China's eyes to adopt from their country. So, we have a ways to go before our journey begins. But, we are very excited and look forward to starting our process very soon. This time next year we can begin working with our agency and starting on the paper work. I can't wait to start working on her room and preparing for her arrival. Our oldest son is especially excited and may accompany us on our trip to bring her home. Oh, and by the way, "her" name is Lauren. Our son named her almost 3 years ago!! He has called her by name since day one and prays for her often. It just melts my heart to see the love he has for her already!