Monday, February 6, 2012

Our Family

My wonderful husband and I married in 2000. When we got married, I wanted a boat-load of kids and he wanted ONE. (I figured I would just accept that....)Two years after we got married, we gave up on getting pregnant.  (Having a biological child was never important to me.)   I just wanted A CHILD. Right before Thanksgiving 2002, we started working on our adoption.

We weren't willing to risk a child being taken back by her bio-mom, so we did an international adoption with "International Family Services".
I was working as a teacher at that point. I will never forget how I felt the day the secretary called me into the office, because I had an urgent fax. It was a photo of the most beautiful child I had ever seen! Along with her photo, came a copy of her medical history.

The medical reports were SCARY! Everyone that saw them  told me to pass on this child. (Josh even wanted to pass on her until he saw her photo!) I couldn't let her go--she was MY daughter!

We brought our sweet Kristina home in September of 2003. She was 11-months old and was the most amazing child I had ever seen! All of the "scary" things on her medical report were inaccurate. (The child they described would never have been able to walk or speak.)   She is now a 9-year old gymnast, social butterfly, and book-lover.)
After she had been home for a few months, I took a pregnancy test...baby #2 was born exactly 9-months after Kristina arrived home.

Morgan arrived in June of 2004.  She was several weeks premature. It took her awhile to get started, but she is now a healthy and happy little girl! :)

Within a year of Morgan being born, I convinced Josh that we needed more children. Over the next few years we hosted foreign exchange students (China, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Germany, Russia...). I loved having those children in our home and I think of them as my kids, but I wanted "permanent" children.

In 2010, we started trying to adopt through the foster care system.  The first children placed in our home were two brothers. "Nate" was 14 months old. His brother, "Gabe", was 8-weeks old and had just been released from NICU. I fell in love with those boys! They were MY children.  However, they both had medical issues. CPS moved them to a medical-foster home in 2011. (They have been gone for a year, but I still think of them every day. In my heart, Nate and Gabe will always be my children.)


Morgan has always loved babies and enjoyed caring for those boys. She took it very hard, when they left. She asked me not to bring more kids into our home unless they would be her "forever" brothers and sisters. The only way I could guarantee that was with international adoption...so we got back onto the emotional roller coaster of international adoption.

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful story! Your children are truly lucky to have you as their mom.

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