Behind the Scenes

Here's how it all started!

We moved to Georgia in July 2004. I was having the time of my life. Laura (9yrs old) was in 4th grade and Christine (4 years old) was in Preschool. Finally, I got my "Dream Job!" I was able to be a stay at home mom! I had always been pretty successful in my careers, but I ALWAYS wanted to be able to take care of my own babies. I missed them dearly when I was at work. I was so thankful to have my mother in law be the one to take care of them while I worked, so it wasn't that I worried about them, I just wanted to spend every moment with them. When we moved to GA, I volunteered in the girls classrooms and helped coach soccer. I loved every moment of my time with them.  I was happy :) As the years passed, I went back to work part time--in the back of my mind I know I would have liked to be pregnant again, but after we had Christine, we made the decision not to have any more children. She was healthy, and I was 34 and we were happy with our family. Every now and then I would try to do research on adopting a child, or even being a foster parent. I would look at children's pictures and get so emotional. Craig and I would discuss it, but things never quite seemed right. I just couldn't grasp the whole process. I sent away for information from GA Dept of Human Services, but that seemed even more confusing. I wanted a child who could become a part of our family, not a child who would turn our worlds upside down. This went on for many years. Not consuming, but always in the back of our minds. I would get busy and that would take my mind off things for awhile. Beginning in the summer of 2011, adoption was really on my heart. But I was also looking for a part time job. My job at the Preschool had cut my days back to 2 days a week, so I felt the need to look for another job. After accepting a job that didn't work out, I was pretty devastated. I was really seeking God for wisdom about what He wanted me to do. Throughout the years, it was always when I was "quiet" and searching for God's guidance that the whole adoption thing would be on my mind. When I was busy working or running around, I didn't think about it as much. Well, I couldn't find a job to save my soul! I had a lot of quiet time. But 2 1/2 months later I found another job. This job was exciting, but it was totally consuming. After working there for about a month I knew that it was not going to work out. There were a lot of unethical things going on and I knew that I needed to quit before anything awful happened. I quit on  Tuesday, November 29th, 2011. On Sunday, December 4th Laura was invited to a Mother- Daughter gift exchange at her friend Sara Harkness' house. Normally, I would not have gone. Christine had an indoor soccer game, and we normally spend our weekends together as a family. But this was different, this was something I felt I should do for Laura! (I liked her friends too, and their moms!)  So we went to the party.....
When we left and Laura and I got in the car, we looked at each other, and I think we read each others minds. Sara Harkness has 3 sisters, 2 of which were adopted from China. It was a party for all the sisters, and there were a couple different times that we could have chosen to come to the party. I think we chose the time that all of Ally and Alaina's (the two younger sisters) friends were there. Well, I had never seen so many beautiful Chinese girls in my entire life. It turns out that a number of these little girls were adopted at the same time. They keep in touch with each other throughout the year and are good friends.  I was mesmerized. I can't even explain what I was thinking, but I knew that I wanted to go to China and adopt a little girl. Laura felt the same way! We left the party and met Craig and Christine for dinner at Red Lobster. I was about to explode. The first words out of my mouth to Craig were.....the party was great, "I have never seen so many beautiful little Chinese girls in my entire life...."  There were tears in my eyes, and Craig knew what I was thinking even before I could tell him. He teared up just listening to me.......That's all we did for the entire dinner was talk about what it would be like to adopt a little girl from China!