We leave in two days for the Ukraine. It feels like we've been on this journey for a long time and yet in reality it hasn't been that long. I feel like I should back up to the beginning. This post is long and will be about what started it all and how we got to today.
My husband is adopted, so even when we were dating, adoption had always been part of our conversations and an option for us. In discussions about having a family, 3-4 kids seemed to be the magic number. We got married and life continued. Skip ahead 10 years. Our daughter is born. Sweet precious baby girl. Two and a half years later, little brother comes along. God had richly blessed us. They were everything we had hoped or dreamed of. Our family felt complete...
And so it was. The conversations about adoption were far away and long ago.
Christmas Party 2007: While hosting our bible study group, the question was asked of us, "So, are you done having kids?" As I answered "Yes", William simultaneously answered "No."
Since I was done being pregnant, the question of adoption surfaced again. This is what I call Stage 1 - Were we serious about pursuing adoption? What would it mean to our family? Was this something God wanted for us?
After several months of prayer and discussion we entered what I called Stage 2 - What kind of adoption did we want? State-side v. International? Fost to Adopt? What country? and a myriad of other questions...
Which brings us to August 2008. While looking at a parent yahoo group, I saw a posting asking for families to host visiting Ukrainian orphans. I was very excited about this opportunity to meet some international kids, talk to people who had gone through this process, and hopefully narrow down some of our choices. The kids and I spent the next 2 weeks hanging out with these kids. What a great experience. There were 2 girls that caught our attention. One of them had a little brother back in the Ukraine. This brought up the question of siblings. Instead of the little girl we thought we would adopt, were we open adopting 2 children? The answer was an easy yes. As cute as the girls were, they weren't the fit we were hoping for.
Though there were no kids in this group that seemed to fit our family, the experience solidified our decision to adopt and clarified that it should be siblings from the Ukraine. God took away all doubt about this decision. We loved the fact that we could host children in our home and see how they fit with our family - especially since we had young children.
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