Day One of Our Blog!!

Today is the first day of our blog!! I have been thinking about doing one since I discovered that this was the path that we were going down. Here's how it happened....

On the Fourth of July - Brad and I were going to have dinner at the "Club" with my in laws. He was watching golf before we left and there were a few Asian girls playing(forgive me I am clueless on Golf and can't remember their names). He was schooling me telling me how great they were playing and that they were so focused. I said (out of the blue)...wow wouldn't it be nice to have a child that could support us through golf. HEHE...joke joke....we should adopt a baby from China. All joking...they would be able to make us "some cash"....again all jokes.

Not thinking a thing about it - we went to dinner. I love my in laws and we sat having nice conversation - chatting looking at how beautiful the golf course was etc. I noticed a bunch of kids playing - they were being really noisy and not listening at all to their parents - several were jumping and tearing up the greens - my mother in law was about to have a fit about it - again I am clueless and really didn't notice that they were messing up the grass. I turned around in my chair an d saw the sweetest little Asian girl - playing by herself - being so good listening to everything her mom was saying. I said to Brad - "see there's our little girl - being an angel." On the drive home I said to him - all extremely innocent chit chat - we should adopt a baby from China - I asked him - I wonder what it would be like - I wonder how much it is?? All of those questions...neither of us had a clue.

When we got home - I went up to my office and did a yahoo search about China adoption - after a few minutes I yelled down to Brad and told him it was about $25,000! I could not believe it....then after reading more and more....and more....I found out that the waiting list for Chinese children is 4 years and sometimes longer. This whole time Brad is watching tv and not really paying a bit of attention to what I am saying. I continued to search - agencies - I found several on Ethiopia adoption. I started seeing how unbelievable gorgeous these sweet children were. About 3 hours later - finally I went to bed.

The next day - we had a meeting with our financial planner. I remembered getting a Christmas card from him - with his wife and 2 children on it - one being a beautiful Asian little girl. 1:00 could not come quick enough - I had a ton of questions for Tom and could not wait to talk to him, He told Brad and I that they only had to wait for about a year and a half for their child and it was a huge blessing in their lives.

So that began our search...(MY OBSESSION)....

I then remembered that my friend and neighbor April had told me that her friend Kristy (We Love Our Lucy) - was adopting from Ethiopia. Not wanting ANYONE to know what was going on - I told her that there was a lady at the gym wanting to know about adoption. About a day or so into this....Apes (April) said to me - are you thinking about adoption?? Not being a good liar I said YES! But really it was just me - Brad was not on board with this at all. He is a great husband and soooo supportive that he just lets me go on my crazy ideas. Never judging or being negative EVER!!

So now that my full blown obsession was in over drive....I had adoption applications coming through the mail, reading as many blogs as I could (working somewhere in between)....looking at all of the possibilities. Researching each country and their options. I loved the idea of China but I don't think that I could wait 4 years ......

So I relatively quickly narrowed my search on Ethiopia. It just seemed to fit - that was it - my decision was made...(now I just had to convince my husband;).