The Family Plan

We're going to adopt a child.

Most people have already heard this news (since we did announce it in our 2007 holiday letter), but I figured I'd blog about it anyway, on the odd chance that there are people out there who might be interested or share our experience.

It took David almost 2 hours to propose to me back in 2003, but the proposal stemmed from our conversation of "where do we see ourselves in 5 years." We actually had a plan, a well thought out plan. We've learned something about "plans" and that is they change. And sometimes, a lot!

We started with:

1. Get married.
Yep, did that, took a year. Beautiful ceremony with just family. Big party with everyone. And awesome trip to Mexico!

2. Get House
Check. I'm not sure which is harder: brain surgery or house hunting. But we did it, glad it's done, and we LOVE our house. 3. Get pregnant
mmmmmm. That didn't go so well - plan gets a little skewed here.

4. Go through infertility treatments
We found lots of encouragement from doctors (go figure) and read lots of books, talked to lots of people, and spent lots of money (that's where the Dr's encouragement came in). So not really what we planned.

5. Adopt
Seems natural. We found a lawyer, interviewed agencies, talked to friends (thanks friends!!)

6. One more time with the treatments (just in case)
Just wanted to be sure!! We were actually super duper really close - who knew they had a whole classification called "chemical pregnancy" ah well - back to the plan.

7. Ok, ONE more time
Failed miserably. Go back to step 5 of plan.

8. Domestic or International?
Domestic. This is a whole other topic for a different day. But it seemed to be the best fit for us.

9. Pick an agency
Fortunately we'd already interviewed various agencies, and our lawyer recommended a few. We chose Lutheran Family Services, but with all plans - they seem to change and we are now with Adoption Choices.

10. Complete paperwork
Grueling. That's all I've got to say about that :p

11. Wait
What they don't tell you about waiting is that all the people you've met along the way that are also waiting - they ALL get matched while your still waiting. Which leaves you wondering "WTH is wrong with me?!"

12. Match!
Failed

13. Match!
Failed

14. Match!
Failed

15. Match!
Failed

16. Match?
Really? What's going to go wrong? Do we believe it? We don't even remember what the plan was anymore...

17. Still matched!
Wow. And we really really like the birthmom, and she tells the social worker that she really really likes us. This must be good!

18.
No more plans for a while - just going wherever the road takes us at this point.
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