How we decided to adopt

Stacey and I first met in 1998 when we worked together at a small public relations agency in New York.  A few months after she joined the company, late in that year, we started dating.  Even from our earliest conversations about our respective hopes for building a family, both of us thought of adoption as an appealing option since having biological children did not have much importance to us.

While we were still living in New York Stacey got pregnant and had an early miscarriage.  We tried again and in the early fall of 2004 Stacey got pregnant again with Ava.  Sadly, after a very difficult pregnancy, Ava was stillborn on December 28, 2004.  Although we recognize Ava's ongoing presence, losing her was devastating.  At the time, we consulted with a physician who suggested we work with some specialists who could help with what they would have considered a high risk pregnancy, but that route was not appealing to us.  In early 2006 we started the adoption process.

We decided to focus on adopting from China since it seemed to have one of the most reliable and least corrupt adoption systems.  We heard from people about the excruciating 9-18 months it would take to get through the process before parents would actually be able to travel to China.  We thought we could handle that length of time.  As it turns out, there have been a whole series of events that have caused the wait time for China adoptions to increase from 9-18 months to more than 7 years (fewer adoptions from Eastern Europe, child trafficking in China, the Olympics, SARS, issues with large amounts of money flowing into China, a better Chinese economy, cultural changes favoring domestic adoption in China, and more).  

So, during the past seven years, or so, Stacey and I have kept ourselves busy.  Among other things, we have both gone back to graduate school, moved a few times, changed jobs and careers for Stacey, traveled, got a dog (who will be relieved when we pay less attention to her) and many other things.  Although the wait time has been difficult in many ways, we have not experienced the despair that other waiting families have expressed to us.  We did investigate other adoption possibilities, including domestic adoptions, fostering and Ethiopian adoption, but none of these worked out for one reason or another.

I heard for years that when parents and children are matched it seems like it is destiny, and I was skeptical until we were matched with our twin girls, Lian Mei and Lian Fen.  It really does feel like this is the way it was supposed to happen and we are meant to be with these children.  Although it is difficult for me to fully believe that this will happen (despite the fact we have been preparing, even with diapers and formula), it feels really great and I cannot wait to meet the girls.