How Did I Get Here?

Now that the court date is over and another hurdle has been cleared (presumably, I mean, I haven't heard anything so I assume the hearing occurred as scheduled), I will go back to the beginning of this amazing adventure.

I think it was March of 2009. I had a great life. I was happy and content and convinced that I was done having children, after all, I was over 40 and I had had very difficult pregnancies and I knew I couldn't do it again. Besides I had four sons. FOUR. So, I was minding my own business, raising my four son's, trying to be a good wife to my husband, when God acted.

It started with a dream. In the dream it was about 20 years in the future and I was having a nice lunch outside at a nice restaurant with some of my lady friends. (I have no idea who they were). This was really weird because I have never had a dream that took place in the future. Well, I was sitting at the table and I was talking on my cell phone to a young woman. In my dream I knew it was my daughter. We were having a typical mother daughter conversation where I was telling her something and she was saying with I sigh, something like, "yeah, yeah, I know Mom." So then we hung up the phone and then in my dream I was really sad. In my dream, she was my daughter, but also in my dream I knew I didn't have any daughters. That was what made me sad. Then in my dream a voice said, "Well, she is your adopted daughter." And in my dream, I realized that, yes, she was my adopted daughter. She was dark, maybe Asian or Latino, and I am Irish blond. So in my dream I was happy again.

Then I woke up, the dream had awakened in me a desire to have a daughter. A desire I had suppressed because I thought it would never happen. But really? Another child? After all, I had FOUR sons, remember? And four is a lot of kids. With four kids you need the bigger kitchen table you need a bigger car, and it's a longer wait for a table at restaurants (if you can afford to go out with all those mouths to feed). And no hotels will book you a single room with 4 kids, so now you can't afford to go anywhere because you would have to get 2 rooms, and besides, the gas is too expensive for your big gas guzzling suburban, because that's what you need to go anywhere with 4 kids....and don't even get me started on college.

Ok, so where was I....? So I basically wrote off the dream because I thought it was crazy to want 5 kids. I couldn't have another baby, adopted or not. I couldn't go back to diapers, strollers and Baby Mozart. Not with a teenager and 3 others. But God had a plan....

So a couple of days later I was at Christian's preschool Easter Egg Hunt and a friend of mine with three kids all my kid's ages told me she was adopting a little boy from Liberia (they never did bring him home as that country put adoptions on hold-praying for them). He was 5 years old. I started thinking. Hmmm, we could adopt an older child. I started asking questions, a lot of questions. It had just never occurred to me to adopt an older child. Then a good friend of mine announced she was adopting a 6 year old girl from Russia. Then 5 more families in our community announced they were adopting older children. God was trying to tell me something.

I haven't mentioned anything to Tom yet because he is stressed already trying to pay for the tuition and swim team and soccer and FOOD for the four we already have. I thought he would think I was insane. But one Sunday soon after this, we were sitting in church and the message was something to the effect of, "when God tells you to do something you need to act on it". So I wrote Tom a note and said, "I think we need to adopt a little 4-6 year old girl". He wrote back "OK". Well I wrote him another note and said, "no, I'm not joking, I think we should do this." He wrote "OK" again. Well, this went on for a while, I think I even said something like, "I mean it, if you say yes one more time I will think you really mean it and I will proceed". Once again, "OK". A man of few words.

We both agreed that this was something that we had always wanted to do...someday. We just realized that "someday" was now.

That is how it began.