It's a girl!

Up to this point, I've been telling the story of how I knew adoption was right for me.  I was the one doing most of the research so it wasn't odd that I came to the conclusion that adoption was meant for us before Walter did. I remember laying in bed one night and talking to him about it, telling him I was ready whenever he came to the same conclusion. 

Of course I shared all of my research with him, and we went over that matrix I mentioned together. Also, we had friends over for dinner one night with their adopted Chinese daughter to talk about it. But we hadn't actually contacted an agency yet. But not long after we had that talk in bed that night, a new friend (who was about to travel to bring her daughter home from China) told us about an open house that her agency was having for people considering adoption. I didn't think that Walter was quite ready to make the decision yet so I really hoped that meeting with the counselor and having the ability to ask questions, would be yet another step in getting him that much closer to the path I knew we were meant to take.

After the open house, we walked across the parking lot to The Grove restaurant to talk about all we had learned. I think that the waitress had just brought our drinks, and taken our order when Walter looked at me and said, "Let's do it!". I couldn't believe it, I knew he'd get to the decision eventually but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly after this "first" visit to a single agency! Obviously he'd been doing a lot of thinking before the visit and the visit itself was simply the last piece of the puzzle that made it all make sense to him. 

Another milestone! A moment of utter euphoria that I can't even describe in words. Just writing this brings me back to that second, and the goosebumps raise up.  I can only guess that the feeling I had was the same as it might have been if I had just been told I was pregnant. 

It was also somewhere in this moment that we realized that we were going to have a daughter! When we first started thinking about adoption, we had nothing more in mind than becoming parents together. It was the counselor at the agency who informed us that when you choose an international adoption you have to also choose the sex of the child you are wanting to adopt. Most countries will allow you to put down that you are open to either sex, but at the time China was still adopting out only girls, so the decision was made for us.

A daughter. We were going to have a baby, a daughter! I love reminiscing about that moment, it was truly one of the happiest of my life. I have the receipt from the restaurant tucked away for her scrapbook, and I never drive by that restaurant without smiling in remembrance. Someday I'd like to take her there and sit in that same booth to tell her the story of how at that moment, she became our child.