The nursery digital designs (see previous post)

The nursery

Planning the nursery has given me the greatest joy in recent months. A few weeks ago I spent a vacation day at my favorite fabric store with my favorite fabric sales lady. We had so much fun looking through all the books and matching florals with stripes and polka dots with gingham.  I so appreciated her help and finds (thanks, Denise!). 

The nursery will be in the brightest room in the house, a fairly small bedroom next to ours. Recently Walt and the boys helped me paint it. I knew I wanted GG's room to be yellow because I grew up in a yellow bedroom and it is still my favorite color. My childhood room was the brightest in our family's house and it was a happy room to grow up in.

 I'm a bit of a closet interior decorator and being a graphic designer (in real life) means I'm pretty visual so I always start a room with a graphic interpretation of it as shown in the next posts.

I imagine spending a lot of time in GG's room as we wait for her to come home to us. 

Girl Grace

One of the fun parts, after the stress of the paperwork and rushing to make the policy change deadline (I'll post on that another time) was starting to think about names.  Over some months I came up with a list of probably 12 names that I loved and then shared them with W. He of course had other ideas. We did however agree on a few we both liked, both first and middle names. 

Eventually we agreed that there was one name that we both really loved but didn't want to rush into it. As we get closer to the referral I think we'll be in a better place to make that final decision. Or maybe not. Maybe it will be the day we get the referral instead. Who knows? It will be right when it is right. 

So for the sake of this blog, and to avoid always saying "our future daughter" (or facing criticism for our choice in a name) I'm going to refer to her as Girl Grace, or GG.

The wait and the math

OK, so we've been logged in for 27 months as of the 28th of this month. When we logged in all those months ago, people were receiving their referrals (when they match you with a child for those of you unfamiliar with the term) at 18 months. Back in December, with the help of my older sister and my dad (the math wizzes of the family) we figured that the wait time has increased by 75% since our LID (log in date) based on the current referral times at the time (right now they are at 38 months I believe). If we can assume that the wait times will remain at that percentage of growth, and that they don't increase (God forbid) then we can assume that would put our referral date somewhere around January of 2011. That could make sense because it would mean our total waiting time would be around 4 years and 3 months, or 51 months. Right now people are waiting just over 3 years for their referrals.

So IF (if, if, if, if, if) that is the case then we have just (ha!) one and a half more years to go! 

I'd love feedback on this from anyone better at math than me! :)

11:11

I can't remember now exactly when it happened but my guess is that it was not long after the paperwork was complete. We were sitting in front of the television one night and I was day-dreaming about our future daughter. And I'll be honest, I was thinking how wonderful it would be if we got twins (greedy, I know!). Just then something came on the television about China and hearing "China" snapped me out of my daydream and caused me to look towards the TV. At that very moment when I thought about my daughter, wished for twins, heard "China" and glanced towards the TV the digital clock changed to 11:11. The digital symbol that prompts some people to make a wish when they see it and perfect.. twin... numbers. 

Since then, I seem to catch the clock at that moment often, even though I have since stopped thinking "twins" and started simply thinking "child". At the moment it happened I was convinced that we would be getting twins. But now I just focus on my child and I'm convinced that that magical grouping of numbers is simply a nice way that God reminds me of how blessed I am. So when I glance at the time, and find it to be 11:11 I can't help but stop whatever I'm doing and smile, reflect, daydream and pray for that daughter of mine out there somewhere. 

And maybe her sibling too. :)

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. 

Finding China

Almost as soon as I knew that I had fallen in love with my then boyfriend, Walter, I started my initial research into adoption. In the beginning neither of us had any criteria in mind other than that we wanted an infant. We ruled out domestic adoption pretty quickly because of our fear of the birth mother changing her mind. It's different for every couple but for us at the time, we didn't feel comfortable putting ourselves in such a vulnerable position, it was all emotional enough without that added burden of fear. 

In my research of international adoption I came across one agency that had posted a terrific matrix of all the international countries that one could adopt from. In this matrix they listed the country followed by criteria for adopting couples (such as age, length of marriage, etc), country fees, times required in-country, ages of available children, etc... That matrix was a godsend! I started by crossing out the countries that we simply weren't qualified to adopt from because we weren't married long enough, etc. After that I knew we had to rule out countries that required too many, or too long of (or both) stays in-country; we couldn't afford it. We ruled out Guatemala because of the cost of the country fees alone (close to 5 times that of China). And so it went ... 

There are so many milestones in the adoption journey; the decision to do it, the end of the dossier preparation, getting a log-in-date, getting a referral, and of course ... bringing home your child! But for me, seeing China standing alone on that list was one of the first overwhelmingly emotional moments in the early stages of our journey. Suddenly the months of online searches and research that had filled my head with millions of lines of grey text, url's and processes faded away and I could see the face of our baby. Looking back as I write this, I believe that it was that moment that she was born in my heart. 

We do!

We were married on a beautiful, sunny day; October 15, 2005 at Christ King Catholic church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. The rehearsal dinner was held on Friday night at a park near my parents house in Waukesha county. We rented a pavilion on the lake, partially open on one side complete with a fireplace. We did it "southern style" and invited family and everyone in the wedding party plus all of our out-of-town guests and served catered hot dogs and burgers.

The reception was held in Elkhart Lake, an hour and a half north of Milwaukee,  at the wonderful Seibkens Resort. We had cocktails "in the courtyard" followed by dinner at the restaurant of the resort. Walter and I danced to "I'd have to be crazy" by Willie Nelson. It was so wonderful to look around and see the people we love getting to know one another. 

The next morning we had brunch for our guests, most of whom had stayed the night. The entire wedding with wedding party was about 113 people, 85 of them stayed for the brunch! After saying goodbye to most of our guests, Walter and I and just a few others took a pontoon ride around the lake. On the way back to Milwaukee, we stopped at a farm and bought pumpkins. 

We could not have asked for a more perfect wedding weekend. 

Three days later, after much rest! ... we left for our honeymoon in St. Lucia. The island was beautiful and we had a fabulous time relaxing by the pool, playing in the ocean (while Walter kept one eye out for sharks), jet skiing, touring the island, and having breakfast overlooking the ocean every morning from the patio off our room. 

A boat and a goat (and a ring too).

Walter proposed to me on one of our favorite lakes from his boat. He had my ring designed especially for me and then tied it to the end of a fishing line feigning that he was changing my bait (you'll want to read my earlier post about marrying the first man who asked me to go fishing,  if you don't see the romance in this). Afterwards he said my parents were waiting for us to stop over because they knew what he had planned. 

When we arrived to their house they had champagne waiting, I had barely sat down to enjoy my first glass when my father anxiously pulled me up and said, "Want to see what I got in exchange for your hand?".  He was insistent that I follow him into the garage where of all things ... was a small goat (understand that my parents are suburbanites ... so a goat was hardly a normal animal spotted in their neighborhood). "Dad! Why do you have a goat?" He kept repeating that it's what he'd gotten in exchange for my hand in marriage. Then he put a photo album into my hands. In it were pictures of just about everyone in my family petting and playing and posing with this goat. I still didn't get it and in fact was simply upset with him that he hadn't called me earlier to come and see the goat (I'm a huge animal lover). 

Then they explained it, Walter had heard the story of how my brother-in-law Greg (now ex) had jokingly asked my dad what he wanted in exchange for my sister Leslie's hand in marriage and dad, being an old farmer, said, "Just bring me a couple chickens, a pig and a cow." So when Greg came over to officially seek their permission, he brought with him some frozen chicken breasts, some pork and some beef (or something like that). When my other brother-in-law, Michael asked for my other sister's hand in marriage (Alison), he brought dad his favorite whiskey and mom her favorite box of chocolates. 

Walter loved the stories but wanted to top them both. So earlier in the week of our engagement, he stopped by my parents house with that same favorite kind of whiskey and box of chocolates ... and a goat. First of all, seeing W. at their house in the middle of a work day was odd enough, and that he came carrying a goat (and was as white as the shirt he was wearing) shocked them even more. So no one really remembers his exact words but it was something like, "I figure if Leslie is worth some chickens, a pig and a cow, then Sharon is worth at least a goat." Somewhere in there he must have asked their permission to marry me. 

Then he asked my father to hang onto the goat for a couple of days because he knew that I'd want to see it. So when this story finally sank in, my first thought was, "Oh my gosh, where will we keep this goat?" thinking that it was now ours. Seeing as we live in the city, the idea was a little worrisome (although the goat was awfully cute and hard to resist!). 

But it turns out that my very creative fiance' had in fact rented the goat. He knew of this little farm and nursery that he'd seen goats at. So one day he stopped and asked the owner, who was cutting his lawn at the time, if he could tell him where he could rent a goat. Upon explanation of the reason why he needed to do such a thing, the farmer (who that the idea hysterical) gave him the name of a place. Eventually Walt took me to meet that farmer. 

So all of our engagement photos, taken on my parents deck on August 26th, 2004 are of us and a goat. We never thought to snap any photos without the goat, but if you know us, you'll find it all makes perfect sense. 

That man needs a daughter!

Walt and my first date was February 13, 2003, a week after we first met (through a mutual friend at an advertising club event). We went to a little Italian restaurant on Water Street in the 3rd Ward of Milwaukee, just a few steps from the restaurant where we were introduced. He brought me, tied to a small box of chocolates,  the top five list on what singles do on Valentines Day, cut out from the Onion, included in the list were "walk slowly and deliberately into the sea" and my personal favorite,  "clean up cat vomit". This was a guy with my kind of sense of humor.  

After our third date we were pretty much inseparable. He quickly became my very best friend and I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend time with. 

I knew I had fallen in love with him just over a month after that first date, when we were visiting his family in Chicago the weekend before St. Patrick's day. One of the nights there we were at a family party and I watched Walt from across the room with his great-niece. He was so good with her, and sweet to her. She was probably just two or three years old at the time and I remember thinking to myself, "that man needs a daughter." Later that night we talked about our future and a family together. 

"I'm going to marry the first man who asks me to go fishing..."

...and I did. So the story goes that the first time I had my heart broken (I was 22 ... remember, I'm a late joiner) I asked the boy who broke it, "Why do you want to break up?" His answer was that we didn't have anything much in common, that I didn't like to do the same things he liked to do. "Such as what?!" I asked. He answered, "You don't like to fish". (You can see this was a deep relationship). So I said to him, "You've never even asked me to go fishing!" But alas, that was the end of that, and I eventually moved on but I never forgot the unfairness of it all (a girl in her twenties has a long and unforgiving memory). So the joke became that I would marry the first man to ask me to go fishing with him. 

Fast-forward 16 or so years, I meet W. and he is an avid fisherman. You can guess the rest. 

The beginning, from the middle.

Had I the least little bit of techno savviness I might have begun this blog at the beginning of our story, instead of in the middle. But alas, I'm a late joiner so I'll fill in the earlier details of our adoption journey and our choice of China, in another post a little later. (Our Log In Date (LID) is March 28, 2007 so we've already been waiting for 26 months.)

Speaking of being a late joiner, I was 39 when I married W. in October of 2005. From the beginning we understood that getting pregnant might be difficult, so the discussion of adoption came up early in our dating.  But it was never really a hard thing for me to imagine, I believe now that the idea had been planted in my heart long before I knew it was there, long before I met W. In fact, when I began the research it just felt so right and ... here's the strange part ... familiar.  

Even when getting pregnant still seemed like more of a possibility than it does now, W. and I made the decision to start an adoption. Our feeling was that it didn't have to be one or the other, it could be both. We would love any child God sent our way, no matter its path to us.

Since then the journey towards motherhood has been filled with lots of ups and downs and in betweens, but mostly waiting. Waiting for doctor appointments, waiting for test results, waiting for tears to dry, waiting for paperwork, waiting for a log-in date, and waiting, waiting, waiting for our daughter.

While I simultaneously celebrate the adoption and grieve for a pregnancy that may never happen, I determinedly cling to that last grain of hope (as the unknown author penned, "Hope is the last to die") and continue to pray for a family of my own. 

As I begin this blog, I'm not 100% sure what I'll do with it. I will most likely use it to journal for awhile before I am brave enough to open the permissions and allow people in. But I'm here for my daughter and myself, so that someday we can read her this story so she can see how desperately we prayed, and waited, and loved her before we even knew her.