From The Mouth Of Babes ( Part 2 )

JUNE 2007

Well, as I had said before we kept the fact that we were looking into adoption a secret for awhile. About 6mo. But, if you know me than you know I was bursting inside wanting to announce the news. Adam is a thinker. So we tend to balance each other out nicely. We sent in an application for the first agency we worked with on May 18,2007 ( the only reason I remember is because this is my birthday :) & then waited for approval. For those of you who don't know this is just a sorta pre approval to work with the agency. They look at a little bit of back round info., finances etc. to see if they think you would qualify for the adoption program you are inquiring about.

About a week later they called with good news & a list of documents to start gathering before the paperwork started arriving at our door. They were trying to prepare us for what we now know is a very intimidating, long & sometimes stressful job of compiling a dossier for a country. That is where they really get to know you up close & personal:) So, at this point we needed to tell the kiddos. If we were going to be going crazy running around to different offices & having social workers visit our house, they needed to know.

I had it all planned out how we were going to announce the BIG news. We would tell them the great news , everyone was going the cheer with excitement & then we were going for ice cream. So , after Adam got home from work & we lined the kids up all on the sofa. We reminded them of the conversation (6mo earlier ) of sponsoring a child and how we had decided to go one step further and bring a baby sister home.

SILENCE....... SOBBING.........Not the cheering I expected. They were in deep thought about the situation. My heart was broken. Did we make the wrong decision for our family ?

Zane was upset saying " Christmas will never be the same ! ". What he really meant was adding another sibling was sure to lower the odds of getting EVERYTHING on his Christmas list. Zoe cried because she wanted an older sister not a younger sister. Again , the IMAGE of what she wanted & the REALITY of what was to come did not match up. Then Carson, too young to invest such deep thought clapped his little hands.

Looking back at their reactions, I had had some of the same thoughts initially just not out loud to the whole world. Can we AFFORD to bring another child into our home? Can we AFFORD international adoption ? Do we want to go back to the baby years ? And then of course the excitement of the unknown possibility that we could. That is why we kept it a secret at first . WE needed time to wrestle with the same questions ourselves. And that's all the kids needed too & of course a little ice cream never hurts either :)

Bambi