Welcome ICLW!

A little bit of our story

We were married 7 years ago, in 2003. Way back when. We decided not to try for children right away, rather, we would enjoy a year or two of being together and building our marriage. About a year later, we decided it was time to start trying. Nothing happened, except crushing monthly grief. Month after month, I “knew” I was pregnant and so excited for 2 weeks. Month after month, I was wrong. I think each month the disappointment got worse. Mister told me that it would be OK, we’d try again and it would be OK. We kept trying, I was not pregnant and nothing was OK.

When we finally took ourselves to the doctor after the requisite “12 months of trying and no success” we were given the sad news that we would not be able to conceive. It just wasn’t going to happen for us. The doctors offered to keep testing us in future months, just to see if our bad condition would have improved. We declined.

A funny thing was happening at the same time. In late 2005 and early 2006, even though we had not officially been diagnosed as irreversibly infertile, I was googling the heck out of adoption terms. Even though I was still hoping that we’d be able to have biological children, I was also hoping that we would adopt from China. I started to follow some blogs of families with children adopted from China, and I started to read the Rumor Queen. OK, I kind of became obsessed with adopting from China.

I didn’t know how it would all play out in the future, but when the doctors told us there wasn’t anything they could do, I was pretty OK with that news. “OK, we’ll move on. Next thing, we’ll adopt from China when we’re both 30...” It was that easy. Of course, nothing’s ever that easy and I should have known it.

We weren’t ready to adopt right when we both were 30 and by the time we were 30, China had slowed to an almost halt of their adoption program. In fact, people who received their referrals from China this month sent their dossiers before I even turned 30. If we had submitted our dossiers the moment we were both 30, we’d still be waiting. And we’d still probably be waiting next year and the year after and the year after.

When we finally decided we were ready to adopt, it was just a few months ago. Now we’re 33, we haven’t sent a dossier to China (yet) and we’re instead planning to do a domestic infant adoption. We may still send a dossier to China for #2. Or not. Who knows. Right now, the goal is to finish the homestudy and the profile book for adoption #1 and from there we’ll see where we end up. I have no idea what we’ll do, but the adventure so far has been one heck of a ride, and we’re in it for the long haul.

What a long, strange trip it’s been. I’m sure it’ll only get stranger and longer, but here we are.