Up until that point in our lives, Jen and I had not seriously considered having children. I was so moved by the plight of these children, however, and the joy on the parents faces as they were united with their children, that it literally made me question my purpose in life, and I brought it up to Jen later that day. If I recall, I presented my "new purpose" as a "half-joke", as I wasn't fully convinced myself. To my surprise, Jen was open to the idea (remember, we had pretty much decided that children would not be part of our future) and stated that she would be fully supportive if it was something that I really wanted to do.
I don't recall the actual point that we said "Let's do this", but at some point we got the paperwork going, and on April 23, 2006, we were officially "logged in" with the China Center of Adoption Affairs. At the time, the typical wait from log in date to travel to pick up your child was 8-10 months, and so we fully expected to have a child in our arms sometime in the early part of 2007. But 2007 came and went, and the expected wait time grew and grew, and it soon became evident that we would have to wait years, not months, for our daughter.
At some point (again, I don't remember exactly when) the talk turned to a biological child. We were fearful that the China Adoption program would shut down completely, as the Russian program had, and we were now determined to welcome a child into our family, one way or the other. Of course, there was always the possibility that we wouldn't be able to conceive, so we decided to simply "give it a try" and "see what happens".
What happened - on January 24, 2009 - was Bella. We couldn't have imagined the joy that she would bring (and continues to bring) to our lives. It's been amazing and fascinating to watch her grow. She is beautiful, and funny, and now that we have a little parenting under our belts, we are that much more prepared to welcome a second child into our lives. Bella is going to get a little sister!
