Our Story

One of the questions that I'm (Scott) asked frequently is "What made you decide to adopt?" Well, in 2004, I was channel surfing as I often do, and stumbled upon a National Geographic Special called "China's Lost Girls". It discussed China's one child policy, and how it has resulted in children being hidden, abandoned, aborted, and even killed. The large majority of these children are girls, as boys are deemed more valuable, for a variety of reasons. These girls end up in China's orphanges, or with foster families, if they are lucky. It also followed a family as they traveled from the U.S. to China, to pick up the girl whom they had adopted. This was the most interesting part of the program to me, as well as the most moving.  I was literally questioning my purpose in life, before the program had even finished. You can watch it for free here: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/chinas_lost_girls

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, that it literally made me question my purpose in life, and I brought it up to Jen later that day. If I recall,my approach was a sort of half-joking one, as I wasn't fully convinced myself. To my surprise, Jen was open to the idea (remember, she and I had discussed not having kids) and she was 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. Now at the time, the typical wait from log in date to travel to pick up your child was 8-10 months, so we fully expected to have our child in early 2007. But 2007 passed, and the expected wait time grew and grew, and it soon became evident that we would have to wait years, not months, for our first child.

So, at some point, and again, I don't remember exactly when, the talk turned to having a child of our own.  There was always a chance that the China Adoption program would shut down completely, and maybe we wouldn't be able to have a child, so we decided to just "see what happens". 

What happened, on January 24, 2009, was Bella.  We couldn't have imagined the joy that she would 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 new child into our lives.  Bella is going to get a little sister!