How did you end up on the adoption journey?

There was a recent post on the China Adopt Talk board.  It asked how folks ended up on the journey to adoption.  As I typed it made me realize all of the hurt we've endured over the past five and a half years.  However, it also made me realize how lucky we are.  This was my response.

Thank you all for sharing. I am amazed at how many of you have taken a similar journey to my own. I see so many posts from those with bio children that I didn't realize there are just as many who did travel down the road of infertility.



My journey essentially began on November 23, 1979 (my birthday). You see, my now father-in law and my father went to high school together. My father in-law moved away and started a family of his own but they'd visit us periodically. Eventually I moved away from home to attend a college which will remain nameless (it's a Gator nation). The only people I knew in my new town were my dad's friend and his family. One of his boys really took good care of me and showed me around town. My parents may say he took too good of care as he is now my DH.


Some would say our story is a fairy tale. We have baby pictures together. My maiden name is Light. Married name is Shine. Everything seemed perfect.

 We were married after dating for 6 years when I was 25 years old. Therefore, we wasted no time building our family. I have always been a kid focused person. Well, year after year, and treatment after treatment, our family did not grow. There was no story book ending in sight. There were several obstacles, slow downs, 4 IVF's, several IUI's and lots of Clomid instead. Finally, after transferring doctor's and going out of state, we had success after an unsuccessful IVF but a frozen embryo transfer that resulted from it . However, it was short lived. That was about this time last year.


We'd been through so much and were physically and emotionally drained. Throughout our IVF journey I had people ask all of the time "why don't you just adopt?" as if that was a consolation prize. We realized we first needed to grieve the lose of our ability to conceive. After the last loss we were ready. It just felt right.

 We too investigated all of our options, domestic vs. international. We knew right away international was the right fit but didn't know what country. We soon realized that China was right for us, right before my 30th birthday.

 It's amazing now. I really did think for several years we wouldn't get our story book ending. Now I know that our book just had a different ending than I'd expected. I couldn't imagine it ending any other way. We hope to meet our sweet Sophie in October (or late September if we're super lucky). Knowing what I now know, I'd do it all over again if it got us to our sweet little girl.