Here we go! — Opal and Lola

So I've entered a different world, here. I've been thinking of starting a blog for a little while now based upon two things: 1. I like to write and 2. friends, families and acquaintances have all asked that I start writing one of these things to keep everyone up to date. Welcome, and I'm happy you're here.

I'm a pretty private person by nature (though can be quite open if I know you) so incorporating a blog into my life took a little doing, yet, openness is called for. People in our lives have asked to be involved in the excitement of our soon-to-be official adoption of twin girls in China, Tongren specifically. We leave May 28th so in true form I've decided to add one more thing to my to-do list ('write a blog', just before 'pack' and right after 'get benadryl') so pardon if it's missing key components you might be wondering about. I've got some stuff on my mind. Shoot me a message, leave a comment, whatever one does to ask questions about the process, our feelings, our motivations or about anything you think I've missed. In the meanwhile, I'll do my best to give you some background and what let us to this process, and updates.

We are adopting twin girls from China!

We were matched 12/23/14 after our adoption coordinator told us about them months earlier. We were not matched at that time because there was the potential of the girls being adopted out separately, one staying in China and one being adopted out to the US. When we heard that, we just prayed that they stay together no matter what. It was completely out of our hands. I just asked out adoption agent to relay to the necessary people in China that we would love for them to stay together, and that there was a family here in Oak Park, Illinois who would love to give them both a home with us. The Universe answered our prayers and here they come.

A little about us:

Mark and I have been married for 13 years, known each other more years than that, and have two biological children, Luke soon to be 12 and Annabel is our 10 year old.

Annabel and Luke at the Bean in Chicago.

We have a lovely home in Oak Park, Illinois, 10 miles outside of Chicago and we are very happy here. I've never stayed in one place for so long - I'm originally from New Orleans and moved quite a bit as kid and well into my 20s. Mark is Chicago born and bred and Chicago is where I met him. I was happy to meet a man so rooted in his surroundings and in his family (his mom, brother and two sisters) and we have had a very nice life together. Our kids are getting older, independent, and while that makes for some uncomfortable changes that seem to happen too soon - wait, my 6th grade son has a dance to go to on Friday? and there's an afterparty?- it also makes for some relief. I've started to read books again. I get a full night's sleep. Annabel can make her own dinner if she wants to. Et cetera. Things are getting...easier in a lot of ways.

But the thing is - easy is...boring.

At the beginning of our relationship I told Mark about my dream to adopt a girl from China. This was an idea that blossomed into a longtime dream which took root from a chance assignment given to me in a high school research paper class. The paper was about aspects of China and I jumped right in (I'm withholding details at this point in the interest of a smooth adoption process in the country from which Opal and Lola are born). This dovetailed nicely at the time into my fear of childbirth having seen enough of the sex ed materials and heard many cautionary tales in Health Class so I thought, Perfect! Adopt one of these girls who need a home and I am done and DONE. I liked kids so it made perfect sense.

Well, I grew up a little and things like having children biologically scared me less and less but I never let go of that dream of going to China and bringing home one of those girls. Luckily, when I told Mark about this dream, he was equally enthusiastic and ever since adoption has been a recurring conversation. I married a man with a really wonderful heart. One of the many reasons I fell in love with him.

When our kids were little, adoption was off the table for awhile. Luke and Annabel were born 19 months apart and thoughts of adoption never went away, but certainly dissipated substantially due to low energy reserves. I even tried to talk myself out of it with questions of, Why mess with a good thing, things are great as they are, who knows what you bring into a home when you adopt, blahblahblah. But at the core, the trying-to-talk-myself-out-of-itness felt wrong because I wasn't following my heart.

Once both of the kids were in school and things got easier, I began working as a Special Education teacher and we were all in our groove. My gig was part time and I had a few hours to take care of whatever and everything was going smoothly. That's when stronger thoughts of adoption crept into my head, but I still wasn't sure. So I thought I'd scratch that itch and see if getting a dog instead would do the trick. And then a friend for the dog, a year later. Didn't work. Yeah I get it, not cool to compare adoption of a dog to adoption of a kid but there you go. I was looking at all the options and now we have two dogs and two girls who, according to reports, are terrified of dogs. So that's neat.

I won't bore you with pictures of our two corn snakes that preceded the dogs. Or did they? I forget. We got rid of the snakes before the first Home Study.