My first blog! My first post!

I have started to type three sentences only to delete them. It's my first post so I am feeling pressure to say something interesting! :) I guess I should start by saying that pursuing an adoption in China is something Dave and I have discussed for a while. In fact, before the boys were even around we went to an International Adoption meeting through Adoptions From The Heart. We wanted to learn about adoption so that we could include it in our plans to build our family. So the meeting was actually for people who were interested in adopting from the Ukraine. We knew from the get go that we were interested in China but we were excited and the Ukraine meeting was the first available. Dave and I were both impressed by the agency, specifically by the social worker that hosted the event. Some potential adopters were not very sensitive to adoption issues...actually they did not seem sensitive at all to us. Dave and I cringed when one woman asked if she didn't like the baby she was matched with could she just pick out another one at the orphanage...and then referred to it as "shopping for babies". I can't remeber what the social worker said exactly but we both remember her handling the situation with dignity and still somehow managing to educate this woman about the process. We left the meeting impressed with the agency and excited to see what would happen in our attempt to start a family. Well, the rest is history, as they say! You all know Evan, Ryan and Derek! Our three precious boys! Funny enough, our original plan was to have 3 children (2 hopefully through the biological route and 1 through the adoption route) Dave and I joke that we just got carried away! :) We had planned to start the adoption process sometime between when Derek was 1 to 2 years old, thinking that the process was still a year from start to finish. Well, I called that agency just to confirm the assorted fees that we would need to plan for and found that the wait was now around 2 years. Of course, I hung up and called Dave at work and we decided right then that we would send for the paperwork right away. That was the end of June- just 2 mos shy of Derek's first b-day. It is almost 5 mos later and our paperwork is somewhere between here and China, slowly being processed and our wait begins!