The Backstory

A little background… we are the parents of two beautiful daughters- our youngest came home from Ukraine in 2001, when she was 4 years old.  For about ten years, I gave adoption just a passing thought, and then I started to feel nostalgic.  Not too long after the nostalgia, the desire to adopt again hit me! My husband didn't think we were meant to do it again, so I prayed and waited and advocated and, occasionally, dreamed.

Fast-forward a year. Just before Mother’s Day, I was powerfully hit by the desire to adopt… it seemed so real and exciting. I actually felt tingly.  Little did I know, the same day, Eric was making a decision. He was acknowledging the signs he’d been seeing, the change of heart he was feeling, and he was deciding.

 So when I showed broached the topic, and followed with something that could be interpreted as sarcastic, but I don’t think I meant it that way, and was really more a little desperate, anyway, when I said something along the lines of, “Not that it matters…”, he responded, “I wouldn't be so sure.” And left the room.

More tingles. Many questions.  “What do you mean?”

“I've been thinking.”

The next morning… he had to work and Em and I were going to a family party a couple of hours away… he said, as I left the bedroom, “If you want to get started on the home study, go ahead.”

!!!

That was a day of inner excitement, barely restrained. Surrounded by family, none  of whom knew what was going to happen (except Emmeline, who had some clues), anxious to get home and demand, “Do you really mean it?”, smiling to myself every time I thought about it… a long day- a good day, but a long one!

Here's the family, hanging out at a birthday party on May 12, having NO IDEA what thoughts are swirling in my head. 

And, yes! He did really mean it. And, boy, when Eric makes up his mind about something, hold on! He goes from zero to sixty in a couple of seconds. It was that way with our Ukrainian adoption, too.  Suddenly, he was excited, motivated, eager… what a Mother’s Day gift to me. J