Weekend in Review and What about China?

Jack, the serious driver.

On Saturday night, I enjoyed a rare girlie night with a group of fun ladies. After they finished scrap booking (I was happy to watch and not mess up their creative process), we played games. Let me tell you...I LOVE games. As a child, my requirement for a future mate was that he love playing games. Well, I fell in love with a guy who doesn't play games so I jump at the chance at doing so with family and friends. My girlfriends and I played the Bananagram game and a couple of other games that I had never played before. Lots of fun!

"Racing is hard work."

On Sunday, Jack and I went to Bonkers and met with a group of people who have completed international adoptions. One couple has adopted from Vietman and is going to Thailand to adopt their second child at the end of this month. Another dear friend of mine and her husband have adopted from China. As you may know, we have been waiting four years (it will be five in July) for a referral from China.

Infertility sucks. There's no reason to sugar coat it. But at the same time, God has given us such a wonderful way to start our family. This is how our journey began: a couple of years into our marriage, we talked with our wonderful social worker at Lutheran Family Children Services who suggested we look into China. The agency's domestic adoption program took a couple of years to get into the pool. At the time, China's adoption program only took a year or less. It didn't matter to us where we adopted from. We just wanted a child of our own so we decided to apply to China. 

When the China program began to slow down, God brought Jack and his wonderful birth family into our lives. As China's program continued to slow down, we decided to apply to an agency for domestic adoption. And now we are blessed to have Liam and his birth family in our lives.

So, where is China with its program now? Over the past couple of years, China has seemed to put an emphasis on its special needs program. In fact, special needs adoptions from China have increased while adoptions from the traditional program have slowed down to a trickle. China has placed children with families of log-in dates up to June 9, 2006. Our log-in date is July 7, 2006. This may mean that we receive our referral this summer and travel in the fall. We will see how things progess over the next few months.

In the meantime, we are enjoying life with the boys. Sometimes I feel like pinching myself and saying, "I'm a parent? Really? But it's so much fun!" Of course, it's hard work too but I have such a blast with my boys. Tonight, Jack and I made a snowman while Mike took care of Liam.

And as long as good health remains in my life, I get to continue to do these fun things with my boys. What a lucky momma!