How Our Journey Began

Brian and I have always wanted 3 children. Then we had 2. Wow! What a difference Cade made in our lives. Cade has struggled with allergies since he was very little. The many, many cases of croup has worn us out. On top of that Owen has struggled to share Momma's lap with his brother. So, for good reasons we have struggled with the decision of 2 or 3!
Adoption is something I have always thought about just never knew when and if that would come about. In the Fall, Brian came home from a Bible Study and said he had been thinking about adoption. I was caught off guard, Brian has never really said much when I would mention adoption to him. It really came out of nowhere. A couple of months passed with nothing really being discussed about our future plans. As the New Year was approaching Brian and I talked about how we felt excited about the future and couldn't wait to see what God would do in our lives. In prayer we committed to Him that we would go and do anything He asked us. As life started to get to a new normal we started to talk about plans for our 3rd. Neither one of us had peace saying we would have another child naturally. It seemed like such an easy decision but for some reason we did not feel at peace with it nor did it feel right saying our family was complete. So after a lot of praying we decided to look into adoption. God really revealed a lot to us through this time. He really worked on our hearts and did not let this overwhelming feeling go away. Once we made the decision that this was the way God wanted us to go, it felt really good. Finally we felt relief and an inner peace in our decision. It really does feel good to know we are doing what God wants us to do! We know this is not going to be an easy process but we have faith that God will guide us every step of the way. He already has. We know that we have a lot to do to get our life ready for our new little addition, but we have faith that God will reveal this to us! We started researching adoption in February. We looked into all options(domestic, foster, international)and many different agencies. We attended an informational meeting held by one agency and called agencies with many questions. We decided to adopt internationally in China. One night as we were researching we watched an online video of a couple that adopted a Special Needs child. Our hearts and eyes were really opened to children who are overlooked due to, in most cases, having minor disabilities. We prayed about adopting a special needs child and decided that is what God wanted us to do. We probably will adopt a girl.... We are going to meet with a doctor specializing in International Adoptions to discuss the minor disabilities that are operable once in the United States. On April 16th, I delivered our application to the Villa Hope International Adoption Agency for the Special Needs China Program. We met with them on April 21st for our first meeting. We received a lot of paperwork and a long To Do list. So...this is how our journey started.