And So It Begins...

Hi all! Thank you for joining us on this roller-coaster ride known as adoption. Most of you know our background but I'll give a brief overview for those of you that don't know the details.
I'm Allison and my DH is Stu. With live in a small town in the south with our two young sons, S. (who just turned 4) and M. (2 1/2). Stu and I met at college in the fall of 1994; we dated off and on throughout college and married in May 2000. We are both from big families so having children was always something we discussed. Our plan was to wait a year and then begin our family. Well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans...We had several family tragedies within a year of our wedding and it took us awhile to regroup. We finally decided we were ready for children and started trying for a baby...and trying...and trying. After 9 or 10 months, we decided to do some basic testing to see what the problem was. No problem was found so we started some very basic treatment. We decided to take al ittle vacation to de-stress and vowed not to talk about what our next step would be. As we were waiting in the airport for our flight, we noticed a large group of people gathering. They all had welcome home signs and American flags. We figured that it was a soldier returning home and couldn't tear our eyes away from this joyous homecoming. Eventually a couple with a little boy in their arms walked out and the crowd erupted in cheers. We didn't know the details (although we found out the specifics later since the couple were friends of our social worker), but we could tell this family was bringing home their newly-adopted son. Stu and I almost missed our flight because we were so wrapped up in watching this family introduce their new son. We boarded the plane and couldn't stop talking about adoption for the rest of the vacation. So much for not talking about our next step! But there was no ignoring this huge sign; this was the path we were supposed to take. We got home, chose an adoption agency (Children's Hope International - they rock!), completely the home study in record time, and sent our dossier to Russia in early-November 2003. By mid-December we were in Russia meeting S. for the first time and he became part of our family in January 2004. We knew immediately that we would adopt again; we wanted S. to have a brother close in age. So in June 2005 we sent our dossier to Russia (the same region S. is from), requesting another little boy. We met our M. in October 2005 and brought him home in November 2005. It has been a wild ride and these two keep us busy, but we can't imagine our lives without them. Anyway, that's a "quick" wrap-up fo where we are today.