Sunday, August 22, 2010

the beginning of our story...

It is hard to know where to start...with Ron and I or with John...

Ron and I were married in April of 2007.  We were "older singles" who met on Eharmony with him living in Colorado Springs, CO and me living in Orlando, FL.  Mostly we owe the "success" of our romance to our wonderful, loving God ...however, Sprint and Delta's red-eye flights to Orlando also contributed.  Since neither of us had been married before, we had no children.  Being older we talked about adopting children before we ever married.  I had always wanted to adopt from China and Ron enthusiastically embraced that vision volunteering his cousin Cindy to help, since she had adopted two girls from China.

Applying to adopt from China required us to be married at least two years.  So, we started our adoption journey with a small domestic agency out of Denver.  We were impressed by this agency's care for Birth Moms and we were quickly caught up with their spiritual approach.  I still remember their exhortation that they expected Ron and I to pray for the Birth Mom of the child we got every day for the rest of our lives.  The impact of this expectation had a profound effect on us and we began praying every night for our child's Birth Mom.

We waited two years to be chosen by a Birth Mom...praying...hoping...waiting.  After our 2nd wedding anniversary we felt it was time to pursue China. Finding out that due to our ages we would only be able to apply for a "Waiting Child" (meaning medical special needs) caused us to do some concerted research.

In December 2009, we were presented (through e-mail) with a 13 month old boy named Shi Jie Dang.  He was born premature with a cleft lip and cleft palette.  He was abandoned by his parents when he was 30 days old.

Shi Jie (we named him John which I will also post about...) was born on Nov. 22, 2008.  Due to our domestic adoption process, we began to pray for the Birth Mom of our child in February 2008 - the very month that John's Mom got pregnant.  Someday we can literally tell him that we prayed for him every day of his life - including his gestation period.

PS.  The pictures posted are 1) the first picture we saw of Shi Jie, Dec. 2009; taken when he was 8 months old.  2) The photo of Ron and I was taken Dec. 2009.