Perfect!

So we've decided to adopt, now what. How do we go about this? Who do we work with? What kind of child is right for us? Which country will we choose? So many unanswered questions.

Why international adoption? We have decided to adopt internationally for a number of reasons. As an adoptee, I have serious concerns about the way adoptions are handled domestically. I do, however, strongly support the foster program, but with two little guys in our home, foster to adopt is not a feasible option for us at this time.

The big issue is finding an adoption agency. After lots of googling and reading, I found a few agencies that may work for us. A little more research and I've found an agency that will be perfect for us. It's a non-profit agency, run by parents, offers programs for countries we're interested in and gets stellar reviews from anyone and everyone. Perfect! Let's do this!

In the meantime I'm also researching all I can in my post-Parker bedtime hours ... he goes to sleep, I pull out the ipad and start learning all I can about international adoption. Again, I'll leave out the specifics but I've researched enough that I know we want to adopt from a country who was party to the treaty signed in the Hague. A tidbit is below and read more if you care to. Our main concern was adopting from a country whose processes were set and predictable and to adopt a true orphan, for which no family members exist are could be located. i.e. we want to make sure we aren't buying a child. Believe me, it happens, and it happens a lot.

The Hague Adoption Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption (Hague Adoption Convention) is an international agreement to safeguard intercountry adoptions. Concluded on May 29, 1993 in The Hague, the Netherlands, the Convention establishes international standards of practices for intercountry adoptions. The United States signed the Convention in 1994, and the Convention entered into force for the United States in April 2008.

Why, you may ask, are we not interested in newborns. It's twofold. We've had the amazing opportunity to become parents to beautiful, perfect and healthy newborns. Sure we struggled here and there. We could get pregnant by looking at each other, staying pregnant was a little tough though. We lost our first at 7 1/2 weeks, our third at just over 10 weeks and our fourth within weeks. Thankfully baby 2 became our older son and baby 5 became our little guy. Those struggles are nothing compared to the years other couples spend trying everything they can to have a "baby." That's reason enough for them to be allowed the opportunity to have an infant. The flip side is that there are so many older children who need families. We've had it easy. Perfect, healthy babies. We don't need perfect and we don't need a baby. We'll take the slightly older, slightly "imperfect" because she'll be just perfect to and for us.

So now we're set. We have found an agency and we have decided on the type of child. Now we need to start cracking. We need to find out how to make this happen. And we need to figure out the country. Coming up next on the colvin 5!

The beginning

Colvin 4 Christmas Eve 2011 ... Christmas Eve 2012 will be an even cuter photo opp!

I started this blog a while back as a way to vent about motherhood .. the good and the bad. I've since deleted the posts because they weren't interesting or unique and nobody read them because I wasn't willing to share. Just getting it out on "paper" was good enough for me.

But now my intentions are different. I would like to share our journey with you. The journey that will lead us to our daughter. We have decided to adopt and to many of you that will not be a surprise because you know me and know that I, too, was adopted. To other friends and family (in-laws) we'll catch you up to speed.

When Parker and I first got serious about our relationship and started talking about our future family, he said he wanted 5 kids. 5 what? Are you serious? Who in their right mind in this day and age wants 5 kids? Who are you and where did you come from? After many, many conversations with who was at that time a hard headed career woman who had considered on many occasions maybe never becoming a mother, he talked me into having 2 of our own biological children, being open to considering a third, and my part of the negotiations involved being open to adoption. Once we had our first son Chase, I was sold on this mothering business. Sure I had those days that all moms do. I was tired, even exhausted to the point of delirium at times. And I got both bored and overwhelmed. But at the end of the day I couldn't imagine my life without him and couldn't imagine leaving him in anyone's arms but my own. As is my type a personality I was going to rock this mothering business! We're now at the point that we're kind of coasting. Our boys are happy, healthy, well adjusted, dress themselves, use the potty on their own, eat with utensils. We're finally a civilized household again. Well, for now.

We had been living in the city (San Francisco) and I'll spare you the details but the city private school track wasn't for us. We wrestled with it. It would have provided much opportunity for our kids, much more than either of us had been given in our modest, small-town childhoods, but along with that came what felt was an insurmountable task of keeping them grounded and letting them experience a more, to us, normal or maybe traditional childhood. And honestly, I got to the point that I wondered what in the hell we were doing... these kids need a yard, they need friends down the street they can run around with, they need .. NORMAL! I needed it too. So almost a year ago we decided that we would put our house up for sale in the spring and move back to the burbs in time for Chase to start kindergarten in a public school. But we couldn't tell anybody because the school process is so competitive that if we leaked it to the wrong ears, surely someone would sabotage us and let the schools in on it and if we weren't able to sell our home, which was a huge possibility given the market, than we may have been stuck there with no school for Chase to attend! Thankfully we sold our house pretty quickly, in just over a week. The buying side was more difficult though. After we came in second on one house and lost out to an all cash offer on the second house we started to stress a bit. Then one night Parker just up and said I think we should start looking into adoption now. WTF? Now? Right now, really? We don't have a home and we don't even know where we're going to land and right now you think it's appropriate to just start looking at something that will change the course of our lives? Such boy brains. But that's my practical side. The emotional side of me teared up and said really, you're ready? I had kind of resigned myself to the thought that we would just be a 4 person family and as much as I wanted to adopt, I was fine with that because it's a little too much to ask for... We had it all. But, we're about to get more because we've been working since that night on the process and the journey that will bring us a little girl who we affectionately refer to around here as "baby sister."

And so it begins!