So fortunate

Wow, when we look back at the last few weeks since we announced that we are adopting we realize how fortunate we are. Everyone has been so supportive. The positive responses with the joy and excitement that people have expresssed about our decision have been so uplifting! You all have been connecting us with adoption programs and other families that have adopted and sending us ideas so quickly! Yea and THANK YOU!

Another teacher at Akiva (also adopting) and I already had our first Parents Night Out and it was really well attended! This was helpful to parent's that needed care for their kiddo's during an event and great for us as we are both putting the earnings towards our adoptions.

In the meantime we have done more research and talked with more families that have adopted. After we get back from Illinois we are going to sit down with this new situation and the new information we have, pick an agency and fill out the application. YEA! We will have a country in mind when we choose the agency (they each tend to have a few country programs that are their strongest)but do not have to have a 100% decision right then. There are still some things we are trying to find out about some of them and we may not those yet.

So on this Thanksgiving we just wanted to say how much we appreciate your enthusiasm and input. This will continue to be an exciting and at times stressful process but with all of you all behind us we will be always know how much love that our child will have to come here too. What more could one ask to have in mind in times of stress! THANK YOU and we hope that you all had a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Love, Lisa and Mark

Welcome to the beginning...

Hello family and friends. We are about to embark on a journey called adoption. I thought about titling this entry "Mystery Baby" because that is our current status. We don't know exactly what agency (we've looked at a few) or exactly what country (looked a lots), but we do know we are going to adopt through an international organization. Using this blog can be a good way to keep you all up to date on any developments and keep the 10,000 word emails to a minimum.

So far all we really know is we want to do an international adoption. We have looked at many counties and we are currently trying to narrow down the list based on cost and length of time needed to complete the process. China would have been our first choice but current waits are 2 years and most agencies say anyone signing up now will be in for a much longer wait than that. Ethiopia and Kazakhstan are top of the list now, but we haven't ruled out others yet. We will be deciding soon so we can get the process started but we have to get a few things settled first. The Baby Blog will get much more interesting at that point I can assure you.

Well, that is all for now. I just wanted to say hello and let you know we are here. There will be more to come soon.

~Bye~