Outnumbered

Back in January 08, we began to consider a third but the big joke was that if we did that, we would be outnumbered and were we up to that? It didn't take us long to decide yes although the summer before this, we really felt done. You just never know what God has planned. So, as I was thinking of a title for my blog, it was the first one I came up with. Of course, we've yet to travel and come home with the third so the "love it" part is total faith!! LOL.

Many of you who will be reading this know our story. But for those who don't, I'd thought I'd go back a bit and give you the beginning of how we got here.....three adoptions later and almost 10 years of marriage. It's been the best decade of my life so far!

Matt and I: We met at church in Oct 98, had our first date on Dec 4 and got engaged on Feb 6, 99 just 8 weeks later. Matt had purchased my ring just a month after that first date. (I have come to realize that we will meet Mason on Feb 6...a good date it seems). My closest friends thought I was crazy because I usually didn't fly by the seat of my pants but as the saying goes, you know when you know. It was really the first time I said, "sure I'll follow this guy" and chose not to control the whole thing. He gave me the best first date ever and I was totally enamored. I remember asking him if I could carry anything (he had planned a picnic and then a night of candlelight carolling at Bok Tower) and he said, "no, but can I hold your hand?" I think I was pretty sold from the get go! We spent the next 8 months planning for our Oct 99 wedding.

We wanted to wait a year before trying to get pregnant. Then, after a year of trying with no success, we learned it would be difficult to do this on our own. In vitro was a brief (like a couple of days literally) consideration but we were uncomfortable with some of the ethical issues involved with that. So, in May 02, we began pursuing adoption and quickly decided on international over domestic and had chosen China and our agency, Chinese Children Adoption International or CCAI. In July 02, we began the arduous task of completing our dossier. Our dossier went to China in Nov 02 and we waited. We were expecting a wait of about 15 months for our referral so we were guessing around Feb 04. Then SARS hit in May 03 and shut things down for 6 weeks. We were devastated thinking this would delay us further. But, in God's sufficient timing, we received our referral on Sept 8, 03. She was Lin Xiao and would become our Madalyn Grace Xiao. She had the sweetest lips. She was the baby that made me a mama and we were in love. Here is her referral pic:

And this is her now:

She is delightful, smart, beautiful, tender, bossy, classically "first born", creative, funny, and loving. She is intuitive to others. I was a very lucky first time mama.

We knew from the beginning we at least wanted two so after being home from China with Madalyn for a year, we submitted paperwork for a sister. We waited just 10 months to receive our referral for Mei Fu Kang who would become Mackenzie Paige Kang and traveled again in Oct 05 to pick her up. Here is her referral pic:

And here she is now:

Where do I begin? She is our sugar and spice girl, always smiling, full of it, loves to be the baby but wants to be a big girl, is very nurturing, loves her babies, has total attitude, is sassy beyond my expertise, and brings us total joy.

So, here we are, about to get a son. We are looking forward to a little more testosterone to balance out all this estrogen! More on how we picked Ethiopia later. You might be wondering where his picture is. I can't post any pics of him on the internet until after our US Embassy appt in Ethiopia so stay tuned. Trust me, he is handsome and totally edible. I am hoping to blog from there but we'll see........

Finally Did It

I finally created a blog! This is one of those things I've considered for a while now but felt overwhelmed at the idea of creating and maintaining one. I also considered them a bit arrogant (although I follow a few and don't think that about them) thinking, "who wants to know what I'm doing, what my kids are doing, what I'm thinking" and so on. But here I am.

This is really being born out of my desire to allow friends and family to follow our trip to Ethiopia to pick up our son, Mason. We leave in seven days and are very excited. We have a lot to do but I hope to keep you all in the loop as we prepare.

So, this first post is really a quick welcome and invitation to join us in our journey to add our third, a son, to our family. I'll write more about us, our girls, and how we got here later but until then....I'm humbled by your interest but happy to have you along for the ride.........