Our daughter Ella was born via a surrogate. We were beyond blessed to have her. She looks a little like me and (ugh) acts a lot like me. Its so fun to see a little version of yourself walking around the world. There are still days that I think how amazing it would be to be pregnant, to have a little Jason, or to have another Ella. I will always wonder what that would have been like. Recently we looked into surrogacy again. We made some calls and talked to some friends and an agency. It just didn't look to be a great option for us for many different reasons. Around the same time, I brought up the idea of another adoption to Jason. I wasn't closed off to the idea of surrogacy AND adoption again. For some reason I love to jumble 50 things together at once- my brain isn't happy unless its operating at maximum capacity! So when we decided against surrogacy, I was still considering adoption. We ended up looking into multiple programs and agencies. The Russian program shut down several years after Maks' adoption was finalized so that was no longer an option. There are adoption programs from several countries available, including the US- however I have always felt called to adopt from China. I don't know why, I've always been fascinated with their country and culture and have thought since I was a young girl that I would one day adopt from China. So when we opened ourselves up to the idea again, I was immediately drawn to that program. The only program that exists today in China is the Special Needs program. Special Needs can mean a lot of different things and it required us to sit down with our Doctor, review a full medical list and mark off what we thought we would be capable of dealing with as a family. Luckily we have an amazing pediatrician who is very supportive, honest and knowledgeable and he spent some time with us explaining everything. Some things that seem scary, really aren't and some things that don't, really are. We have decided to work with Holt International as our adoption agency. They are one of the largest agencies in the world and have an excellent, long standing China program. We are currently in the process of completing our home study and dossier to send to China. Once those are complete, we will begin what I think is the absolute worst part of the adoption process, the waiting. It may take 5-6 months to be matched with a child. The things we do know are that we will be adopting a little girl between the ages of 1 month and 24 months old. She will have some sort of special need, but we don't know what that might be yet.
When we went through our adoption with Maks, I had created a blog to keep all of our friends and family up to date and thought it might be fun to do the same this time around but with a slightly different purpose. Jason's Aunt Judy ended up printing Maks' entire blog into a book when we brought Maks home so we have all of those memories documented for him to read through when he's older. I wanted the same thing for our daughter. Looking back, its so hard to remember what we did and how I felt at every stage of the adoption and I'm so happy to have it all documented for Maks-pictures and all. I guess if there was anything I want our daughter to know about how I'm feeling right now it is this- I'm working very hard and as quickly as I possibly can to get to you. My heart already knows you are out there and it aches every day because you are not with us. I have known for a long time that you were meant to be my daughter and I was meant to be your Mommy. I'm sorry I can't be with you right now, I would give anything to change that. Just know baby girl, we are on our way.
Our Family of Four Today
