To New Friends: Adoption is Wonderful

If you have ever met Ellie or Sagan you know. You just know. They were always meant to be ours. (No matter how many times Sagan Amelia Zanegood flushes things down the toilet!)

A lifetime of dreaming of having a family of our own.

Two years of infertility, endocrinologists, and science experiments at the University of Miami.

One year, one very long and painful year, of coming to the realization that biological children would be impossible.

One bright day in EPCOT seeing 3 Asian adopted children and just once walking up to ask, "How?"

One phone call to Wide Horizons for Children (www.whfc.org) and speaking to Maryanne.

Another phone call (12.31.03) after 8 months of waiting to hear, "You have a daughter."

11 weeks later (March 11, 2004) flying to China and picking up our daughter Ellie.

It's not about biology. It's not about the money.

It's all about creating a family.

I had the privilege of sharing Ellie's China story with her 1st grade class a couple of weeks ago and I told them, "People tell us how lucky Ellie is to have us as parents. To have adopted her from China and brought her home to the US. But the most basic truth is that Fred and I are the lucky ones. We could never have created anything as wonderful as Ellie. We are the lucky ones. "