As I look back through my life I realize that the idea to adopt started when I was young.  A family in our neighborhood had the opportunity to bring two children home from Vietnam to the US.  The children were malnourished and very shy.  I was asked if I might want to babysit them a few days each week for the summer.  I enjoyed taking care of these two children and watching them grow as they learned to eat new foods and adjust to a new culture and family.    I have always loved babies and children.   I  worked in a daycare while I was in high school.  I watched the infants and toddlers at the daycare.  I loved holding the sweet babies and playing with the toddlers.

My next encounter with adoption was with my youth leader in church.  She had some serious health issues in her life that prevented her from being able to bare children.  I was there through their heartaches as they tried to adopt and waited patiently for a child to become available.  I also was there to watch the excitement as they were able to adopt a little girl and little boy.  They were the joy of her life.  I saw a mother and father who yearned for children and then had an immediate bond when the child was placed in their arms.

My next encounter was a young man I dated in high school.  His parents were killed in a vehicle accident when he was a young boy.  He was placed in the foster care system.  He remained in the foster care system for many years.  He was eventually taken into a home and nurtured by a loving family that adopted him.  He was an older child  yet very kind and loving to his new parents and siblings.  He was so happy to have a family again.

I went to college where I met my sweetheart and we married.  We began our family three years later.  I had my checkup in Portland a week before we took off to Idaho to visit family there.  The Doctor said the baby had a strong heartbeat I was 19 weeks along.  A few days into our vacation in  Idaho I started bleeding vaginally. I knew something was terribly wrong. We went to the emergency room where the Doctor said “Are you sure you are pregnant?”  It was my first pregnancy and I was hardly showing he said there is  no heartbeat.  It was devastating.  I was away from my doctor and parents, in a strange state at an unfamiliar hospital.   It was a very difficult experience.  My husband knew the nurse that attended me during the operation.  She told us that our baby that died was a little boy.

My next pregnancy I carried to full term.  I gave birth to a baby boy arriving at 7 lbs. 6 oz. He had blond hair, blue eyes and the cutest baby on earth.  He brought us so much joy.  Two years later our second little boy arrived 10 days early weighing 6 lb.. 8 oz.   He was a healthy baby. He was the sweetest content little guy.  He was sleeping through the night at about three months.  He loved food and was so happy.  He rarely ever fussed.  These boys were the joy of our life.  I loved being a mom of sons.

A couple of years later at the christmas season, I was pregnant with my third little boy. I went to buy our family stockings for the fireplace.  The stockings I picked were cute  bear bears wearing a red suit. I wasn’t sure at the time how many children I would have but I bought four brown bear stockings and two black panda bear stockings.   I had always wanted a large family so six little bears seemed like a nice number.  Five months later I gave birth to my third son, three weeks early. He weighed 6 lbs. 2 oz.

My last son came only 19 months later, two months premature.  I was on a business trip with my husband in Lake Tahoe Nevada. I had taken a bath, gotten all ready for bedtime and had just fallen asleep when I was woken up because the bed was wet.  I woke my husband and said my water broke.  His response was it’s just the water from your bath.  You are fine.  I told him I am not fine, it is not bath water.  We were at the Hilton in Lake Tahoe on the California side.  My husband called down to the hotel office for a wheel chair.  They arrived very quickly.  They helped me into the car and we drove to the only hospital in Tahoe.  The hospital was one story and very small. A beautiful setting  in the mountains but not a hospital equipped for a premature delivery.  I was immediately checked into the hospital and we called my parents, my OBGYN and we began the scary wait.  We waited for some reassurance that everything was alright.  We rarely saw a doctor or nurse. They did not have a NICU at the hospital, I’m sure they were good at ski accidents. I stayed in the hospital for 24 hours before I started to get very sick and run a fever.  I had hardly even been checked by the doctor.  When he finally did a vaginal check they said this baby is breach and we cannot deliver a breach premature baby here.  A short time later I was in a life flight helicopter being flown to the Reno Nevada Medical center.  My husband got in our rental car and headed out to Reno after he watched his wife fly away in life flight.  I arrived at the hospital and my baby was coming out feet first.  Some quick preparations and I was in the operating room having an emergency C-section.   He arrived a healthy little boy at 5 lbs. He was surprisingly healthy for as early as he arrived.  I was full of infection and very sick, staying in the hospital in Reno for 9 days. My husband held the baby.  I have very little memory of even seeing the baby. My husband’s company so kindly sent a private jet to fly me and my baby home. I remained on IV’s until around Christmas time.  My little boy continued to get stronger and put on weigh at rates that surprised everyone.  He was off the size charts within six months.

We felt very blessed that we were able to have four beautiful sons.  The pregnancies and deliveries came with great scares and difficulties.  Four children is a nice size family and we had a great life.  I had always thought I would have more children but I didn’t realize the difficulties some women face when having children.  As my youngest son reached school age I once again began to yearn for a sweet baby. I knew that it was not an option for me to carry another baby because I had a hysterectomy after my fourth son.  My thoughts turned to my experiences of watching families who had adopted children and I began asking them questions and searching online for adoption agencies.  I finally went to my husband and expressed my desire to adopt a child.  His initial response was why?  We have four beautiful little boys and our fourth son has special needs but after much discussion and prayer my husband agreed to begin the adoption process.