A New Beginning

My husband Chuck and I got married in October 2003, when I was 33 and he was 39. We decided, despite being "older" newlyweds, to take a year for ourselves before starting our family.

Suffice it to say that it wasn't as easy as we hoped.

However, here we are after riding the rollercoaster of infertility treatments, ready to grow our family in a different way: adoption. It's something that's always been in the back of our heads. We're no strangers to adoption. Chuck and his sister were both adopted, and I nannied for a family whose daughter was adopted (and mom was adopted, too).

We are working with two adoption agencies, because we will ultimately be adopting from an agency in the Chicago area. This might seem odd, since we live in the suburbs of Boston, but we are going to adopt from the same agency from which Chuck and his sister were adopted. Kind of an unusual family tradition, but hey - we're an unusual family! We started the ball rolling with the local agency by attending an informational session in February.

At this point, we have been through three of the four necessary home study interviews, and have completed the lion's share of the paperwork (which is considerable). We have some online classes to take, as well as a four-hour class with the agency. After that, we have a home visit. Two months from today - perhaps sooner - our home study should be complete!