When we first decided that adoption was the way we were going to build our family, I became obsessed with reading about all the success stories and I couldn’t wait to be one of them. I thought, as soon as it happens my husband and I will write down the journey that brought us our precious angel. Well, here it is 7 months later and we are finally getting around to telling our story.

Steve and I, through circumstances beyond our control, were unable to conceive a child naturally. But, deciding to build our family through adoption seemed so natural to us. We knew that we had so much love to give to a child and that child would always be surrounded by people who loved him or her.

We started our home study process in December of 2007. We knew the process would take months to complete but we were prepared to wait as long as it took to start our family. Surprisingly the time went by fairly quickly; I assume it was because of all the prep work we needed to do that kept us occupied. Throughout this time, my husband would constantly remind me that it could take a months, maybe even years and that we needed to be patient and not get our hopes up.

We became “active” with American Adoptions in March of 2008. I remember the day as my husband and I went out that evening to celebrate. We toasted to the fact that we were “expecting”. We didn’t know how long it would take but we were just as elated as if I had been told I was pregnant. We were waiting for a child and we didn’t know who or when but we did know that we would be a family in the future.

Then on Monday, June 2^nd, a friend of ours came over to visit for the afternoon. At the time, my friend was 7 months pregnant. I remember as she came around the corner I touched her very pregnant belly. The rest of the day seemed to become a blur. She no sooner got into the house and my telephone rang.

I saw, through caller ID, that it was American Adoptions. I am not quite sure what went through my mind after that as I was so overcome with joy and excitement I think I actually forgot to breathe. A birth mother specialist was on the other end and she said she had a match for us. I do remember asking if I could conference in my husband and we did. We were told about the match situation and we were asked if we could be on a plane Tuesday (the very next day) because the birth mother was being induced on Wednesday morning. Again, everything after that call became a blur as we had to scramble to get things ready, we needed to make travel arrangements, buy stuff for the baby and call everyone we knew. Our daughter was going to be born!

We took the last flight out on Tuesday evening and arrived at midnight. Just as we were about to exit the plane, my cell phone rang. Our birth mother’s water broke and she was already at the hospital in labor. Our daughter, Alexis Lee, was born on June 4^th at 6:33am!

I am not sure if there are any words to describe the joy, happiness and love we have for our daughter and how we became a family. I also don’t know if we can ever be grateful enough to the birth parents for their strength and courage to make the decision that allowed us to become a family. We just know that they will always have a special place in our hearts!