Xander's little sister

When I met Jason it wasn't love at first sight, at least not for me.  I had no interest in pursuing a relationship with anyone and when he asked me out, I immediately said no.  I had every detail of my life planned and I just didn't see any room for romance.  This did little to deter him and within a seven-month span he asked me out 14 times.  Finally, I begrudgingly went out with him.  We ended up dating seriously afterwards. He always treated me like he won the lottery and was the unexpected surprise within my well planned out life.  I don't know when it happened, but my life went from being an I to becoming a We.  I can't imagine my life without him now. After 4 years of dating, we became engaged.

Before we got married we discussed everything.  I wanted four kids. He wanted two.  We compromised on three.   We also discussed adoption.  We knew that there was the possibility that we might not be able to have children naturally.  We decided to try to conceive naturally for the first child and then we would adopt the last two.  When we got married we immediately tried to start a family.  We tried for three years.  We went to a fertility specialist and we were told that I had endometriosis and that it had damaged things beyond repair.  I was never going to be able to conceive a child naturally.  He also told us that IVF would have a limited chance of working and if I did get pregnant it would come with a lot of complications and great risk to my health.  I thought about IVF and conceiving a child.  I also thought about my mother.  I watched my mom go through over 13 miscarriages trying to have her last child.  It was an emotional rollercoaster for the entire family and even though eventually she had my little brother, I knew that IVF wasn't for me.  I wanted to be a mother.  I understood that I didn't need to be pregnant to be a mom.  We decided that we were meant to adopt all our kids. 

We poured our soul and all our resources into our first adoption. We scrimped and saved.  We jumped through a series of hoops and paperwork, home studies to adopt.  We chose to adopt in Russia because my husband's family is of Russian descent.  We thought it would be an excellent choice for us.   In 2006, we got matched with the most beautiful boy I had laid eyes on.  We went to Siberia and adopted a beautiful baby boy, Xander, who is bright and full of energy.

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Orphanage adoptions have some difficulties.  My son was a year and ½ behind on speech.  He needed eye surgery for his eyes.  He had minor developmental delays and needed occupational therapy for those delays.  We spent a lot of money on speech therapy and occupational therapy to give him what he needed to thrive.  Right now he is 8 years old and excelling in school.  He enjoys everything about his life and is very happy he is our son.  "Thank goodness I was adopted." He says.  "I am so happy to be an American.  I love that you are my parents.  You are the best parents.  I am very happy".  He beams. 

The only thing he thinks is missing from our family is siblings.  He has been asking for a sister since he was 4 years old and would like to have another child."I am ready to be a good big brother", he keeps telling me. While, we have never been sad at the inability to have conceive, it is frustrating that we can't just go and decide to have a child.  It takes a lot of money to adopt.  There are fees that you need to pay up front to an agency, a lot of paperwork that costs money, a home study is needed to prove that you are a fit parent, you need medical evaluations, psychiatric evaluations, airfare to see the referral and then the final adoption fees.  The fees are a bit daunting and we would like a tiny bit of help to take a child that needs a home and give her a family that would love her for a lifetime.

We want the ability to take the first step towards adoption again.  With even the tiniest of help towards initial agency fees, we could make the leap towards becoming a larger family.  Both of us are great parents.  Our son is happy and healthy.  He sees so many of his friends with siblings and he wants to be a good big brother to his future siblings.  We know that if we continue to wait, we may never give Xander the opportunity to be a brother.  Please help us take our first step and we will do the rest.