Charlie and I met at work and had the atypical office romance. Winks across the conference tables, stoken kisses in the boardroom, and all of the no-nos that HR informs you of. We kept it a secret as long as possible, but when the time came, we shouted from the rooftops with joy. Imagine our dismay when not everyone returned our excitement. No one was angry, thank goodness, and luckily there was no actual policy against fraternizing with a co-worker, but there were simply a couple of girls who thought they should have a shot at Charlie themselves. After all, Charlie was new on the market after a recent divorce, and it wasn't fair of me to hog his attentions. Nevermind that I was also recently divorced and we were complete opposites.
We moved in together before we even went on our first official date and we bought a house together, which was a feat in California, before we were engaged. Needless to say, our relationship started in a rather non-traditional manner. We even married in an unusual way. Charlie grabbed his best friend and I grabbed mine, and we all flew to Hawaii for our beach wedding. While the whales breached in the background, Charlie and I said our I dos complete with Hawaiian leis and the hony-hony, which most of us know as an Eskimo Kiss. We topped the evening off with champagne on the beach in our wedding attire. There has never been a more perfect and fun day for us.
In our now four years of marriage, we have made every effort to keep things interesting and full of spark. Our careers, our friends, and our lifestyle made our lives exactly what we wanted. We have enjoyed multiple passport-required vacations and speak conversationally in multiple languages. Our careers brought in plenty of money and our vehicles were top of the line. We thought we had it all, but there was always something missing. For me it was a dark hole and for Charlie it was a nagging feeling. Kids - we wanted to share our life with a family. We weren't getting any younger either. But with Charlie's travel schedule and my extra-long commute, we always came up with an excuse. Sometimes it was my excuse and sometimes it was Charlie's. We both wanted kids though - how much we wanted kids simply depended on the time of day.
We stopped preventing pregnancy and I started doing all of the appropriate health-related maintenance items so that our children would have the best possible start in life. No alcohol, no caffeine, no medication, no foods from the do-not-eat list, daily exercise, and a fantastic pre-natal vitamin all became part of my daily credence. And for the record, that split second you have that first monthly cramp when you are trying for a baby is the worst split second you can imagine. But that feeling quickly dissipates, which is what makes you want to try again.
Pregnancy was never something that Charlie and I truly looked forward to - me for the possible physical and psychological complications and Charlie for the rumored high maintenance pregnant wife issues. What we really wanted was to be parents. In speaking with my friends and family, there seem to be two outlooks on babies - those who want to be pregnant and those who want to be parents. Don't get me wrong, I hope to someday experience pregnancy and everything that goes with it, and it is our hope that we can do so without medical intervention. But pregnancy is not our first priority. Charlie and I wanted the privilege and the challenge of starting and raising a family, regardless of how that family gets started.
Charlie's many travels had taken him all over the world and the "tourist attraction" that most caught his attention was an orphanage in Africa. Because of these travels, we have many friends all over the globe and have had the pleasure of seeing all kinds of families and watching and playing with kids from all over. After Charlie's visit to the orphanage and after he relayed the stories and the pictures to me, it became so important to us to think of and pray for these children. Being Americans, we had no concept of a newborn baby not being adopted immediately and having a waiting list years long behind those specific adoptive parents. In many of the countries we visited, the exact opposite is the reality. Our standard saying became "we wish we could take him/her/them home with us." Not just because we could provide a loving, two-parent home, but because we could learn so much from him or her. Our world would be opened up.
In our atypical fashion, adoption became a real possibility for us over dinner. We had not done any real research on it, but sitting there enjoying our salads, we experienced a real spark. The kind of spark that is always with you. Let's adopt - how about China? And so we sat down to make a decision.
