The road less traveled

First of all I will start out with the fact that I'm not a trained writer. Dan is the writer here and it will be obvious when he posts something, he is quite talented. I'm pretty factual in my writing and not always correct grammatically... I'm probably more of a technical writer(comes from my many years working as a RN). The road less traveled is really about how we came to adoption and to Miss Grace. I never thought in a million years that in my 40's I'd be parenting a child again. I was very fortunate to get pregnant quite easily with Nick in my mid 20's(oh, so long ago) and had an uneventful pregnancy, labor and delivery. I got divorced from Nick's Dad when Nick was 14 mos. old(won't go into the dramatic details presently). Later, I met Dan and fell in love, and we were married 3 yrs. later. To make a long story short, I went through years and years of time diagnosing and treating my infertility. I was on oral meds and shots, had multiple diagnostic and surgical procedures and pretty much did everything medically you can to get pregnant. What resulted was 3 miscarriages, a great deal of loss and heartache, and eventually realizing I didn't particularly WANT to be pregnant in my 40's. I remember sitting in my OB/Gyn's office at age 40, and him saying very kindly to me, "I'm so sorry Gail, but you will never be able to have a baby." I already pretty much knew that in my heart and by then was okay with having one child-Nick. But...time went on(about a year) and I happened to meet a new co-worker that I got to know. I found out that she was 50 and had 3 children, ages 5, 7, and 9. They were all adopted from Korea! A week later I met another woman at a class I was taking and she had just returned from China with a second daughter! It was one of those lightning bolt moments that come out of nowhere. I could do this! We began to research adoption and particularly international adoption because we knew most likely we wouldn't be picked by a birth mom through a domestic program here in the U.S. because we were in our 40's. I researched health issues. We looked at programs in Russia, Guatemala, China and Korea. We picked China. China. A country I knew very little about other than it was very far away. Fast forward 7 yrs. later and I know more about China than I know about my own ethnicity that is Swedish/German/English. I feel like I am Chinese--I really do. Now that may sound silly, but it's true. The road less traveled for us has been our journey to adoption and to our beautiful flower Grace and how this journey has made all the difference in our lives. Grace's Chinese name is Lan Li. It means "beautiful orchid." And she most definitely is beautiful inside and out. :)