The Beginning!!!

We are going to start from the beginning to give you a brief run-down of our whole adoption process to get our baby girl Olivia. With us not being able to have anymore children, we thought that we had our perfect family with our 3 boys, Zackery, Cameron and Chase, but in our hearts, we really felt like there was something missing. We had thought about adoption, but because of the cost, we dismissed it. Then in 2004, Alana came into our lives. I was watching kids in our home and Julie, Alana's mom, was told that I watched kids, so she called. Alana had been adopted from China and was with her forever loving family in Nov. 2003, so placing her with someone to be watched was a HUGE deal. God chose our family to be blessed with that task. From the moment Alana came into our home, she overtook our hearts. She is even to this day, a VERY special little girl to all 5 of us and all of our family members. She is intelligent, silly, full of energy and oh so beautiful. She has absolutely wonderful, caring and attentive parents who adore her with all their hearts!After watching her for a little over a year, Anthony and I started talking about adoption. Then, in March of 2005, Julie called and told us that there was an adoption seminar in Memphis and just wanted to let us know!!! Well, we talked and decided that it wouldn't hurt to just go and listen,...needless to say, God spoke in a real way to both of us during this seminar. As we left, we got in the van and Anthony looked at me and said, "Well?" I said, "I am all for it, it's you that need to make the final decision!" And at that point, he looked at me and said, "Let's do it!!" We both cried and thus starts the whole LOONNGG process of our adoption from China. Despite the financial and emotional burden that would take place, we felt God's leading that strong!