Our journey begins

I remember one of the first dates Matt and I ever had. We laid on the grass outside to watch shooting stars on a freezing cold night. Despite having grown up in the same small town, there was so much that we didn't know about one another. We talked and talked and talked and ended up talking about the subject of some day having kids. At that time, we both thought it would be a good idea to adopt. I found it fascinating that he was interested in adoption like me, which is probably one of the reasons I ended up marrying him a few years later. 

The idea of adoption continued on in the background for us over the next several years as our journey carried us around the world to Taiwan. We went there to teach and to partner with OMF, a mission agency. Honestly, prior to going to Taiwan, all I knew was that sometimes (as a student worker in the International Office at Western Oregon University) that mail going to Taiwan would have to be labeled "Taiwan R.O.C."

Here we are at one of our favorite restaurants in Kaohsiung,
where we lived in Taiwan. It looks out over the sea. 

We fell in love with Taiwan and the main incredible friends we made there. In fact, what was going to be a one year stay turned into four! During our time there, we met friends who had a home for women with crisis pregnancy needs. Of course, that turned into also being an orphanage as some of the women chose to give birth, but didn't have the means to care for their baby. It was at that point that we determined that some day, when it came time to adopt, we would plan to do so from Taiwan.

Zip forward a few more years now. We moved back to the U.S. in 2010. I was pregnant with our first daughter, Grace, not long after we returned.

Pregnant with Grace. 

This was taken on the day Abby was born. 

Grace was born in May of 2011. Shortly after that, we planned to apply for adoption from our friend's orphanage in Taiwan. We received news back that we would have to wait until Grace was a year old before applying. This, as we later learned, is pretty common in the adoption world because it gives each child their own space to bond with the family.

After Grace turned a year old, we were mentally preparing to adopt when we found out I was pregnant with our second daughter, Abigail.  She was born in 2013.

Grace Evelyn at 18 weeks old. 

Abigail Jane at 10 months old. 

Some people thought we were a little crazy to have our girls 21 months apart. I can verify that at some points, it was a little crazy, but I wouldn't trade their friendship and sisterhood for anything. They are truly the sweetest of friends.

So how did we decide to go from two beautiful little girls to something a little bigger? More on our adoption journey in my next post.