More Pictures of Allie

This is the story of how Allie came home to us. At the end you will find a list of adoption related links. We made the decision to adopt after the heartbreaking loss of our daughter, Marissa, who was stillborn on October 3, 1996. In February 1997 I started to look into adoption for the first time ever. I surfed the web looking for any crumb of information that I could find. I was terrified of the birth mother issues in the US, so I decided that international adoption was for us. After a little pushing I got my husband Pat to start thinking about adoption. We reviewed the country choices and decided on India. We wouldn't have to travel and the program wasn't as expensive as some of the others. I got back on the net and requested information packets from all agencies that had that program. I then joined the ICHILD email group, a group specific to adopting from India. We reviewed the information sent to us and filled out the application for the agency we had chosen. That weekend, February 22-23, our church ran an announcement in the bulletin. There was a perfectly healthy African American baby girl that had been born in February and was in need of a home. We quickly decided that race didn't matter to us, we just wanted a baby to hold and to love.

I called the adoption facilitator on Monday and we got along really well. She in turn called the agency and told them about us. We didn't get to talk to the adoption lawyer until Wednesday the 26th. Wednesday night we met our little girl at her foster home. She just stole our hearts away the minute we saw her! She had a full head of very curly hair, bright big green/brown eyes, and chubby little cheeks. We also met the adoption lawyer that night. He gave us a stack of papers to sign as well as guidelines for the paperwork that needed to be completed. As soon as we got home we sat down and signed the papers. We just knew that we were meant to be Allie's parents. Our fear of birth mother issues became a thing of the past. For the next 2 days we ran around and collected as much of the necessary documentation as we could. We spent Saturday night with our social worker doing the interview part of our homestudy. It was one long night, but at the end she told us we were approved! On Tuesday, March 4, the one necessary background check that had to be completed, came through. The agency called us and said we could bring Allie home. We were so excited!

The Sunday after we brought Allie home, our friends threw us a huge baby shower. Everyone was so excited that we finally had a baby in our lives. A handful of people were concerned that we are now a biracial family, but have since told us how happy they are for us. Our African American neighbors have come together and told us that Allie is officially a neighborhood baby. We have their complete support and if we ever need help all we need to do is ask. We will be forever grateful to them.

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