Going back a bit. . .

How did we come to adoption?

Dan and I have talked about adopting since before we were married. It is something we always knew would be part of our lives, whether we could have biological children or not. Obviously that wasn't a problem for us - we have two gorgeous bio kids, Madeline and Myles (3.5 and 2).

We began researching adoption last summer, talking to a local agency we were familiar with, and deciding what would be a good fit for our family. We decided against domestic adoption because it felt like we would be "competing" with folks that were not able to have bio kids.

My sister, Jaime, volunteered in India (Chennai) for a few months last year, and we fell in love with the pictures she was sending back of the country and the children. We also realize that our community is not terribly diverse, and we needed some way to expose our child to his/her culture. Many of Jaime's friends are Indian since she lived in the international dorm in college (we thank God for what was a housing screw up, He has a funny way of working). So, India it was.

Choosing the agency was easier than I thought. Our local agency recommended Dillon, and after speaking to some families that had worked with them in the past, we were convinced. Dillon has been so easy to work with, despite our long distance relationship.

Introducing . . .

Max Gerald Rup.

We are creating this blog to keep folks informed of what is going on in our adoption. This will eliminate the need for individual emails. There is also a way for folks to post comments to our entries, which we would really love.

We have just accepted our referral. His Indian name is Rup, but we will be calling him Max. He is 4.5 months old, and just adorable. Now begins the hard part, waiting to get him home. This usually takes between 4 and 7 months.

We will add news here as we get it, and perhaps paint a bit of a picture of our family as a whole. We would love to hear feedback and suggestions from other families going through this process, since we do not live in the area our agency is located in.

Wish us luck on our journey.

Disregard the pink, he really is a boy :)