China
Russia
Vietnam
I always
knew I would adopt children. Ever since my mother explained to me when I was a
young girl how two of my cousins were adopted, I felt in my heart I would adopt
some day. When my husband Matthew and I learned that it would be hard for us to
have a biological child we tried IVF once with no success. I knew I wanted our
next step to be adoption. Matthew however was a little harder to convince.
Then, one day as I was looking for some salsa in the refrigerator he came up to
me and said "Let’s adopt!" I will never forget that moment. Right away I dug
FTIA's application out of storage. After all of our stress from the IVF we
truly felt at peace and knew that this was what God had planned for us.
Our Social Worker did a great job answering all of our questions about our home study. It took some up's and down's to get our dossier together but once it was complete Matthew and I went to the Post Office, did a little happy dance, sent our prized possession to FTIA, and waited for our referral. Matthew and I asked for a boy because we knew the wait would be less than for a girl. To our amazement our coordinator called the next day! There was a baby named Juan that was almost 2 months old that would make the three of us a family. We chose to name him Vincent and couldn't wait to bring him home. After 5 1/2 months we flew to Guatemala and met our son on August 26, 2005. Vincent's foster mom did a wonderful job taking care of him. We could tell how much she loved him. We give her a lot of credit for Vincent's health and happiness. We hope that one day they can meet again.
It has been almost two months that Vincent has been home. In that time he has learned to roll over, crawl and got two bottom teeth. Matthew and I still keep asking each other if he is really here. Vincent has the best personality a parent could ask for. He is always happy and loves to be the center of attention. Vincent is curious about his surroundings and is starting to get into everything. It has been great to see him grow in such a short amount of time. We see our families now more than ever because they all fell in love with Vincent and can't get enough play time.
I want to conclude by saying that we were very impressed with FTIA and the staff. They always returned my e-mails either right away or within a couple of hours. They did a wonderful job calming all of our fears and getting us through the adoption. We had such a great experience with FTIA that we can't wait to do it again in a couple of years. Thank you so much FTIA for helping us create our family.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth, Matthew and Vincent
