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So our story actually begins a long time ago.  When I was growing up, my mom wanted to make me a Cabbage Patch doll.  (“Make”, meaning she’d buy the head and sew the body from a pattern.) My first “adopted” doll, Arnold, was a little bald white boy with a tan body.  My mom said white skin would show the dirt too much, (maybe experience with her own kids,) so she picked fabric several shades darker for his body.  A year or so later, I was asking to “adopt” another boy… Andy.  This time, I insisted that the doll had matching dark brown skin and dark brown head. 

Fast forward to teenagehood.   When I was 15, I went on my first cultural exchange to Japan.  When I was 16, I went for a month to England, and I spent my grade 12 year on a Rotary exchange living in Germany.  Back in Canada, our house started to fill with students from across the world.  We had exchange students stay with us from many different countries… all of us three kids loved learning about other cultures.  To have another son or daughter from a different country was something my parents modelled.  In essence, even though we were raised in a red-neck corner of the North, we grew up as a multicultural family.

Speed forward again.  I’m in my twenties, and even though life didn’t have kids in store for me then, I had plans.  I wanted a big, rainbow-coloured family of adopted and biological children.  I strongly believe that there are many kids in the world, already born, who need good families. 

In my late 20s, when I met my husband, both of us were liking the DINK (Double-income No Kids) lifestyle.  Neither of us was sure if we wanted children or not.  It was the only thing we weren’t sure of when we were married.

About a year and a half ago, I started to feel a little older and think about kids.  One day, I realized: “If I don’t have children, when I am old and grey, will I regret it?  Probably.  If I have kids and grandkids, would I regret it?  Absolutely not.”  So I began the campaign.  The campaign of convincing my husband Jrock.  He grew up as one of two kids, and that’s what he envisioned for himself… if he was going to have kids at all.  I was prepared to meet him in the middle at 2, but if so, I wanted the kids to be adopted.

Speed forward a year later.  I was diagnosed with a severe form of arthrytis.  Basically, if I was pregnant, I couldn’t take my anti-inflamatories, and I wouldn’t be able to walk.  So Jrock decided that he would agree to adopt, for my health’s sake.  So there you have it.  Adoption was my first choice; it is my husband’s second.  It’s important to say that for any other adoptive parents out there… I thought I was the only one who had to push adoption to their spouse.  I’m learning now that it’s often the norm.  Anyway, it’s the right move for us as a couple, and we’re now both very excited about our soon-to-be kids.

Nicky