Welcome!

Welcome to our adoption blog! We are so grateful to share this joyous news and experience with everyone! This way we can tell you our story and share our updates. I am very new to the blogisphere so if anyone has any suggestions on how to make this website more efficient or pleasing to the eye please let me know:) 
A little bit about ourselves:  Luke and I married almost four years ago after meeting in college.  Luke is a 6th grade teacher at St. Marcus Lutheran School in Milwaukee and I just started teaching ESL at Christ-St. Peter Lutheran School in Milwaukee.
As some of you know, Luke and I have been trying to grow our family for a few years now.  It had been one of the more frustrating and saddening experiences we've had together.  About one year ago we looked into the adoption option.  We weren't quite ready to pull the trigger but it had always been in the back of our minds.  After inquiring about adoption we tried one year of constant doctor's appointments and months of tests and we realized that it was harder on us than we thought.  I think I left that doctor's office crying almost every time.  
A few months ago we went back to meet with the same adoption agency we checked out a year ago (Lutheran Social Services). We received all the paperwork we are supposed to fill out.  We hadn't started on it until about one month ago when one of the requirements was to attend an 18 hour parenting class. This was when everything clicked for us.  We knew we had wanted to be apart of the International Program. After seeing so much poverty in our first year of marriage living abroad in Colombia we thought this was just the program for us.  Unfortunately we are not able to adopt from Colombia because of their restrictions. Our number one choice as of right now is Kyrgyzstan.  They recently opened their doors for other countries to adopt.  The wait for a match is about 4-8 months.  Right now we have most of our paperwork done except our physicals at the end of October.  The social worker will come to our house to see if we have a fit environment for a child, then we receive the paperwork from the country we've chosen, next....we wait! After we are matched we would travel a few times months apart to make sure all paperwork has been processed.  Then we come home with a baby! We can be matched with a baby 11 weeks or older but our age limit is about 3.  That's where we are right about now and wanted to give you the story! Updates to follow in a couple weeks or so!!!