Where we are now and how we got here...

It was PKU that reintroduced us to Bethany Christian Services. Abigail being born with PKU inspired us to start the Tennessee PKU Foundation in 2007. A few months later, I met Cassie whose son, Iain, has PKU. Iain is also adopted from the Ukraine. Cassie soon became very involved with the foundation and was voted Vice President. We have become great friends since. Her mom happens to work for Bethany, so I have learned more and more about the joys of adoption over the past couple of years. A few weeks ago, Cassie sent me a text with the picture of a gorgeous three year-old little boy in a Lithuanian orphanage who happens to have PKU. My comment back was, "oh my gosh, he could pass for Abigail's brother". I didn't say anything else about it, but for a couple of weeks, this little boy was all I could think about!

One night, Bryon and I were sitting and watching the girls play. Bryon said they were getting too big and that it was time to have another... I laughed and said something like this... "Um honey, we just sold all of the baby stuff in a garage sale... I don't think so". His next comment would stay with me for a few days. He said that maybe we could adopt a little boy around age two or three years old!!! I didn't bring up the little boy from Cassie's text, but I did talk to Cassie about it. She encouraged me to just bring it up to him and see what he thought. So a few nights later, Bryon is sitting on one end of the couch with his iPad and I am sitting on the other end with my laptop when I sent him an e-mail with this little boy's picture. A minute later he asked me if there was any reason I had sent that e-mail. I asked him how serious he was about adoption and when he said he was seriously interested, I proceeded to tell him what I knew about this special little boy. This was the start of the decision to adopt, but I was already crazy for this child and felt like I was looking at a picture of my son.