The face that launched the $100,000 remodel.

Meet Miss Sally, Sechuan girly-girl and Tiger lover. Her parents adopted her and brought her home in March of 2004. She is pictured here on a camping trip we took with her and her family last year. Yes, we went into the middle of nowhere with a two year old and lived to tell about it!

They are good friends of ours and spending time with them, especially watching how Sally intereacted with her dad, is what ultimately broke my husband down and helped him realize that genetics don't matter when it comes to a father loving his daughter and his daughter returning that love back to him unconditionally. Sally became the poster child whose boundless affection melted my husband's hesitations and made him commit.

As stunned and overjoyed as I was to realize how serious he was to go through with this, it was actually an intensely terrifyng moment. I was at a crossroad, having to decide whether to follow the path of becoming a mother to a child that I had not born or leaving things as they were, with one son, the best kid we could have (undeseverdly) ever hoped for. By making this commitment, to add one little stranger to our family, my husband was asking me to show my hand. He was calling my cards.

See, for as long as I can remember -- probably around eleven years old -- I wanted to adopt. I grew up watching the Vietnam war covered on television. I remember the pictures of plane-loads of little kids and volunteers being air-lifted out of Saigon and being sent to North America to start new lives. I remember begging my mom and dad to phone the number on the screen and pleading with them that they put our names on the list. I had one younger sister but I wanted a brother. They weren't forthcoming with one and this was a sure-fire way of getting him. I even called in myself but the agency wouldn't take my information down. I was just a kid, after all. It didn't happen. And my parents were so busy coping with our own family dysfunction, how could they possibly add to it?

I get it now, but the image haunted me for decades. It planted that first seed, that dream of how I could imagine my future. When my girlfriends were dreaming of white picket fences and Nights in shining armor, I was thinking of the parentless children with no thoughts of pregnancy or marriage.

So on February 13, 2005, I stood on the edge of our world and accepted my husband's declaration for what it was, the most beautiful gift of faith and love (and insanity) I could ever hope for, and I took his hand and jumped into the vast unknown, taking Jack along for the ride as well.

Less than twenty-four hours later, we quickly realized that this baby girl was going to need her own room...so plans were drawn, permits and contractors were paid for and hired...and money was spent...financially ruinous, amounts...

I've been asked "How much Makena cost?" Makena didn't cost anything. (The better question might be "How much does it cost to adopt from China, or Internationally?") and that varies depending on an endless array of factors.

Makena is priceless. The remodel on the other hand...


Isabelle.
PS: Sally, we blame your parents for this.