Mary and Bill met on the school bus as teenagers and started their life's journey from there. It's taken them through brain surgery and infertility, to China to adopt a baby girl and finally delivered them at the happy home they always wanted.
Mary & Bill's Story
"We started trying to have a baby, and I started having seizures."
Mary:
I had my first Grand Mal seizure in the middle of teaching a class. They took me to the hospital, and at first they said that it didn't mean that I had epilepsy because anyone can have a seizure. That kind of opened the door, though, because I kept having more and more, averaging about three to five a month. Eventually they said I could have the opportunity for brain surgery, and I was seizure-free for a year.
We started trying to have a baby, but the stress on my body of trying to get pregnant, having a miscarriage, and having surgery to try to get pregnant again made the seizures come back.
"At some point in time you have to say, 'What is best for her physically, as well as emotionally?'"
Bill: Other than her seizures the other worst moment we have had as a couple was going through the miscarriage.
Mary: It was pretty horrible. It was more pain than I have ever experienced.
Bill: The one treatment that we were going with was Clomid, and you can only go through that so many times before you start to become at risk for cervical cancer. When we exhausted all those options, we started reading on what the next procedure would be, which was infertility treatments. At that point in time, we both said, "This is scary and probably not for us."
"We were open to the idea of adoption."
Bill: We started looking more into international adoption, and for us it the best option seemed to be China. Anne wasn't even born when we sent the paperwork in to apply for adoption. We sent the paperwork in to apply for adoption. Something that I thought would take three to four months ended up taking six months to gather all of the information. It was an ordeal. We had to several copies of our birth certificates certified, as well as get updated passports, medical checks, a social worker had to come and do a home study on us, the fire department had to inspect the house, finger printed by the FBI, psychological testing. It was an ordeal.
Mary: We found out who our daughter was going to be, and they sent us some photos. They gave us a description of her personality and said she was slightly obstinate, but Bill said, "She is going to be just like her mom."
"It took time to bond, but now she's all over us."
Mary: When we went to China to get her and they put her in my arms, she arched her back and screamed so loud, I almost dropped her. We were like, "This kid, we want her and she doesn't want us." All the other babies didn't do anything and ours was shrieking and screaming. We took her back to the hotel, and by that night we had won her over. Now she is all over us, and just recently she has started climbing up and sitting on my lap and letting me read a book to her. It took time, but when she wanted to do that out of her own volition it meant a lot to me. She knew that I was her mom.
"We have got it all."
Mary: I am just so happy. People in restaurants have been shocked because she squeals so loud with joy that they turn because they think, "Oh that child is crying," and then they are floored, they have never heard a child squeal with joy like that. She is just so happy. She has love, she has family, friends -- my students at school went nuts when they saw her picture -- she has so many people that love her. She is going to grow and be an incredible person.
