We departed for SFO International Airport on July 24, 2003. We left the house around 4:00 a.m. so we would be there in plenty of time for our 6:00 a.m. departure. Except that we found out when we got to the airport that the flight was delayed 2 hours. ARGHHH! Would the wait never end?

Next came the hardest part of our long journey, waiting for the call to travel. By the time we got the okay in mid July I had made lists of what to pack, gone shopping for more items, repacked, made more lists, shopped some more, then cried because I did not know what to do with myself. I could not work, could not converse with my friends, could only lay around the house stressed out and depressed from wanting Mali in my arms so badly.

Our referral call came on February 24, 2003, at 3:22 p.m. to be exact, more than one year of waiting for a match. Our social worker called to tell us that they had a baby waiting for us. Finally, I was going to be a mother! I called my sister to let her know that we were immediately driving to the agency to pick up her documents and pictures. We fell in love with her immediately.

Our decision to adopt came after years of infertility treatments. When the doctors finally told me that my chance of conceiving was less than 2% I at first decided that I would never be a mother. I believed at the time that if I could not have a biological child I could not love any other child the way it deserved, therefore ruling out adoption. Our attitude toward adoption changed dramatically. In January of 2002 we first met with Holt International, the agency with which we chose to work. In considering which country to adopt from we looked at the length of the wait, the program cost and what race we felt we were capable of handling as a couple. Obviously, we would now become a mixed race family, and all the racial implications had to be seriously considered.