You're....adopting?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that we caught a lot of people off guard when we announced our decision to adopt.  Responses ranged from excitement to confusion to essentially pretending we hadn't said anything until months down the road when they realized it wasn't a joke.  But we still hear the question. A lot.  Why?
Yep. We have 4 kids.  Yes, most people think that is MORE than enough children.  Yes, we're really adopting.
We first talked about adoption more than a decade ago.  No one knew.  We were young, had only been married a few years and were thinking about starting a family.  We're both pretty practical people with an analytical lean and tend to think through things from mulitple angles before we make decisions.  Nothing is guaranteed when having children.  We both agreed that if we had problems or somehow couldn't have kids, we would feel God was calling to adopt.  While you know the end of that story, we did have some problems.  It took a full 2 years for me to have Isaac.  Inevitably, if you're young and healthy and it doesn't happen instantly, you get serious in the "what if" discussion.  We discussed adoption again.
Fast forward a decade and 4 boys.  Everytime a boy was born one of us would jokingly say, "Well, I guess we'll have to adopt a girl someday...hahahahahaha".  It wasn't that we weren't satisfied with what God was giving us.  It was simply that adoption was in the back of our minds.
Somewhere in the joking, we actually discussed the pros and cons of international vs domestic adoption.  We have several different friends who have adopted. A couple of them, in particular, we watched for literally a decade, try to adopt.  Both of us agreed that, while every child that is coming from a difficult past or has been abandoned or in foster care has a higher risk of becoming a statistic, international orphans face almost insurmountable odds.  Like it or not, we do still live in the United States and opportunities are there for anyone who really wants to find them and work for it.  In other countries, that's not the case.  We also both agreed that we would not feel right standing in line in front of couples like our friends who had tried to adopt for so long and couldn't go overseas.  We would want to go somewhere where there wasn't a line.  Somewhere where if we didn't provide a home, there might well not be another.  We would want the child that had no hope.
My pregnancies were not easy.  What we realize now was probably enhanced by my allergies, was miserable.  I was sick, I had back pain so severe that at times I couldn't walk and would literally have to work up to getting out of bed or getting into the car.  My feet swelled so badly that I couldn't wear shoes.  The bigger our family got, the more difficult it was for me to function.  My labors and deliveries were not easy.  We had always thought we would have 4 kids and when the last boy was born, we decided that, for the overall good of the family and my own health, we were finished.  It wasn't long after we made that decision that I began thinking about a daughter.  I had always heard people say that a woman goes through those thoughts when she knows she's done with babies and I assumed that it was simply that.  However, instead of going away, the feeling became more intense.  I remember laying in bed and just praying that God would take away this desire that I had no idea where it was coming from and make me satisfied with the beautiful family He had given me.  But, increasingly, it seemed to be an idea coming from Him, not from me.  Eventually, that feeling turned to adoption.  In the beginning of the summer of 2010, I started praying differently.  I began to pray that IF God was calling me to adopt, He would give Bryan that same calling.  While he knew I was struggling a little with the idea of being done having kids, he didn't know that adoption had crossed my mind.  If God calls one spouse to do something, He will call the other to support it.  So I started praying.  2 months later, in August of 2010, Bryan, out of the blue, said, "I think maybe we should look at adopting a little girl."
I wasn't 100% sure he was serious, but that day I got online and ran a search for international adoption.  I chose the first one that looked reputable and filled out an information request.  2 weeks later, we got a pretty blue folder in the mail.  We were driving to Denver that weekend, so for fun and knowing we were trapped in the car for 6 hours, I took the folder along and read it outloud to Bryan.  It was a weekend trip.  Halfway back to Gillette, we realized the pro and con list we were making had eternal "pros" and temporal "cons".  On the pros were things like providing a stable family for a child who had none.  On the cons were things like "what do we do with the kids for 3 weeks while we fly somewhere?".  How do you tell God "no" when you're looking at choosing something eternal over something for temporary convenience?
Our conversation changed to "where?".  Immediately we narrowed it down to China or Russia.  There wasn't really a rhyme or reason.  We knew we would be adopting a girl and those 2 country seemed to jump out at us.  By the time we got home we knew we were adopting and I had a list: choose a country and an agency.
Bryan assigned me to choose the country.  He said that THIS is where the whole woman emotional pull thing might come in handy.  He also knows I love to research.  My job was to research the 2 countries and decide which one I felt more strongly pulled toward.  China had a long wait.  A LONG wait.  And it was really...happy.  Once you land in China for one long trip, you meet your child and they get to be with you from then on.  One site in particular made me laugh.  In the agreements for each country, there was a checklist of things for adoptive parents to be aware of.  Russia had a long list.  A detailed list.  Things not to talk about and who not to talk about them in front of.  Do not jaywalk.  Do not talk about this.  It was pretty scary sounding.  China said...we look forward to helping you adopt from China!  With a little sunshine in the corner.  Russia scared the snot out of me.  It also became more and more clear that was where we were supposed to be.  Bryan said, "So, we're going with the more expensive, more travel required, more dangerous one?"  Yep, it sounded crazy and absolutely all common sense said to pick China, but Russia...Russia broke my heart.  700,000+ orphans.  Thousands aging out every year that have never been outside the orphanage.  No life skills. No vocation. 2 in 10 committing suicide in the first couple years they spend outside. 60% becoming involved with drugs and alcohol.  40% in jail. 50% of girls becoming prostitutes.  2 in 10.  2.  Go on to live a "normal" life and become a contributing, functioning member of society.  8 fail.  2 are successful.  That's 20%.  My math might be bad, but even I know if 8 children fail and 2 succeed, that's a whole lot of people that are walking wounded.  The statistics aren't pretty in any country, but somehow Russia struck the chord.  The more I researched, the more sure I was.
By October of 2010 we had made a decision, picked a country, researched and debated agencies and were starting the first steps of applying.  We hadn't told anyone.  We started using the name "Anastacia" to refer to the adoption and the account we had started to raise funds.  And we hurried up and waited.  That's what adoption is for us so far.  Hurry up.  Get this and this and this and this here.  And then wait.  And wait.  And wait.
We're, God willing, nearing the end of that wait.  We have a face and name (ok, so turns out we "accidentally" knew the name the whole time...).  And soon we'll have more.