1. My reaction when a doctor told me on the phone it would be “nearly impossible” for us to conceive.
2. Each of the 4 times we heard for the first time that our babies were no longer growing and we were going to miscarry.
3. Driving to the hospital in labor with our first.
4. When my mom left our house the week after we had Evan and left me on my own to be a mommy.
5. Taking a pregnancy test and laughing aloud as I held 1-year-old Evan on my hip and learned we were having another.
6. Strategizing with Mark in the hospital after delivering Ashlyn about how we were going to manage 2 little children—that ended with me in tears.
7. Hearing Evan say his name for the first time after months of therapy and wondering if he’d ever speak.
8. A conversation with Mark during lunch out about me wanting another child (as the two we had were squirming and crying and Mark looked at me wide-eyed as if I had lost my mind).
9. Our first conversation about adoption and the dream I had that night about a little Asian girl calling me Mama at my bedside.
10. When the doctor who had just told us we were miscarrying again called us later that day to tell us he might be wrong = Drew, 7 months later.
11. Drew’s tumultuous delivery, seeing his limp body, hearing my husband crying, not knowing if our son was alive or dead and then hearing his cry.
12. Crying with Evan’s kindergarten teacher as we read his evaluation report together when she told me, “There is nothing wrong with him. He doesn’t need to be fixed.”
13. Dancing around the dining room with joy when we knew that Lydia was going to be ours and saying her full name for the first time.
14. My first glimpse of Lydia in real life as she came into that sterile office in the arms of an orphanage nanny and lit up the room.
15. Overhearing Ashlyn speak softly and lovingly to Lydia in the middle of the night to calm her and help her fall back to sleep.
16. Watching Drew day in and day out pursue his little sister and dote on her even when faced with rejection.
17. Shopping alone with Lydia when I realized I was attached.
18. Ashlyn praying at night, thanking God that she could learn more about Him.
19. Peeking in Evan’s room to find him devouring Harry Potter books, one at a time, the boy who said he never wanted to learn to read and yelled, “I hate learning!” a few years earlier.
20. Celebrating Mother’s Day with an uneventful breakfast out as a family followed by pictures with all 4 children smiling at the same time.
