Christmas is extra special to us. Christmas 2005 is when we decided to adopt Ava. I was recovering from my last surgery and we really started thinking about where our future was going. We spent that Christmas alone, just the 2 of us. We spent a lot of time researching adoption and different IA programs. By Christmas night we had sent an application online to GWCA to attend a seminar. About a week later we attended that seminar and knew our baby was waiting for us in China. For many years the holidays we're something we dreaded. It marked another year of IVF failures, surgeries and no baby. Christmas was just another year gone by and another big question mark on what the next year would bring. When we started this journey to Ava we thought we would have her home by now so it's still hard but it's a different kind of hard. It's not so much heartache but more of wishing she was here and excitement about the future. 2008 has been an amazing year for us. We have finally been able to settle down in a new home, we are where we want to be, we have our family close by, we traveled and made wonderful friends. 
