NPR changed my life

I loved to read as a kid. Book-it was a favorite part of my summer. I mean you got free Personal Pan pizzas for reading.  I loved to write as a kid. I'm not one to brag......but I did win our Young Author's competition every other year in elementary school. I once wrote a story about a boy being sucked into a video game and living with the characters. Yeah, awesome, you don't need to tell me. I had a column in the school newspaper and thought I wanted to be a journalist when I grew up for awhile. There are definitely days I still do. I miss creative writing, I always found writing to be one of the easiest ways to express myself and let people know who I am.

I didn't know about NPR back then but if I would have I'm not sure I would be a pharmacist today. It would have been my ideal job. I love being a pharmacist and my career but I hate to think I would do one thing my whole life, I don't plan to. NPR did not alter my course back then to a career in journalism, but it did help alter an even bigger event in my life last year.

I listen to Fresh Air every once in awhile and I happened to listen to a podcast last August of Scott Simon talking to Teri Gross about his new book. That sentence should blow your mind as an NPR nerd. Anyway, the book was titled, "Baby We Were Meant for Each Other." It is sort of an "ode" to adoption. He is the father to two girls from China whom him and his wife adopted.

We were at that time in the thick of our fertility treatments and
things had not been working out. We had always thought about adoption but had become entangled in the web of trying desperately to have a baby.  At this point I had started to doubt we were on the right path, I think my husband had as well.  Fast forward a month or so and we were getting ready to go on a vacation to New York City. I wanted to get a book to read on the plane and remembered the Fresh Air interview.

I went to Borders and picked up Baby We Were Meant for Each Other. I think I read the whole thing on the flight there. As I was reading through his account of their bus ride to meet their daughter, I pictured us. It was easy to see our faces at a hotel in China with a child being placed in our arms. It felt right.  It was a moment of clarity and understanding, two feelings that had been quite absent in my life for awhile.

From that day on I was sure I wanted to adopt. It was the way I was meant to become a mother. We had a great time in NYC and came home faced with the decision on how to proceed with our medical treatment. We had both been thinking the same thing, we wanted to stop and pursue adoption. We had oddly both come to the same conclusion on our own around the same time, we were done with that reproductive endocrinologist. I remember the day I called to tell the office I wouldn't be coming back. It was like I was calling some boy I liked in 7th grade. I stared at the phone for awhile, then got the nerve up to dial part of the number, and then I ended up dialing the whole thing. Momentary panic! I had that moment of "what did I just do" as I heard it ring.  It's really ringing! The receptionist only had to say hello twice until I piped in with the fact we were planning on pursuing adoption. She didn't yell at me, or tell me she just wanted to be friends. Win! A week later we were in Holt's office here in Omaha.

Adoption is us. My life is in an unexpected place I never imagined and I feel truly blessed for that. As we near that bus ride described so wonderfully in Scott Simon's book I can sometimes not hold back the tears thinking of it. NPR and Scott Simon's book didn't make me decide to adopt, but it pushed me over the line that I was already close to. It reminds me how powerful stories are and the necessity to share them.

I suppose I should probably drop them a few bucks during the next pledge drive.....

Excerpt from Baby We Were Meant for Each Other