Getting everyone up to speed. Our life before adoption.

Being new to the blog world I am not really sure how people start one. I think what I'll do is start from the beginning and bring people up to speed on our life. I want to get to our Ethiopian adoption but I feel like I need to start chronologically. For those of you who know us...this is just a recap. I'll make this short and sweet. I have been fortunate enough to have married the most wonderful man in the world. A person who shares the same hopes and dreams as I do and who supports me in whatever I do. He is truly a selfless person and I admire him immensely. He really makes me want to be a better person. Having him in my life would have been enough. He came to our relationship with a 2 year old daughter, Cassandra. Fortunately for me, her mother has allowed our relationship to be a great one. She truly wants the best for "our" daughter and has always been very supportive of our relationship. We are actually pretty good friends. Our first child, Wyatt, was born in 2001 and his brother Owen was born in 2003. They are 13 months apart and are the best of friends and the worst of enemies. I always thought I would "plan" my pregnancies. Being that I was 30 when we were married and we both were in the medical field...we would get the ovulation kits and plan everything out. Well, both children were wanted but not planned. My coworkers kidded me that "You do know how children are conceived?" Everything happens for a reason. You see, my mother died of ovarian cancer when I was 21. She was 44. Three of her sisters have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Two have sadly died at very young ages and one is doing great in her 50's. They knew there was some kind of genetic problem in our family and much testing was done. The genetic problem was found, my sister and I were tested and she tested negative and I tested positive for BRCA1. This dramatically increased my risk for breast and ovarian cancer. I was tested when Wyatt was 2 and Owen was 1. Knowing I had the gene, I made the decision to to have some prophylactic surgeries and in the process had a complete hysterectomy at 33. The decision was easy for me. I had to stay alive for my kids. We had 3 beautiful children and had always talked about adoption...that would be our plan if we decided we wanted to add to our family. Fast forward nearly 4 years.....Cassandra is almost 11, Wyatt is 6 and Owen is almost 5. More on these kiddo's later.