The Luckiest Moment of My Life

Luck is a purposeless, unpredictable, and uncontrollable force that shapes events favorably or unfavorably for an individual, group, or cause.

A couple in Peoria marry in 1981. A year later they learn they cannot have children and join a support group for married couples with infertility problems. They learn about alternative options like international adoptions. It’s 1983 and they send out 50 letters to various agencies and universities that might be able to help. They get nothing but polite rejection letters back. They hear back from an agency in Chicago. The agency receives approximately 700 requests a year for adoption and have only 20 babies to place. At the same time they apply to all local agencies and wait. 

It’s fall of 1984 and the couple finally get an interview with Counseling & Family Services.

It’s 1985 and a 22-year-old woman in South Korea meets a waiter. They start dating, she gets pregnant, and he leaves. When he leaves, she decides she wants a better life for her daughter. One that she couldn't give her.

At the same time the 22-year-old is making this decision, the Peoria couple is accepted into the Counseling & Family Service program. The couple goes through a home inspection and parenting courses. 

It’s summer in 1985 and the Peoria couple is granted their foster care license. It’s winter and the couple receive their first life changing phone call. A local baby would be available through a private adoption in five months. They do not know if it will be a boy or a girl.

It’s 1986 and they start planning out the rooms for their future children. They know their Korean baby will be a girl so they paint those walls pink. In the other room they paint the walls beige and put up stripped green and white wallpaper.

It’s April 17^th and their son is born. Three days later he’s in his new home for the first time.

Sixteen days later a baby girl is born in Korea. It’s July and they finally see a picture of her.  

It’s August and the baby girl is on a plane with five other babies on a 12 hour flight to Chicago. As she sits on the plane, the Peoria couple make the three hour drive to Chicago O’Hare airport. 

Only one adoptive parent is allowed to go to the plane to get their new baby. As the plane touches down, the Peoria woman takes a shuttle bus underneath the airport to get to the plane. She sits with a bottle and some diapers and wonders if one bottle will be enough. The bus arrives and the parents go onto the plane to get their child. Back on the shuttle bus there isn't much talking. All six parents are sitting looking at their babies. They arrive to the main part of the airport where the baby’s father, aunt, and cousin are waiting. Many pictures are taken.

After they take pictures in the airport they say their goodbyes and make their way home. They glance into the backseat every so often to make sure she’s all right. They arrive back in Peoria at 11:00pm, greet the babysitter who says their son is asleep upstairs, put their daughter in her new bed, and go to sleep.

I started my life being incredibly unlucky and incredibly lucky. I was born into a situation where my mother couldn't take care of me, but I was lucky because she made the hardest decision - to imagine a better life for me. Even today I continue to think of myself as lucky. I'm lucky for the 25 years I got to have with my Mom before she passed away and with the time I have now with my Dad and brother. I don't know if I agree with the definition of luck. It's not purposeless. I tend to agree more with what Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose."