The Beginning...

Welcome!!

Daniel and I have been talking about starting a blog to keep our friends and family updated on our adoption process. I figured that this could be a way to share what we are going through and learning about adoption. It will also give me something to look back on as a reminder of what we are doing and what we have already accomplished.

Daniel and I met in the Fall of 2009 and we were married on April 23, 2011. We spent the first year of our marriage focusing on our new life together as husband and wife. After a year, we decided to start trying to have a baby. We were both so excited at the idea of becoming parents! One year of trying went by and we still weren’t pregnant. After visiting the doctor and doing some tests, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). For over two years we worked with a fertility specialist undergoing various treatments which never resulted in a pregnancy. Our doctor was unable to determine why the treatments never worked even though I had responded great to the medications. He said the two choices left for us was doing IVF, with a low probable success rate, or we could pursue adoption.

Daniel and I weren’t sure what to do. We had used up all of our savings on two years of fertility treatments already and we weren’t sure what the Lord’s plan was for us. All we knew was that we wanted to be parents with all our hearts. A few months later, we experienced a miracle! I was pregnant! Unfortunately our joy was quickly replaced with sorrow when I miscarried at 5 weeks. It broke our hearts. Hoping that we would become pregnant again, we kept trying. My PCOS symptoms seemed to get worse after the miscarriage and I started to lose hope.

During this time, Daniel started to pray about adoption. He had started to read about adoption in the news and online articles. It started to weigh on his heart that we could possibly become parents this way. Daniel brought up the idea of adoption to me but I wasn’t willing to consider it at first. At that time, I felt that if I could not give birth to a child, that I had failed as a woman, wife, and mother. Daniel continued to pray for direction for us and the desire to adopt kept growing in his heart.

One evening, we watched a movie called October Baby. By the end of the movie I found myself sobbing. Could I love a child that I did not give birth to? I started praying fervently and also found myself reading blogs and books about adoption. I found my heart changing and realized that giving birth doesn’t make me a mother. Through adoption, we could truly become the parents that we have longed to be for so long. Loving and caring for a precious child is what will make us a family.

Daniel and I started researching the adoption process together. We learned that it was going to be a long and expensive journey. Daniel felt strongly for adopting a newborn in the United States and I agreed. We chose domestic infant adoption and spent a lot of time interviewing different agencies. We wanted to make the best choice possible and that required taking a lot of time to weigh out all the options. We chose to go with a Christian non-profit agency, Embraced by Grace.

We met with our amazing caseworker from the agency and she went through the process with us. We have started with the beginning, which is paperwork....paperwork...and more paperwork! This will be a long road but it will be so worth it in the end!

Please pray for us as we continue down this path. Pray for us to have wisdome, strength, and discernment in the weeks and months ahead.