Bear with me while I catch up those who might not know our story... here's the quick version :)
Joey and I met in college at the church he had been attending since grade-school. We met through a friend and though I thought he was cute, I really didn't like him at first... I even stood him up the first time he asked me out. Yes, I know that's mean and I understand that I'm making myself sound incredibly bad... it's just part of the story.
After 9 months, I finally showed up at our first date (actually, he picked me up at work and I really had no way out) and that was 6 years ago. We dated for 1.5 years, were engaged for another 1.5 and were married on a beautiful June day surrounded by family and friends. Joey is an incredible husband and I still think he's super good-looking, too!
We decided to start building our family pretty soon after getting married. Honestly, the Pill made me even more crazy than I am normally (tough to imagine, right? ;-)) so Joey made the executive decision that I would not take it anymore and that we would officially be 'not trying not to get pregnant.'
We 'didn't try not to get pregnant' for a year and realized that nothing was happening so we began talking to a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE). That was 4 years ago. Have you struggled with infertility? Then I'm sure you are familiar with these bless-ed terms; charting, basil body temp, CM, DH, and so many more. If you are finding yourself Googling any of those terms, lucky you :-)
Fast forward another year (now we've been married for 2 years and have been 'not trying not to' for 1.5); We've both always wanted to adopt and now, with no medical reason why we're not achieving pregnancy, we begin the process of finding an adoption agency. Our search leads us to a wonderful local Christian agency. Our home study began in May, 2008 and ended in July, 2008. We had been told by our agency to expect to wait about a year to bring home a baby.
We brought our precious baby girl home on October 3, 2008.... after only 3 months of waiting. Hannah was 11 days old and more perfect than any baby we could have created together... she is our miracle!
Hannah turned 2 in September... oh how time flies! She is an amazing child; she commands the attention in a room, keeps us laughing with her incredible sense of humor, and her infectious personality causes people to remember her after having only met her once. We know without a shadow of a doubt that God has amazingly huge plans for this little girls life.... and we are blessed beyond belief to be along for the ride! The fact that God CHOSE us out of all of the couples in the world to be this child's parents brings me to my knees in thankfulness each and every day.
We moved in June of 2009 We love our new home and have found a support group of friends that we could never have imagined. We started feeling a tug at our hearts a few months ago to start the adoption process again. Keep in mind, we still have no medical explanation as to why we have 'not been not trying' for this long and have not gotten pregnant. What we DO know is that there is a Biblical and Spiritual explanation; our family is supposed to be built through adoption... and we could not be more thrilled with the perfect plan that God has for us.
We are beyond excited to invite you all to join us in the journey of adding another miracle (or miracles!) to our family. We completed our home study in August 2010 and are now just waiting to see how God brings our next precious child (or children) to us.
If the process of adoption is new to you or if you have a question, please please please never hesitate to ask! This blog will be a smorgasbord of updates on our adoption process, flashbacks to our first experience and bringing Hannah home, stories from our daily lives, couponing tips, and just my thoughts on random things... I promise there will be plenty to read and now that we're caught up, I'd love to know about you; feel free to leave comments and email me along the way (as long as you're nice :-))!
Your story sounds so similar to ours. My husband and I have been married for 7 1/2 years ad have been battling infertility for 7 years. We are currently foster parents, hoping to adopt. Our next step is a private agency. Your blog is awesome and I feel like I can relate to you on so many levels.
ReplyDeleteStumbled onto your blog today, and really enjoyed reading your story. Thank you for sharing your heart through your posts, and I look forward to following and getting to know you through your blog. My husband and I have been married for over 7 years, trying to conceive for nearly 4 with no medical explanation as to why we cannot conceive (hence, it must be a spiritual reason!) Thanks to the blessing of infertility, God completely changed our hearts about adoption (never used to be open to it at all), and now after about 6 months of searching for an agency and applying, we're hoping to hear this week or next whether we're officially on the waiting list. We're so excited to see how God's plan unfolds and how/when He chooses to make us parents. Thanks again for your faithfulness in sharing your story!
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