Chad and I are thrilled to announce that we have started the process of adoption! We are incredibly excited and filled with joy about this new direction we feel God is leading our family. We decided to start this blog so we could bring our family and friends along with us on this journey!
Let us start by filling you in on how we came to this decision. Chad and I have always wanted to be parents and have always talked about adoption. Right after Chad and I got married we started trying to get pregnant. After 6 months of trying to conceive, we were diagnosed with fertility issues but were told we still had a slim chance of getting pregnant. In April 2014, we found out we were pregnant! We were so excited to share the news with our parents who knew our desire to start a family, but at 7 weeks we had a miscarriage. After the miscarriage, we were both devastated, but it reminded us once again how much we wanted to be parents. We have continued to try to get pregnant since the miscarriage but have been unsuccessful. We have thought and prayed about what our next step should be, and God has led us to adoption time and time again. We knew we would simply be thrilled to become parents however this miracle happened and that adoption is the way for us to realize our dream.
As soon as we made the decision to seriously look into adoption, we both felt an overwhelming sense of peace and joy. This helped confirm in our hearts that we were going in the right direction. Through these very early stages of our adoption process, we feel that God is starting to mend the hole in our hearts and give us refreshed hope for our family. We have been very blessed to have met several people along the way who have adopted and some that are also in the process of adopting. We have received so much encouragement from these couples and are so thankful to have these new friends in our lives.
Although we are moving forward with adoption, we aren't giving up hope on having our own biological children. I know many people won't understand our decision to adopt before doing fertility treatments. We know that fertility treatments could take years in addition to that fact that they are very costly, invasive, and are not always effective. Basically, we believe that any child we adopt will be just as much "our own" as any biological child we could have. We don't see adoption as a second choice, we see adoption as a beautiful way for God to provide for our family. We hope that one day in His time that we may be blessed with our own biological child, but we are realistic about our diagnosis and realize our dream might not come true. We are open to whatever God has in store for our future, but at this time it does not involve a fertility doctor, it involves Faith and Prayer. We would love for those of you following our journey to pray that we continue to respond with complete faith to His plan for us.
Where we are in the process now:
We are still in the beginning stages of adoption. The biggest thing we are working on right now is completing our home study. A home study is conducted by a licensed social worker. The purpose of the home study is to educate, evaluate, and prepare us for adoption. The home study consists of 3 home visits, extensive background checks, health evaluations, collecting references, as well as paperwork and interviewing. We have completed our first visit and are schedule for our second meeting next week. Once we have completed the home study, we will be approved and one step closer to becoming parents! We are also researching and brainstorming creative ways to fundraise and finance our adoption. The average domestic adoption costs between 20,000-45,000. Please visit our fundraising tabs at the top of the page as I will update them frequently.
How you can pray for us:
Pray that our home study process will continue to go smoothly and that we will be approved quickly and without any complications. Pray for us as we face decisions on our adoption journey that we keep our hearts open to His guidance. We want our journey to help educate others on adoption. Pray for us as we prepare our hearts and lives for our future child! Please pray for God's hands to be on our beautiful child in every stage of his/her development in the womb. Please pray for the birth mother of our baby. Pray that she would care for her body and baby to the very best of her ability. Pray that the Lord would give her an intense love for her baby and that He would help her make wise decisions in every step of her pregnancy. Pray that through her adoption journey she would truly feel peace, comfort and God's love. Pray for her heart as she makes an adoption plan for her baby, that she will feel confident in her decision to give her child the best life possible. Please also pray that all of the details of our adoption fall into place.
Thank you for joining our adoption adventure. We are so thankful to have the support of our family and friends! Stay tuned for more posts and information on how you can be involved in bringing Baby D home!