Here we go...

 I will try and keep this as short and sweet as possible. I just want to fill everyone in on where we are in our process, and how we got here. Bear with me :)


We got married about 2 and a half years ago, after over 4 years together... landing us at 7 and a half long blessed years together today. Like any other couple, we talked about our future plans, where we wanted to live, how many kids we wanted to have, how far apart they should be, etc...well, the funny thing with OUR plans is that they never seem to go how we think they should. We decided shortly after we got married that we wanted to start a family and casually started "trying". Everyone around us seemed to get pregnant so easily, and I had heard so many success stories of women struggling with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (which is what I struggle with) getting pregnant. I didn't start to worry too much until about a year after we got married and I sill wasn't pregnant. I started thinking to myself that it may not happen. I didn't want to come to terms with that. We hadn't really discussed in detail what our plan of action would be if we DIDN'T get pregnant, and talking about it with anyone (including my husband) made the possibility too much of a reality. A reality that I didn't want to deal with. I kept warding off the questions like "When are you having kids?", "Why don't you have kids yet? Y'all would make such great parents.", "Do you plan on having kids?" from rude well meaning strangers and acquaintances. I would always brush the question off with a casual "Oh, I've got plenty of nieces and nephews to keep me busy!" or "Oh, you know...whenever!", or "Whenever God decides it's time!", but the truth is, each time someone would ask, it would sting a little. I don't know why it was such a hard topic for me to bring up with my husband (or any of my family, really)... I think in a way, I felt like a failure. I felt like I couldn't do  what women's bodies are designed to do. I felt like my body had failed me, and my body had failed my husband. I had always found pregnancy fascinating and couldn't wait until it was my turn for that. I started to fixate on the being pregnant part much more than the being a parent part. After about a year and a half of "trying" to conceive, we began to discuss what options we felt we had.

We came to the agreement that we did not want to pursue any medical treatment whatsoever. I sincerely commend people who go that route, but just like adoption, it isn't for everyone. I will never forget my husbands response when I asked him what we would do if we weren't going to pursue medical treatments, and we didn't get pregnant on our own. He said so nonchalantly "We will adopt. If we don't get pregnant on our own, then maybe God has a baby out there for us that needs us for their parents." (swoon). For some reason, his response caught me off guard. He said it like it had been the obvious choice all along. I let my own fears and doubts cloud my decision making. Right then and there, I could feel God working in my heart. He began to soften the edges, and remove the anxiety and disappointment of my un-pregnantness (like that fancy word I made up?). I started to not feel so alone. I started to have hope. I began to realize that just because we may not be able to conceive a child with our genetics, doesn't mean that child would be any less "ours". I began to realize that I can love a child that isn't biologically "ours". I began to realize that a pregnancy lasts 9 months, while the blessing of being a parent lasts a lifetime. I stopped focusing on the pregnancy part of becoming a mom, and started focusing on the parenting part of having children.

Over the last 6 months, God has really laid it on our hearts to really start pursuing this adoption option :) We both feel that this is the direction that He wants us to explore, so we will follow. It is scary, exciting, terrifying, hopeful...but we know that our God is faithful, He is GOOD, and He knows our child already. He knows the HOW and He knows the WHEN.

"For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth^.  Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be " Pslam 139: 13-16