Guys!
Hannah and I (Drew, obviously) cannot explain how unfathomably ecstatic we are in this season of our life! We have a story to tell and it won't be easy to tell because there have been many ups and downs and I am sure there are still many more to come but we want to document our journey as we go through this process. As of right now we covet all of your prayers in what we are going through. Hang in there because the story is coming! My hopes from this blog are that some will feel encouraged to pursue their dreams, some will feel like they can reach out to us in their time of need, and that some will (and I am totally unashamed to put this here) feel like it is their calling to help us financially in this journey.
Now, for the story:
Hannah and I have been together since October 1, 2008, her freshman year of high school. We have never once waivered in our commitment to each other as a couple and we have always been there for each other. We have seen a lot of growth and heartache in each others lives and we have each caused our fair share of both for each other. That's life, right? As our marriage vows state, we have always been there for each other through the highs and lows, the better and the worse, and we will continue to do so for the rest of our lives.
As you've probably figured out by now (based on the name of the page no doubt), we have decided it is time for us to adopt, but I want to detail the journey from then to now and I want to periodically update this blog to detail how the journey is evolving the more we move through the process of pursuing adoption.
Since we have known that our lives were going to be spent together and we knew that we were going to start a family, we knew that adoption would be a part of that story. We never would have imagined that it would be the way that we would start our family but we knew it was something that we were called to do.
Most people who have read this far know that we were married 5 years ago on May 9, in fact most of you reading this far may have attended the wedding. We knew we weren't ready to start a family right away so we waited a few years. We thought that getting pregnant would be easy but we were very wrong. We tried for a while without going to any sort of doctors but when it became more apparent that nothing was happening in the timeframe we were aiming for, we grew worried that something may be wrong. This is when the doctors visits started and I believe it may have also been when some real anxiety may have started sinking in to both of our subconscious thoughts.
Why aren't we getting pregnant?
What's wrong with us?
Are we not worthy enough to be parents?
Is God trying to punish us for something?
Why isn't He listening to our prayers?
Our hearts broke every month as we were so hopeful but nothing happened. Over the past three years specifically, we have seen many of our friends and family have children while we have struggled in silence (though some of our closest friends and family may not believe that we have been silent) to realize our dreams of being parents. Every subsequent family member or friend who announced that their families were growing on facebook felt like a personal assault on us. It felt as though we were the only ones out there struggling with this atrocious word, infertility.
After seeing three different doctors, all of them decided that the reason for our lack of family expansion was undetermined. On the surface this is an easy answer to accept, good, nothing is wrong with us. However, this leaves the nagging question to grow in our hearts and minds again, What is wrong with us?
We have reached the point in our journey where medicines have been changed, prayers have been prayed, and tears have been cried. We feel as though we have done almost everything in our power to have biological children short of going through IVF. As stated earlier, we have always known that adoption was going to be a part of our story. So we came to a crossroads, adoption and IVF are both very expensive endeavors with pros and cons and we had to decide which path we wanted to take. Since we had just gone through two fertility treatments this year and 6 rounds of clomid and estrogen in the past 2 years without any real explanation as to why nothing was happening we weren't feeling like it was in our best interest to proceed with IVF. So we prayed about it, and we feel like God is calling us to adopt a little earlier in our journey together than we would have originally chosen for ourselves!
The biggest benefits we see from adoption are twofold, outside of being able to raise a child that is:
1) We are going to be able to surround ourselves with so much love and support from so many different members of our family and friends. This benefit is an immense one to me (Drew) because I know the people I have grown up around, the community I have lived and served in my whole life, and I know my family. We can all unite behind the common cause that is bringing home this child of ours. The African proverb says, "It takes a village" and we know we have one on our side ready to love and support us through every step of this journey.
2) There is a woman out there who may not know it yet but she is going to have our baby. We do not know who this woman is or where she is but we do know one thing, she is a child of God and someone we may be able to share the wonderful story of His goodness and grace to. This woman who will birth our baby is one of the most important people in our world right now because she is carrying our child and making sure they are taken care of before we get that chance. My prayer is that this woman, whoever she may be, if she doesn't know the wonderful story of Jesus and his love for us, will grow to do so through the relationship she develops with us in the time we are supporting her as she carries our baby.
I'm sorry this is such a long read but I had a lot of time to pour out my heart and I had a lot of thoughts on my mind about this whole process. In the coming weeks we will begin to share ways in which you can help us through our adoption process as we fundraise, look for lawyers, and search for nursery equipment (Yikes! Yay!). If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask, we want to be open and honest about what we are going through so that others who are experiencing a similar journey know they have a friend to lean on.
