The Beginning
Our story began about 2 years ago. I would imagine it was typical of most newly married couples. After two years of being married, we were ready to make the giant leap into parenthood. Little did we know it would be no where near as easy as we thought it would be. After a year and a half of hoping, praying, and trying to conceive, we were still right where we had started. Tests after tests and we kept wondering, why, God? Why wasn't it easy for us, like it seemed to be for our friends? More testing and it became clear that in order for us to have biological children, we would either need to undergo surgery which would possibly fix it, or God would have to perform a miracle.
More prayer, and our family and close friends praying over us, we felt that surgery wasn't the right direction for us. So we began looking into other options, mainly adoption. The one thing we didn't like about adoption was the waiting period. 1-3 years??? After trying to have children for nearly two years already, another 3 years seemed like an eternity. We came away from it discouraged. And we waited on God to point us in a direction.
A few weeks later, we were venting our frustration to our friends and they mentioned a couple they knew from church who had adopted and had a very quick waiting period. They put us in touch with the couple and we began looking into the agency they used. We were floored by the average wait time. 4 months. And it had been that way for the 8 years they had been in business. We were so excited! We couldn't believe it. We had real hope for the first time in what seemed like forever.
We contacted the agency and they laid out what the adoption process would look like. "So little to do in so much time! Wait, scratch that. Reverse it." Basically what would happen is we would begin our home study, and while that was being processed we would work on paperwork and our profile with the adoption consultant we would be working with. Once all of the paperwork was in order, they would begin to show our profile to expectant mothers who were considering adoption. Seemed simple enough. They suggested that we have all of the funds before they start showing our profile to anyone, that way if we are matched sooner than expected we don't have to say no simply because we don't have the money. Because every situation is different they could only give us an estimate of the costs - $40,000. It's a lot of money to come up with in that short of time and it was discouraging to us. We wouldn't have the three years to save up like most adoptive families would.
We contacted the agency and they laid out what the adoption process would look like. "So little to do in so much time! Wait, scratch that. Reverse it." Basically what would happen is we would begin our home study, and while that was being processed we would work on paperwork and our profile with the adoption consultant we would be working with. Once all of the paperwork was in order, they would begin to show our profile to expectant mothers who were considering adoption. Seemed simple enough. They suggested that we have all of the funds before they start showing our profile to anyone, that way if we are matched sooner than expected we don't have to say no simply because we don't have the money. Because every situation is different they could only give us an estimate of the costs - $40,000. It's a lot of money to come up with in that short of time and it was discouraging to us. We wouldn't have the three years to save up like most adoptive families would.
But we decided that we wouldn't say no just because the amount seemed too large to us. If this is God's plan for our lives, He will make it happen. He will be our Great Provider. So with that we are moving forward into adoption. Praying without ceasing that God would provide the resources needed to bring a baby into our home. And that He would align our hearts to the end goal being not solely that we will have a child of our own, but that we can brag on how great our God is. Please keep us in your prayers as we trust God to make everything fall in place as He writes our family's story.
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