A Few of My Favorite Things

  • God and all that goes with Him
  • Time Spent With Family
  • Bedtime Prayers
  • Family/Group Hugs
  • The Beach
  • Good Friends
  • Good Music
  • Laughter

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Why We Chose to Adopt

I've been working at how to write this post in my head for weeks now. It's so personal, so emotional, and yet at times both the most difficult and easiest thing to discuss. I guess I should begin withthe statement that adoptionwas not a foreign idea to us, but it was something that we considered would happen after we had our biological children. You know, we plan our lives out and even when we think we have God's will at it's center many times He moves us in unexpected directions.
When we first got married, I had a dream I carried in my heart and didn't even share with my sweetheart. It was my dream to walk accross the stage at graduation from college and receive my degree in my Math Ed. and be pregnant. It was a dream that almost really happened. I was doing my internship at a Jr. H.S., and every morning I would get soo sick at my stomache on the wayto school, smells in the cafeteria would bother me, etc. I really thought it was just nerves. But then I was late, and the excitement in my heart grew. In fact I was right at a month late, I'd bought the home pregnancy test, but didn't get the chance to use it. I know I miscarried that baby. At the time, I convinced my self that it was all for the best. (We didn't have health insurance andI'd just spent four years getting my degree and I needed to use it.) So we continued to work our plan, I taught for 6 years in the public school system to repay my scholarship loans and then we were going to try to get pregnant.
During that time, we lost my sister and cousin and almost every weekend was spent out of town to be with mama. The docs. agree that the stress of that year was probably the trigger that began the migraine. (They've also agreed that it's not that stress that has made this a continuous thing for the last 11 years. The therapists can agree that I'm dealing with the loss in a healthy manner). We spent 3 years searching for answers and medical solutions to the headache. I spent weeks at a time in the hospital being used as a guinnea pig. I've had more IV med "coctails" than I care to remember. We finally found a combonation that worked. I could once again make plans and pretty much do what I wanted. It was then, our dream of growing our family began to take root in our hearts again. We talked to my headache speacialist about what we'd need to do for me to be able to handle a pregnancy, and his answer was heartbreaking. I'd have to come off all the meds, be off them for 6 months and then during the pregnancy. It was not something we could do.(The prayers and tears encompassed in that one short sentence are unspeakable).So we decided to adopt. I can't begin to explain both the joy and heartache in that decision. It's a decision I would never go back and undo. My little man is one of God's most precious gifts to me. But in making that decision, I had to grieve the babies that I wanted to carry. The experience of feeling that little life growing inside and the joy of holding him/her close and nursing.
It's still a dream we (the three of us) carry in our hearts. My little man prays for the headache to go away because he wants a baby brother/sister so badly. Yet once again, we wait. We wait for God to show us what path we walk down. We wait to see the joy and the blessings that come with each new day. And maybe, just maybe we wait for the child God's chosen to be a part of our forever family, and my little man can know the joy (and frustrations)that come with siblings.
There is still so much to tell of our story but this is the beginning. And my little man is why I can be thankful for a 24/7 headache. For without it, I wouldn't have had the priveldge of loving him and his birth mother. God bless you.

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