Monday, February 27, 2012

The map was easy to read this time....

Have you ever had a moment in your life where you feel like you are at a cross road and there are 2 ways to go and whichever way you choose will affect the rest of your life? It's times like these where we find ourselves on our knees pleading with God to give us the right answer and to give it clear as day. I prefer to be hit up the side of the head with it so there is no doubt it's all God and not any of me making the decision.

Back in October our family found ourselves at this very spot and we certainly didn't want to make the wrong decision. Really it's starts way before then and is somewhat of a long story, but I will give you a very condensed version. As some of my close friends will know getting pregnant is not easy for Wes and I. It took us a year and a half before getting pregnant with Ian and that was after miscarriages and fertility treatments. Well as is the case a couple of years after we had Ian we decided that we wanted to expand our family. We decided to try on our own at first which we did for 6 months and then Wes deployed. Close to the end of his deployment the doctor started running test again so we could start fertility treatments again. All was going just the same as last time... that is until we hit something that we were not expecting at all! After further testing on both Wes and I the doctors discovered that through some experimental shot testing that the Army administered on Wesley it took our chances of conceiving our own biological child to impossible (doctors words not ours). And of course Wes and I both know that will God ALL things are possible... But we also know that although it is possible it may not be what God is wanting for us. That can be a hard pill to swallow. This is also a time we realized how precious Ian really is to us and we are thankful God granted us the opportunity to have him in our life!

After that appointment we basically walked away and tried to soak it all in. Several months went by and we tried not to focus on it, but also tried to over come it. If you have never been through this there is a grieving process that one goes through. God brought into our lives a very dear family that had adopted their 2 youngest children and we started spending a lot of time with their family. Slowly but surely God started putting the thought of adoption into our minds. But we were faced with yet another upcoming deployment so it really seemed like we would never really get the time to explore this option. Shortly before Wesley's deployment he was given orders for 6 months of language school which happened to be the same time during his teams deployment. So instead of going overseas with his team he got to stay here in the US and learn more Arabic. 5 days a week 6 hour days... Doesn't sound appealing does it? And it was extremely intense for Wes... BUT he was home... For 6 months!!! Out of our entire marriage my husband has NEVER been home for 6 months straight. We knew there was a reason.

We soon started realizing that now would be the best time to start looking into this adoption mater that God had seemed to put in our minds. And to show you how MY God works... Back when Wes deployed in 2010 before we were told we wouldn't be able to have anymore children I started working with a personal trainer who had adopted her precious little girl through Bethany Christian Services, an adoption agency. We talked about it several times and I thought it was a wonderful thing how God placed their daughter in their life. That would be back in March/April of 2010, now fast forward to October 2011 and I am sitting at a Bethany Agency office at an informational meeting. That in and of itself shows you what a God thing this is! But it doesn't stop there.

After the meeting I come home with brain overload of the information that I was given and I'm not going to lie... I was discouraged! Adoption is EXPENSIVE to say the least. Not to mention all of the other things that could go wrong or the fact that the wait can be anywhere from 18 months to 3 years. (some cases sooner) Wes was unable to go to the meeting due to the time of the meeting and work so when I came home I relayed the information as best I could. (I was a little brain dead after the brain overload lol) The way the agency works is they have 4 Orientations a year. So basically you have 4 chances a year to jump into the cycle. I went to the meeting mid October and the next cycle was starting the first week of November! So basically we needed $650 and paper work filled out within less then 2 weeks time to get in the next cycle. If not we would have to wait until February! As you can imagine we wanted to start the process right away but we didn't want to have to borrow the money. So right there we decided that if God wanted this to happen he would have to literally hand us the money. In all honesty we both just decided we would probably need to wait until the February cycle. We were a little disappointed but really there wasn't much we could do.

2 days later I was just coming back from a run when my neighbor caught me outside. Over the course of time that we have been neighbors we had loaned them quite a bit of money to help them out from time to time. In our minds we had given it to them because in all honesty we never expected to see the money again. That was the place we had come to and we are ok with it! She handed me a card while she was talking to me and I didn't really think much of it... She had just gotten out of the hospital and I figured it was a card thanking us for helping her and her mom while she was sick. We finished talking came inside and set the card down. Wes came home a short time later and he saw the card and asked what it was... I had forgotten about it and decided I should probably open it. When I pulled the card out I saw a $50 and thought to myself... "how sweet they are trying to pay us back"! In the next instant I saw a small stack of $100's! After counting I realized that there was $750 in the card! God slapped us upside the face that day! (and gave us a little extra which is how He likes to work) I also decided God was using our neighbor as His savings account for us :)

That next week we drove up to Nashville to the adoption agency to drop off our money and a very small part of our paper work! I say say very small because several months into the process and we have filled out more paper work then I thought was possible! I'm pretty sure several trees were killed just so we can adopt our baby!

So Wes and I are both confident when we say God is leading us into adopting to increase our family! I'm not going to lie it's a huge range of emotion. Some days we are super excited (most days) and sometimes fear sticks it's nose in. I've even realized that I had to go through another grieving process realizing that I may never carry my own biological child. But God is always faithful and I always come back to the fact that God definitely dropped this in our lap. We are doing what He wants! There is so much more to tell! But I've already written so much and I know you are tired of reading! But this is something I definitely plan on keeping everyone updated on. This journey of adoption for us I know is going to be one of many challenges and one of many triumphant and many lessons! I'm excited and nervous to see what God is going to teach us through our new adventure!

Oh and for the record... Ian is VERY excited of the thought of having a sibling! He wants a little sister and as of yesterday he wants to name her Thor!!! Don't worry... the name changes a lot :)

1 comment:

  1. We will be praying,because like you I have to be hit in the face to. I am so happy for you.

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