Our Story

This is probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with in my life. The hardest and yet the most beautiful. As I sit here and type these words my heart still aches for what I don’t have. At least not in my timing. As this journey unfolds I have been broken, devastated, and on my knees. Yet there is beauty in this brokenness, hope in this devastation, and peace in this process. I have learned through this experience that the story God writes is far more splendid than what I could imagine for myself. I’ve also discovered that when He closes a door, there is always an open window.

We all have a purpose written on our hearts, written on our souls. This is the story of how my broken heart is healing. How my purpose is being discovered, carved deep inside of me in ways maybe I have known about all along. To understand where I am headed, you must understand where I have been. This journey set in motion with a young couple struggling to start a family. It is not the only story of its kind, but it is our story.

If there is one thing I am good at, it is loving on babies. I have always adored them. Growing up I babysat, worked in my church nursery, and smiled at every little face that passed me by in the grocery store. Even with all of the unknowns in life, I was forever certain that I was destined to be a mother. I couldn’t think of anything my heart pulled for more.

I studied to become a nurse and specialized in labor and delivery. This has been my dream, and I truly feel blessed to have met this aspiration at such a young age. The true miracle of birth has always been intriguing and inspiring to me. It is hard to complain about the long crazy hours I work when a little piece of heaven enters the room and yelps that glorious cry for the first time. Being around so many newborns made the wretch in my chest pull harder to have a child of my own.

When my husband Nate and I decided to start a family I knew it would be a bit of a challenge. I’ve been told my whole life that pregnancy would be difficult for me, but I always had hope. One doctor even suggested my chances were “slim to none.” I was officially diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), a condition in which there are many small cyst on the ovaries making it difficult to ovulate and carry a pregnancy.

We tried to conceive naturally for 18 months before going to fertility medication. I believed that the fertility medicine was what we needed to finally conceive. I gained new optimism about the whole process. I started with a drug called Clomid, and to my disappointment I was on it for 6 months with no success. I was then referred to an endocrinologist who specialized in infertility. This became even more of a financial burden because my insurance covered no infertility assistance.

Before my appointment, I fell apart. I felt a great heap of disappointment fall squarely on my shoulders. I felt shame. I felt to blame for this. I felt sorry for myself.

“God, don’t you know how badly I want to become a mother? The only thing in life I want is a family.” As if God doesn’t know the desires of my heart.

“You will be a mother,” I felt him promise. “Trust in Me.”

Little did I know that this struggle would be the defining circumstance of my life. It has created avenues I never believed I would travel down. My thoughts began to drift towards adoption. Something I always supposed as my plan B, but never really considered. Was this the answer to me becoming a mother?

At my appointment the doctor scanned my ovaries and found one mature follicle (an egg ready for ovulation). He said at the dose of fertility drugs I was on he would expect to see 5 or 6 follicles. He gave me little hope of success, and sent me home with an HCG injection. I was to take it on a certain day, and then go in for intrauterine insemination.

My thoughts on adoption were placed to the side when a few weeks later I received the news we were expecting. Finally!! The disappointment I had felt the last couple years was replaced by pure contentment when I heard the news. I wept and thanked God for this precious gift of life growing inside of me. The gratitude I felt for this little being can’t be described. The most satisfying moment was when my miracle baby boy was born, and I felt God’s loving arms around me, as His promise to me came to fruition.

Oliver has been the joy of our lives. He is smart, curious, and silly. I have never felt so deeply tethered to another soul as I am to him. It is because of his sweetness that I couldn’t wait to have more children.

We took no precautions after his birth, and were hoping to conceive again around his first birthday. Once again we were unable to conceive naturally, and returned to the same infertility doctor. I was certain that it would work the first month or so because of our successfulness before. No such luck.

After 5 months on Clomid, multiple ultrasounds, a ruptured ovarian cyst, and failed IUI, I was encouraged to consider more invasive treatments. What was costing us approximately $700 a month would jump to a staggering $3,000 a month-or more. The odds of success were at 25 percent. My insurance covered nothing. All of this information became overwhelming, and I needed a break.

I told Nate that I was putting this whole trying thing on hold for a few months. He urged me to reconsider and keep trying, but I was exhausted, frustrated, and completely disappointed in myself for not being able to just conceive a child normally like (what felt like) every other woman! Going to work was no relief because I cared for mothers who were drug addicted or mothers who used abortion as birth control. In circumstances where I normally showed compassion to these women, I felt myself grow bitter inside and fall into a deep pocket of hopelessness.

The thought of never being able to conceive naturally again was devastating to me. Nate and I have always dreamed a big family. Luckily we are surrounded by a wonderful support system and they comforted us with words of encouragement and prayers. Even in my despair I silently remembered that God kept his promise of becoming a mother to me. I needed to Trust in Him.

And then baby Hope was born. Her mom came in late at night from the Emergency Room. She was pregnant, with no prenatal care. She was alone. She had no plans to keep her baby.

She explained how months earlier when she knew she was pregnant she had an abortion. She thought the abortion was successful. She hadn’t realized she was still pregnant until two weeks before giving birth when she noticed a small bump in her abdomen. She was able to hide the last couple weeks of pregnancy behind baggy sweatshirts from everyone.

She soon left the hospital after relinquishing her rights as a mother.

The nurses called her baby Hope. She was beautiful and perfect. My heart was aching for this little girl, and I strongly felt she was meant to be here for a reason. Something moved me that night at work. I truly believed that this little baby would have an important purpose in my life.

I went home and shared what happened with Nate. To my utter amazement and surprise he said, “Call the hospital and see what we would need to do to adopt her.” My jaw dropped…….

I couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. “Adopt her? You would be open to doing that?” He shared with me how he had been looking on the internet at adoption agencies and felt God working on his heart to consider the opportunity.

I called work, and by the time I arrived back there that night, Baby Hope was given to a loving family on Christmas Eve. I had sadness about the whole situation, but was grateful to now know baby Hope was what Nate and I needed to uncover our own story of hope. She allowed for us to truly open our hearts up to the possibility of adopting.

Trust in Me.

There have been two times in my life I felt the Holy Spirit stop me in my tracks. The first, at the young age of 19 when I stood in my dorm room and listened to Nate sing a song he had written about his love for the Lord with his guitar. I felt this overwhelmingly clear whisper in my ear. “This is your husband.”

Not what I wanted to hear. I was calling the shots in my life, and Nate was not who I had in mind to share it with! It was easy for me to listen to what I heard that day once I really considered a future with Nate. I have yet to regret a day of it.

The other time I felt the Holy Spirit was the moment Oliver was born. I had seen a gazillion births, but the moment I pulled him out and laid eyes on his preciousness, I was overwhelmed with the emotion. If I can love someone this much, it is unfathomable how much God loves me.

These two individual events in my life stopped me in my tracks, caused me to reevaluate, straighten up and focus on living the life God has called me to live. I didn’t anticipate the third time God stopped me in my tracks…

It was a typical Saturday night church service. I hate to admit it, but I really didn’t want to go because I was bone-dead tired and it was a guest speaker talking that night. I went anyhow. That’s when I heard the fellow church member whom I had never seen before preach. Although not the main focus of his message, he shared the story of his longing to adopt and years later having it finally come to fruition in his life. Now with his children grown, his own son was on his way abroad to pick up his adoptive child.

I am not one to get emotional, especially in public, but I felt a deep heaviness on my heart. I began to cry. I tried to hide it at first, but then I let the tears roll down my face. I couldn’t hold back my emotions. Everything welled up inside me, my longing to have another child, my disappointment with infertility, the financial burden, the amazing child I have, my incredible husband through all of this.

I wasn’t crying because of the wonderful story of a family who adopts and opens an avenue for their children to adopt. I was crying because I felt God tell me:

You will be a mother. Trust in Me.

That was the most defining moment of my life. That was the beginning of my story.

At that instant I fully understood and knew God was calling me to adopt. His destiny for my life is much greater than I could ever imagine for myself. I don’t fully understand the impact of this decision on my life or my family’s life, but I know one thing: That God’s hand is in the center of it.

Infertility it is not a life-threatening dilemma, or even a hopeless situation. But it has been a heartbreaking experience at times, and not an easy road to go down. What might seem surprising to some is we fully expect to pursue more infertility treatments in upcoming years. We can’t imagine a more perfect family picture for ourselves than a loving family with biological and adoptive children.

As I consider all that I’ve been through to get to this point however, I feel that infertility was nothing but a blessing in the end. This has been a struggle I am grateful for because it has brought me closer to my family, my husband, and my God. What once was a supposed plan B for my life, has quickly become plan A……and you know what? I feel lucky. I feel happy. I feel privileged that I get to live out this beautiful story. Our story. The story that God is telling and I get to breathe it as it unfolds.

Now this is where the real journey begins. The chronicle of how our family comes to be. And how the window God left open becomes the most joyous and petrifying experience I am about to encounter.