It's funny how life never turns out the way you think it is going to. I thought by now Ron and I would have at least one kid, maybe two. After all, I got 'baby fever' and was ready to start having kids a year after we were married. It took Ron a little longer to come around to that idea. He was the one who was thinking rationally and wanted us to finish school and have good jobs first. We thought we had everything figured out. God sure did have other plans in mind, we just didn't know it yet. As Ron's Grandma says, "If you want to see God laugh, make plans".
We tried to get pregnant the old fashioned way for over 2 years before we sought out the help of an infertility specialist. Deep down I felt that something was wrong. Why else would it be taking so long? Everyone on both sides of our families are baby making machines. So how could this be happening to us? Meanwhile it seemed that ALL of our friends, neighbors, and relatives were getting pregnant. The more time that went on the harder it was to be happy for whoever it was that was getting pregnant, especially for me. It seemed that every time I got on facebook some one else was announcing their pregnancy. I was extremely jealous. I didn't want to be, but I was. I am sorry to all of you whose baby showers I didn't attend or to those of you I distanced myself from because it was too hard to hear about your pregnancy. After many expensive tests and procedures we were left with two decisions. Keep trying other tests and procedures that were increasingly more expensive or try IUI (intrauterine insemination). We chose neither.
Months past by and I was left feeling like I was never going to be a mom. I tried so hard to be okay with the fact that I would be childless (with the exception of my brown four legged furry friends aka Riley and Piper). I felt that horrible that I couldn't be content with what I already had. Poor Ron, I feel so bad for the roller coaster of my emotions that he dealt with and is still dealing with, just in a different way now.
Adoption had always been in the back of my mind. Ron was all for it and was ready to pursue it much sooner than I was. Ron grew up in a family that was surrounded by both ends of adoption. My biggest issue was that I didn't feel that I should have to pay tons of money for a child when the majority of other couples don't have to. I told myself that adoption would be something we would never pursue because I didn't want to have pay $[insert gigantic number here] in adoption expenses for a child. It's not like the income of a Social Worker and a Physical Therapy Aide add up to very much.
It's really too bad that we couldn't just ask one of the many 'knocked up' 16 year olds at the high school near our house if they wanted to give us their baby. Every time we would see a pregnant 16 year old walking down the street Ron would say, "She's cute. Do you think she wants to give us her baby?" She would be thrilled to be getting the thousands of dollars we would offer to her and we would feel like we were getting a baby on clearance. Seems like a win-win situation. If only it could be that easy!
Everyone knows what adoption is, but we really had no idea what the process was like. One day at work I had a conversation with a co-worker that was going through the adoption process. It was so nice to talk to someone and get some real insight on adoption, other than what can be found on the internet. His experience with the process was so different than what I had thought it would be like. It almost seemed easy. Little did I know at the time how different everyone's adoptive journey could be. It got me excited about adoption. It was like something in my heart changed instantaneously. Ron was thrilled that I was finally ready to pursue this. I left him in charge of setting up an informational meeting to see what all this adoption nonsense was all about. Within a short time our prayers turned from, "Where do we go from here Lord?" to , "Here we go Lord!".
Until next time...
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