Adoption- It's about love, pain and faith!

Craig and I have been so blessed over the 7 years we have been married. We have both been blessed with so many great opportunities that have helped us grow individually as well as a couple. And we just found out last week that Craig passed the bar exam so we can finally get relief from the stress of waiting for those results.

Unfortunately, a few years ago we discovered that we would be facing the challenges that come with infertility. This is something you never plan on having to overcome...especially as a young girl, I just thought that you get married when you want to and have children when you want to. To my disappointment, I learned that it doesn't exactly work that way. In fact, it doesn't work that way at all. So there we were facing a challenge neither one of us knew anything about. We immediately started to discuss how we were going to have the family we both wanted so badly. We completed several trials of fertility drugs, procedures and injections to make it happen and each month we were heart broken when it was unsuccessful. Craig was so supportive during this time...getting up at 2:00am to give me an injection, meeting with doctors, providing samples, etc. And each time the day came for us to see if it worked, Craig would quietly come in and sit down next to me ready to put his arms around me when we discovered the negative test. After several months of this, we decided it was time to move on.

We prayed about adoption and both received confirmations that this was the way we were suppose to grow our family. I love adoption and was thrilled to be a part of it. We started the paperwork and approval process with LDS Family Services in August of 2008. After orientations, paperwork, reference letters, and creating a profile of pictures and a letter to the birth parents we were finally approved in February of 2009. We were excited to finally get the process going and hoped it would be quick. Just 2 weeks ago, we were contacted by a birth mom and then last week we were contacted by another birth mom. The correspondence we have had with both birth moms have been a wonderful experience. As exciting as it is though, the emotions of it have been overwhelming. Things can change every day and it feels almost like a roller coaster. One day you are filled with excitement and anticipation and the next day you feel pain and rejection. Adoption is a wonderful opportunity and we are looking forward to the day that we have a child placed into our home. The one lesson we are learning through this process is that we can't control the process. We have to have complete faith in Heavenly Father and his plan for us. He knows who our children are and he will get them to us. This is such a new experience for us that we are trying to learn how to deal with the day to day emotions of it.

A woman I work with reminded me of this scripture and it has brought me the peace that I need at this time. Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." I really needed this reminder to realize that there is nothing I can do except hand it over to God. I have to know and have the faith that if one of these birth moms is carrying our child that they will be directed and inspired to choose us.