We’re Growing Our Family!

I don’t think I’m ever going to forget the night I sat on the floor and looked over at Ryan and said, “I’m done” through swollen eyes and heaving breath. It was horrible. But it was also a relief for me. He, on the other hand, didn’t see it coming.

You know that sound in movies where you feel like you hear the air being sucked out of the room then it drops and all goes silent? That was what I felt happened that night in our flat with Sully asleep upstairs and the neighbors talking way too loudly through the wall.

I felt like a 10-ton weight was removed off my body while Ryan spiraled into a new reality. After over 2 years of trying I was done. It was too much. The pressure, the constant let down, the questions, the ways your brain never stops churning.

Understandably, Ryan needed time to mourn the anticipation of pregnancy going away and our family not happening the way we thought, a pain I knew monthly. I gave him and myself that time and space. And when we both worked through the fact that we were actually getting off the over 2-year train that is constantly trying to have another baby, we could now ask the key question.

Now what?

 

Wait! 🙂 I feel like it’s important to say these things before telling you our next step…

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that we had absolutely no problem having our sweet Sully Lou. In fact, I didn’t even realize I was pregnant until 9 weeks in it was such a surprise.

Fast forward and here we are now almost at 3 years since beginning to try and grow our family. I initially wrote about this pain here.

We learned two things once we pushed, got aggressive, and stopped listening to every doctor who said that it should happen any day now because we already had a baby and are in fine health. One is that I found out that I have endometriosis everywhere (luckily I recently had surgery to try and remove some of this). The second is that I have an incredibly low follicle count in my ovaries, so the odds of us having another child naturally are slim to none. You can read more about that here.

If you feel like you haven’t gotten an update on our secondary infertility in awhile, you’re right. Because deciding these next steps is a big freaking deal. And one we don’t take lightly.

We have very close family who has done IVF, adopted domestically, adopted internationally, had miscarriages, had biological children, the whole range. So thankfully we had a lot of people to ask for advice and lean on. Most of all though, we leaned on prayer.

IVF is what all the doctors we saw recommended. If I’m being honest and y’all…. please, please, please understand this is 100% based on our personal feelings and what is on our heart. We knew right out of the gate and were both in complete agreement that IVF is not for us. I’m not going to go into detail on this decision, because it’s just that, our decision.

Here is where the story turns exciting and if I’m again being honest, daunting (but in the best way)…

You see, adoption is something we literally have talked about since we began dating. Sure, we thought we would get to decide at which point in having children we would get the privilege of adopting.

Want to see God laugh, show him your plans. That’s what they say and gosh is it so true! (And don’t His plans always turn out so much better?!)

For years we’ve moved and traveled and loved hard and started companies and celebrated. All while carrying the pain of secondary infertility. Deciding the concrete next step in your infertility journal while living an in-between life in a foreign country isn’t ideal, but we were ready to get aggressive on building our family, no matter our life situation.

So at the end of 2018, we officially started the process to adopt! That’s right…

WE’RE ADOPTING!!!!

 

We’re doing a domestic adoption in the United States. We’re working through a wonderful adoption agency and will most likely be paired with a birthmother prior to her giving birth. This means we don’t choose gender, but we do participate in extensive education so we understand what medical conditions and more we’re comfortable with. We believe it could be anywhere from 12 months onward until we are blessed with another child. The best part – we already completed our home study (where a social service worker interviews you and examines your home) when we were home for Christmas!

As I mentioned, this calling has always been on our hearts. I honestly feel a lot of gratitude in this moment and type this with tears in my eyes. Gah it feels good to have it out in the open finally!!!!!!! God is SO good!

After speaking with other adoptive parents (two of which being my Aunts) and doing a sliver of the 60 hours of classes, adopting is for lack of better words, a lot. It’s a lot to process.

Yet, it is absolutely nothing when it comes to what the birthmother and families of adoptive children experience. And also it’s nothing compared to what the adoptive children themselves experience (even as newborns).

We get to be part of a very special triad of birthmother (+her partner/family), the child placed for adoption, and us as adoptive parents. I’m very grateful to God for giving us the courage and love to embark on this journey.

I’m already amazed at the support from our family and close friends. THANK YOU!

Funny enough, or maybe not, we already have gotten hard questions and strong opinions. This has only solidified our decision. The naive questions and opinions we have received have only taught us grace and showed us we’re on the right path.

As you might imagine, Sully is very excited for her future brother or sister! 🙂

I’ll share more soon about the adoption process and our experience thus far. Feel free to always email me or DM me if you have some immediate questions or things you want to chat about. It’s now one of my favorite topics as you can imagine!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers and think to add one prayer to your list – for any woman who becomes, is, or has been a birthmother. They are the true heroes in every adoptive story.

Thank you for reading all this if you’re still here! I’ll leave you with this little gem. Below is the photo we sent to some friends to tell them we are adopting (see the precious ornament!). Told ya Sully is so excited!