When I was first asked to write a guest post, I was sort of at a loss of what to say…even though I write my own blog posts nearly every day! As I continued to think about it, I thought that I would just share a little of what has been going on with life. The major focus of our world has been our decision to adopt a baby!!!! This is not the first time that we have made this decision, but it is the first time that we have agreed to try it again.
Three years ago we attempted our first adoption. Six months before that, I found out through an exploratory surgery that I would never be able to conceive a child. God just had not created my body to do that one task. I was completely heart-broken. To know me, means that you also know that my lifelong dream has been to be a mommy. That was the one thing that I told everyone that I would be. But the day of my surgery was the day that my hopes and dream began to unravel. It was the day that took us down the road of adoption.
It was in the middle of January 2007 when I received a phone call from a friend asking if we would be interested in adopting a baby. She knew a woman who was pregnant and looking to place her child up for adoption! How incredible was that? That after all this heartbreak, here was this miracle that came out of nowhere! So, we pursued it. We got to know her through emails and phone calls. She invited us to her doctor’s appointment that would determine the sex of her baby. That day, we found out that there were TWO tiny miracles in her belly, and they were girls. So we spent the next few months preparing for the arrival of our daughters. Long story short, they never came home with us. The birthmother decided that she wanted to parent the babies just days after we met them for the very first time.
I was at a total loss. I was filled with anger, guilt, sadness, rage, despair, emptiness and every other emotion that comes with losing a child. I was so angry at God…how could he let this happen to us? Why would he let this happen to us? But most of all, I was angry at myself. I had so much guilt and shame about this happening. I blamed myself for the situation that we found ourselves in; after all, I was the one that could not have children. I am a woman…having babies is what we were created for right? And now it was the one thing that I would never be able to do and we had lost our one chance to have a family- we had lost our daughters. I isolated myself from friends and family and become someone who just tried to get through the day. Days turned into weeks which turned into months which turned into years. Over time, I began to heal and mend. I began to let go of the pain and the hurt and slowly the guilt is falling away.
So here we are, attempting this journey again. We are so very excited about our journey to make our family complete. Our hearts still ache for our girls. I do not know if that will ever go away. I think of them often and miss what would have been. But I would not have changed anything about this road we have taken. So many blessings have come out of the sadness. I would have never met Nicole if things hadn’t happened the way that they did. And I do have to say, I am so blessed she is in my life. But more than that, we would not be the people that we are today, or have the marriage that we have. I guess the point is, that my life has not turned out the way that I would have imagined it to be but what God has always intended it to be. I would not have it any other way. In spite of it all, I am blessed beyond measure.
Thanks Nicole for letting me share a piece of our story today! And thanks to all of you for reading it. I hope you all have an amazing day!
