I found Kelly's blog through the We Are Grafted In website. Kelly is the organizer, facilitator, etc, etc... for this amazing resource for adoptive families. If you haven't checked it out, you should definitely give it a looksy.
I only know Kelly through the blog world, but I am certain that she is passionate about adoption! Her family's story about why they adopted is so neat, I didn't want you to miss it so I am posting it seperate from the other question and answers. You'll get Part 2 tomorrow. {Which works perfectly for me because this 31 day challenge thing is more difficult then I thought it would be!}
Why did you adopt?
Infertility treatments. Ugh. Hardest season of my life. Experienced the joy of becoming pregnant…twice…and lost two babies. I remember very clearly after the second miscarriage sitting with my husband as he tried to comfort me. And, then it hit me. I told him, “I feel like I’ve been trying so hard to make my calling to be a mother that I’ve missed what it is God has called me to.” My purpose during that time was to become a mom—it drove me, was all I thought about, broke my heart on a regular basis when I was still not a mom. But, at that moment, I had peace. I still wanted to be a mom...but I knew I wanted to do what God had called me to do FIRST. The month after that, while we were taking a break from fertility treatment but still taking some medication to prepare for the next round of treatment, we became pregnant with my son Evan. That’s not the case with everyone—no doubt. But, what is the case is that God is present in all suffering and uses them to draw us to Himself.
When Evan was a year old, surprise! We found ourselves mysteriously pregnant with our daughter Ashlyn. Didn’t even know that could happen the old-fashioned way. There we were, the couple who heard doctors say it would be “nearly impossible” for us to get pregnant, and now we had two kids 22 months apart. So there, science.
When Ashlyn was about 9 months old, my husband went to a wedding for a friend by himself since
I was still nursing and couldn’t leave the baby for so long. He came home late and laid beside me in bed telling me about the wedding—you know, everything a wife wants to hear about dresses, the cake, the menu, and all the excitement. He mentioned that he sat at a table with a couple who had just adopted a little boy from Russia. As far as they knew, they wouldn’t have trouble conceiving. But, they wanted to adopt as well as have kids biologically. And, they decided to adopt first. “I want to do that,” I announced. “Umm…what?” “I want to do that. Let’s adopt a little boy from Russia. Evan needs a brother. I’ve always had a heart for adoption. Come on, let’s do it.” Adoption had long been on my heart—since childhood really—but when we had gone through the “threat” of not being able to conceive, I just wasn’t ready emotionally for it. I think I may have heard some chuckles and a few “you’re crazy”s before we fell asleep. That night, I had a dream that I was right where I was in bed and a little girl approached the bedside and called me mommy. She was Asian. And, her name was Lydia. I didn’t speak her name; but, I knew what it was. I woke up and said to Mark, “That was a funny dream. I dreamt we had an Asian daughter named Lydia. But, I want a boy from Russia.”
I started researching and gathering info—for our Russian son, of course. But, a few months later, once again, surprise! We were pregnant. And, I was dumbfounded. And, I let go of the dream of adopting. Not long later, we lost now our third baby. And, soon after that, now intentionally trying to have another, we lost our fourth baby. When we got pregnant again, our specialist who was checking blood counts and doing ultrasounds every other day (any woman in the infertility club knows this drill) told us we were losing this baby too. We both cried. We went out to lunch together and started to accept the loss of yet another child. Why were we doing this? We’ve talked about adoption. Mark was open to adoption. Let’s stop trying to do this thing again and move forward with adopting. Yes, that’s what we’ll do. There was hope in our loss. And, we were ready to go to Russia for our boy.
Then, the doctor called us. More tests came back that weren’t so clear. Come back in a few days for a recheck. 7 months later, Drew was born.
But, I couldn’t let go of where God has brought us. We had felt so certain that God was calling us to adopt. Mark didn’t feel the same—he always had felt content with the children we had. He felt content with two. Then, he felt content with three. And, the idea of four was downright overwhelming. I kept pursuing adoption, kept talking about, kept researching. “I’m afraid I’ll regret it the rest of my life if we don’t do this.” “I look around at our dinner table and just feel like someone’s missing.” Mark listened. But, I realized I couldn’t push. If were going to do this, we both had to be in 100%.
The day Drew turned 1, on his actual birthday, Mark walked in the back door from work and said, “I think we’d be disobedient if we didn’t do it.” And, that was that. He was full in. And, with now two boys and a girl, we decided we’d ask for a girl. And, I remembered my dream.
beautiful!
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