I met my husband Mark during freshman orientation at bible college. We started dating my sophomore year, and we got married right before I graduated. We wanted to wait for a few years before starting our family. We went to grad school, traveled Europe, and tried to get in some quality time together. We kept pushing back trying to have a baby, waiting until we felt like it was the perfect time. Little did we know it would be years after that before we finally became parents.
We started trying to conceive in 2004. Most of our friends had already started their families, but we waited because we wanted to be really ready. Since I’m a planner, I started using an ovulation predictor right away. When I wasn’t pregnant after several months of planned timing, I knew something was up, but my doctor told me to wait a year before doing any testing. I felt totally powerless at not being able to conceive. We waited a year, and then I got testing. We had no explanation for our infertility. I worried incessantly about if and when I would become a mom. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t coming easily, and I felt totally isolated from my friends, many of whom were on #2 or 3 by this point. Suddenly, I felt left behind.
Shorly after starting with an RE, I got pregnant. Then came a string of miscarriages. Each one was devastating in it’s own way. I feel like I was consumed with miscarriages for two years. We slowly pulled through, and started thinking about adoption. It was something I had always wanted to do, but I thought we would get pregnant first. Moving towards adoption was a relief. This was a renewed time of hope. We were excited about becoming parents.
We got certified to be fost/adopt parents, and we were placed with our son Jafta when he was six months old. This was a fost-adopt placement, but we were told it would be a fairly straight-forward, low-risk adoption. We were elated. I truly felt the wounds of IF left when he came into our lives. We stopped trying to conceive and I thought we would build our family through adoption.At the beginning of last year, we found out we were pregnant. I had totally surrendered any thoughts of having biological children. When I tested positive, my first and overwhelming thought was, I can’t believe I’m gonna have to go through another miscarriage. I was sure that it would end the same way. I can remember my doctor telling me at my 12-week appointment that I needed to realize that this would probably result in a baby! I was in total shock, and up until they placed her in my arms I couldn’t believe it.
India is now 6 months old, and Jafta is 2. They are such a joy for me, and both have these amazing little personalities. Our journey is not over yet. Jafta’s adoption process has been full of drama and uncertainty, and we are still waiting for it to be finalized. We are also in the process of adopting from Haiti, and we will be traveling there next month to visit an orphanage in the hopes of being matched.
Becoming a mother has been quite a journey for me. I’m not sure why God has made family-building such a long and hard road for us, but we sure do appreciate our kids and love being parents.
