...I HAD A DREAM
The moment, that you "just know", happened for me while sitting in art class in my junior year of high school. That moment when I decided I didn't want to go to college but instead just wait for the perfect guy to come along, get married and have four kids. The announcements came over the loudspeaker regarding upcoming ACT/SAT tests and individual interviews were taking place encouraging future college plans. I wanted nothing to do with either!
Unbeknownst to me, "Mr. Right" would intersect my path on my first adventure alone at the age of 21. I arrived in Branson, Missouri from Wisconsin on a vacation to visit friends with no intent of meeting or being set up with anyone!...Within a very short time, that trip turned out to be a fairytale week of a lifetime and both of our lives changed their course forever. I would leave the only place I ever called home and venture to Kansas City and he walked away from his plan to enlist career Navy as a pilot, a life I was certain I was not prepared to embrace, with him being in harms way.
My "21" adventure was filled with many new moments. The first time flying, window seat, face pressed up against the glass in awe (loved it! still do), first time on a motorcycle (loved it! absolutely still do), a promise ring on my finger before I returned home (smitten and in love!), moved to Kansas City a month later to begin Bible college and continue our long distance romance (scared but loved it!) and married a year later with a new vision for the future (pure bliss and filled with hope).
...MY VISION IS BLURRY
We settled into our first year of marriage attending Bible college in the evenings and working full time during the day. At which time we
decided we should do the mature and responsible thing and wait a couple of years until we were "financially stable" and had some "just the two of us" time before we started family.
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3 years came and went, still not completely successful at being financially stable, we decided we had enough "just the two of us" time and didn't want to wait any longer to start our family. Another 5 years passed by and the vision started to become a bit blurry and things didn't seem so clear.
...WAKE ME UP
Somebody please wake me up from this dream that is starting to become my worst nightmare. My heart began to feel numb when the ability to become pregnant became so illusive and was happening so easily for others around us. Brett held so effortlessly to his compassionate, positive and hopeful composure, content with whatever God had planned for us. I, on the other hand, was crushed with disappointment, depression and hopelessness. I began feeling absolutely worthless in my femininity and womanhood not being able to conceive and experience a life growing inside me. A child that would bear the likeness of the two of us. I began to lose faith in what I thought was the dream God had given me long before I even met Brett.
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I chose to keep vigilant with my healthy approach to diet and exercise hoping to increase my odds to conceive and keep my body ready when "it happened". Trying my best to be supportive and loving towards those close to me having babies, learning and gleaning every little thing I could to be the best parent possible when..."it happened".
I was determined to try not to let jealousy or bitterness creep into my being so that all the little ones would only feel love from me. It did creep in and then out through the tears I cried with Brett and close confidants.
I held out hope every month...basil body temperature charts, supplements and herbs to increase fertility, stress management, regular chiropractic adjustments, constant prayer, pleading with God to grant me the desire of my heart. We exhausted all of the fertility tests except for one, the laparoscopy, the one test that would definitively reveal if I had endometriosis, a possible diagnosis that I was completely asymptomatic to except for the infertility. We decided to wait on that procedure until necessity revealed itself a bit more as there is no cure for endometriosis except, ironically, pregnancy. The next option would have been fertility drugs and I just wasn't there yet.
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"I'm late, could it be?" Countless times I would buy a pregnancy test, waiting with trepidation for the result...it was negative..."wait, is there a second line appearing? please, let there be a second line, please. Invariably, the very next day would begin with the start of another monthly cycle and every month that went by felt like I was moving further and further away from the possibility of a positive result.
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We decided to go ahead and buy our first house, then there was the addition of a puppy to fill the void, "let's buy a new car" (something small and fun and non practical)...hearing these quotes often, "you know...you buy a house, get a puppy, buy too small of a car and that's when you'll get pregnant, happens all the time!" Secretly I had hoped one of those events would be the trigger that would give me the chance to live out my dream of creatively telling Brett that he was going to be a father.
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...A SISTER CONNECT
Close friends watched us go through the emotional pain every month and empathizing with our desire to have the chance to experience parenthood started gently encouraging us to think about another possible option. The husband shared his own adoption story with the hopes of inspiring us to consider this as a possibility. Gradually letting it settle into our hearts that this may be God's plan for us we started discussing what that process might look like. It became clear that we needed a little more time to accept the reality that this might be the only way for us to be parents. Brett was perfectly happy with accepting our future as being just the two of us and I...well, I was not! In our contemplation and discussions about the idea we would hear..."I know a lot of people who get pregnant when they adopt, when they let go and stop thinking about it"...oh Lord, I was not about to hang my hope on yet another possible trigger that could set me up for a huge disappointment. When and if we did do this, I wanted my motive to be without the intent of gaining the reality of my "original dream" causing me to feel less about the child we would adopt. Could a pregnancy still happen? anything was possible. Is it where I wanted the focus of my mind and heart to be? no. Would the secret hope ever go away? never.
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As I finished the billing process for Sister Mary Laura's dental appointment she was taking note of my attentiveness to the children enjoying the new playroom in the waiting area. She proceeded to ask me if I had any children, I replied "no, not yet, but I'm trying to remain hopeful." Asking a few more personal questions she delicately suggested if we had considered adoption. There was a moment of confirmation in my spirit as her suggestion came on the heels of our friend's recent story. The kind Sister gave me a number that would put me in touch with Catholic Charities, an organization she was affiliated with that facilitated adoptions. A spark of excitement shot through my body as I felt that this may be God presenting me with a great opportunity, especially when I had no idea where to begin. Next, I needed to get a pulse on how Brett was feeling about our topic of adoption and then sharing this new information with him.
...NO HARM, NO FOUL
While we were in "wait" mode there seemed no harm in following the lead of information given to me. No commitments, just information. Making the first phone call led to an introduction with an adoption advocate in our area. Besides the obvious preliminary paperwork, he outlined the steps required by the state to adopt a child. More information for me to present to Brett...truth is, I was just as apprehensive as he was and sad that it felt like I had to give up on a dream. This was new territory. Not everybody I tried to connect with along the way was an open door. There were times when I wanted to quit and give up but God had strategically placed certain ones in our life that kept encouraging us to be brave and bold, to keep pressing on. So far, the process would cost us nothing but time, which we had plenty of. The first step would be to attend 30 hours of MAPP training (Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting)
required by the state in order to be a foster parent, to adopt or do both. The investment? 3 hours one night a week for 10 weeks. I made a call to find out when the next session would be, and find out that they only held them a certain number of times a year and all the sessions were filled. But before the call was over they had let me know that they had just created another extra session for people on the waiting list and they had a couple slots left. Oh my, "Brett...honey, how do you feel about putting our names on the list to attend? We have to make a decision now or wait quite a while longer...it's required before we can do anything else with the process." After 10 years being together he had come to know that I would not let go of the possibility of being a mom. Reluctantly and slightly agitated he agreed to go, knowing how important it was to me. By the end of 10 weeks we were both ready to embrace the next step.