Our Adoption Journey

I have been meaning to write this post for a while, but knew it would take some time. And so I finally feel ready.

Jeremy and I talked about adopting early on in our marriage. We had both agreed that we wanted to adopt. I don’t remember the first discussions. It may have been before we were even married. But at some point we came to that agreement, that we would eventually adopt a child. In our minds, we had a plan. We had discussed wanting a large family. And so we had decided to have 3 biological children, and then later, when the finances were present, we would adopt internationally. And me personally, I was thinking a girl from China. This China thing had been in my head since high school.

When Hope (our niece) entered our family through adoption, we received a huge blessing. And we got to see and experience God’s faithfulness to my sister, her husband and our entire family in a new and different way. I think Hope changed us all. She was the first little life to open our eyes to how God can create a family, with NO help from us whatsoever!

When Jeremy and I decided to start a family, we started with complete confidence. We never really had any worries about infertility. Maybe we should have. My only 2 sisters had their fair share of battles and fertility problems, so chances should have looked slim for me. But we never really worried about it. For 6 months, we didn’t stress and honestly attempted to leave it in God’s hands and timing. And then at the 6 month mark, I got more serious about it and attempted to place it back in my own hands – cause God wasn’t making it happen. After 11 months of trying, we began talking about adoption. This was May of 2007. Oh my, how God works fast! Jeremy was ready. The money wasn’t there. I had my doubts (which I will explain later), but I had a husband that was on board and ready to adopt a baby. He could have cared less about biological versus adopted and what a blessing it was for me to have that support! And so we began discussing together international versus domestic, private agency versus DHS. And after much discussion, we decided that if we were not pregnant by December, we would start the domestic adoption process through a local agency. We were ready to be parents.

Let me go back a little. My doubts I mentioned earlier . . . back in May of 07, I worried that if I moved into the adoption process, God might just make me wait forever. So I would still be waiting but in another arena. Which I knew would be even more frustrating! I thought maybe this was all just a test of my patience and trust. I was afraid of moving forward on my own without God giving me a clear word such as “Melodie, adopt.” Or “Melodie, wait.” I was afraid that I might be out of God’s will in adopting, trying to take things into my own control. Geez, the struggle of my life - listening for God’s plan and being so fearful that I might accidentally step out of his will. As I was explaining all of this to my dear friend, she made a statement that completely touched and changed my heart. She said something like – I don’t think you could ever be out of God’s will in choosing to adopt a child. Ahhhhhhhhh! So what I needed to hear! And typing it and remembering that conversation still puts a lump in my throat. This statement moved me forward in our process. And in hindsight, I feel like the waiting I went through was a whole lot less about me and just more of God developing his plan through our journey. Don’t we always try to make it about ME ME ME!

At this point, I hadn’t been to a fertility specialist and I hadn’t been given a diagnosis. My regular doctor was kind of stumped as to why I was having trouble getting pregnant. In August, it seemed December was quickly approaching and I decided that I would visit a fertility specialist. I wanted a diagnosis. Months, visits and tests went by and he too was stumped. In December there were no answers to why we were not pregnant and we applied for adoption. Yay! In early January the nurse called and said there was another test that the doctor wanted do. I explained to her that I really wasn’t interested in continuing the testing and that we had decided to adopt. She convinced me to do this one last test and that we might all have more clarity from its findings. So at then end of January, 2 days before Jeremy and I were going to be attending our adoption seminar, the doctor called and informed me that he did have a diagnosis and chances seemed very slim that I would ever naturally conceive. It was a little bit sad, to say the least. As excited as I was to adopt, the unknown of my condition had begun to feel comfortable. And as much as I thought I wanted an answer and a diagnosis, sometimes I think I could have lived without that phone call. Fortunately I had a husband that empathized with the pain and loss that I felt, but helped me look forward to God’s bigger plan that he had in store for our family.

We proceeded that weekend to attend the adoption seminar through the local agency. And what peace! We were headed in the right direction to grow our family. By the end of March we had completed the many steps and processes (we purposely moved quickly) and were officially on list of waiting families. And you know the rest. Our baby boy was born May 1st, we learned about him May 6th and brought him home on May 9th. Holden is our miracle. A bigger miracle than we could have ever dreamt for ourselves.

Adoption was never our second best option. I always want to make that clear to people. Adoption was something that God put on our hearts years ago and he continued to stir up that dream until it came to fruition. And I have stated before, we plan to adopt more and more babies in the future. Right now, we are enjoying our boy and really cannot imagine our lives any other way.