Daniel
and I met while attending Texas A&M University. My friend who knew both of
us ended up setting us up on a date and the rest is history. We dated for 3
months before getting engaged and then were engaged for 5 months. We have now
been happily married for just over 6 years. He is the love of my life and my
best friend.
About
just over a year of being married, we decided to start our family. Only it didn’t
exactly go as I had pictured. We tried for just over 2 years and then found out
that without IVF with ICSI, we would never have a biological child. When Daniel
and I were dating, we had talked about kids and how many we wanted. We also
both expressed that we wanted to adopt too. So after we tried IVF and it didn’t
work, we decided it was time to adopt. Since we had always wanted to adopt, it
wasn’t a difficult decision to make. When we found out that we weren’t
pregnant, neither one of us even cried. We just knew and felt in our hearts
that adoption was the way to build our family and we haven’t looked back once.
Now
that we have our boys we can’t imagine life without them and we have no doubt
that they were meant to be in our family. We could try IVF again but we won’t
because we really feel that adoption is the right path for our family. We love
our boys just as much as any other mother loves their biological children.
This is our story on how we adopted two boys that are 3 weeks and
1 day apart in age and from two different states. Written by Daniel.
We are adopting two newborns in the next few months. This
was not something we had planned on, but it is something that we know is right.
(Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved).
After our profile went online at the
beginning of the year, things went slowly at first. After a few months with no
activity, things started picking up with our profile. We were contacted several
times over several weeks. After several emails/phone conversations nothing ever
progressed any further. We never felt right about any of them.
Whether
you think it is pure coincidence, a greater power, or a father's intuition,
before Laura and I ever found out the results of our infertility treatments, I
knew that adoption was the right thing for us. I also knew back in October,
just before we diligently started the adoption process, that June would be a
critical month for in relation to our future family. I told Laura about this
and a few other close friends, but they never fully believed me and just
assumed it was wishful thinking.
After our third or fourth contact with
a woman contemplating placing her baby for adoption, we received one particular
email from a young woman in Nevada, whom we will call Nikki, where she told us
that we were the only couple she was interested in.
Within
two days, we had purchased plane tickets and scheduled a trip to go meet her
and her mother. After the trip, Laura and I had no doubt that this was meant to
be. We had several experiences that just confirmed to us that we were making
the right decision. And yes, the baby is due right in the middle of June.
The day after we returned from our
visit, we received another email from a young woman in Michigan interested in
placing her baby with us. We will call her Ellie. She mentioned that she had
been looking through our profile and our adoption blog many times and liked us
so much that we were her first choice as an adoptive family. She knew from her
caseworker that we had been contacted by at least one other person and hoped it
wasn't too late. As heartbreaking as it was for Laura and I, we had heard that
adoptions so close together were extremely discouraged and nearly impossible to
do. With sadness, mainly for this poor girl that we had to reject, we replied
back that we had already been selected and wished her the very best of luck in
her search for another couple. We were in a "don't rock the boat"
mode and didn't even attempt to listen to what we were feeling inside.
I am a
sound sleeper under almost any conceivable circumstance and can count on one
hand the number of times I have had trouble sleeping since I've been married.
Unknown to each other, both Laura and I had trouble sleeping that night ( I
guess we alternating periods of awakenings) and neither of us could think of
anything else the whole next day. Laura called me at work to ask me some
unrelated question the next afternoon, and in the course of the brief
conversation, we found out that both of us were in a state of uneasiness over
the situation. Looking back, we are thankful that we were open in our
communications with each other.
We discussed it further when I got home
and decided that we at least needed to email Ellie and let her know that we
couldn't stop thinking about her and told her that we would like to keep in
touch if she didn't mind. We emailed back and forth once or twice.
A few days later, after some
discussions with our caseworker and some other friends, we let their thoughts
override our feelings and finally decided that we shouldn't lead her on if we
knew it wasn't possible. LDS Family Services would never allow it and we also
didn't want to take away an opportunity from another adoptive couple. We told
her that realistically, she should start looking for another couple to place
with, and if she thought we were the absolute only possible couple, then she
should talk with her caseworker so her caseworker could help her through the
situation. We both were again saddened at having to say no to this sweet girl
and were more sad for having led her on for several days.
To our
complete surprise, a few days later we got a phone call from our caseworker
saying that they were supportive of us going ahead with both adoptions.
Apparently, Ellie really wouldn't consider anyone else and felt very strongly
about us. In retrospect, we are so grateful to her that she listened to her
heart and didn't back down as easily as we did. I guess that is a lesson
learned for a dad-in-training.
After talking with Ellie on the phone
the first time, we had to make sure that Nikki would be okay with us adopting
another child so very soon after hers. If she wasn't happy about the situation,
we told Ellie that we would not be able to go through with it. To make a long
story short, Nikki was so excited. In her quest to find the right adoptive
couple, the only hesitation that she and her mom had about us was that they
felt that the baby needed to go to a family where he would have a sibling close
to his age. However, they felt even more strongly that we were the right couple
so they chose us despite the fact that we didn't have any children yet.
Needless to say, when they found out about baby #2 they were extremely happy
and felt that it was an answer to their prayers.
We later found out after talking to
Ellie that she had selected us months before contacting us. She had wanted to
talk to the birth father first, who was on the other side of the country, and
get his approval to go through with placing her baby for adoption. We really
can't help but feel that this was definitely supposed to happen this way. If
she had contacted us months ago, we probably would have never heard from Nikki
because our profile would have been taken off by the time she started looking.
We may
not always know what way things are going to happen, but if we do what we are
supposed to and keep an open heart and mind, things will fall into place.
Things may not go just like you originally want, but it won't matter to you
anymore because you will realize that everything is alright. To those who know
me, that is the story of my life.
Laura and I just believe that these two
boys have worked hard to get here at the same time and are excited to see them
grow up together. I'm sure that there will be plenty of challenges, but we are
confident that we can work through them as a family. Starting with the
logistics of getting them both home.
We have open adoptions with both of our
birth mothers still and keep in contact with them through letters, emails,
pictures and our blog. We love these girls and we think the world of them. They
gave us the greatest gift that anyone has ever given us.
