I was 16 when I met the boy of my dreams. We dated for 5 years before we got married. We did everything right … went to church on a regular basis, became teachers, coached basketball, bought our first house and got our masters degrees.
As a celebration of completing our masters programs we went to Europe and started to try to have children of our own. We dreamed together about what our kids would look like, each of us wanting our kids to have our best features. We joked that we would never have a red-head since no one on either side of our family had red hair.
We tried to follow all the “rules” of trying to get pregnant and each month it didn’t happen, the tears would flood. As the months turned to a year the pain of not getting pregnant intensified. It seemed like everyone around us was getting pregnant. It seemed so unfair.
After a year of unsuccessful attempts to conceive, we reached out to an infertility clinic. The only way we could have a child of our own, besides God performing a miracle, was through in-vitro fertilization. It was another roller coaster ride of emotions with many highs and lows. Our first attempt was unsuccessful and our doctor felt so sad for us he waived the fees for our second attempt. We thought that was our sign from God… what doctor waives his fees? We just knew that our second go around would work. But God had a very different plan for us. We found out on the 4th of July that our second attempt of in-vitro had failed … not even one egg fertilized! The door was slammed closed and it was very clear to us we were not going to have biological children.
It took almost a year for us to realize that God had chosen us for something greater than we could ever imagine … adoption! We sought out counsel from our family, friends and from reading God’s Word, we realized that God had chosen us to adopt! Once we realized that, we felt so honored and blessed that God would find us worthy of adoption.
We knew right away that we would go through Antioch Adoptions. We had attended Antioch Bible Church during the time Pastor Hutcherson started the amazing ministry of Antioch Adoptions. We were so grateful for the wonderful staff and Pastor Hutch’s vision to find forever homes for every child.
But I must confess, even though we felt honored and we understood what God wanted us to do, that didn’t mean it was without feelings of worry, frustration, anger and sadness. We worried about whether we could bond with a child that wasn’t “ours’. There was the feeling of our lives being invaded, especially when going through the home study. We became an open book to every little detail in our life. But despite all those feelings there was also a feeling of hope. Hope to one day have a child call you mom and dad. Hope to bond with a child and create core family memories. Hope to see God’s plan come to fruition. And hope to love like you’ve never known before.
It’s been almost nine years since we felt God leading us to adopt our children, and I must say God is so good! We have two beautiful children and the funny thing is they both have red in their hair! In looking back, I cannot imagine not being mom and dad to our sweet daughter and hilarious son. God knew how our family would come together and I’m so grateful we trusted Him and took that leap of faith to adopt.
October is Double Impact Month at Antioch Adoptions so all donations will be doubled up to $70,000 – please help us reach our goal and help children find forever families right here in our own backyard!
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