Our Adoption Mission Beginings

A few years ago my husband and I embarked on a journey; a journey in adoption.  I wanted to share that journey with you.  Below are the first few posts and the rest will be along over the next few weeks.

June 21, 2008

That is so great! That is what we have heard from most people when we tell them we are in the process of adopting. Some comment on what a short time we have been “trying” to have a biological baby, but most keep that comment to themselves if they think it. This is probably good.

 

When Scott and I got married we told everyone, including ourselves that we didn’t want to have children for two years. We mentally believed this but emotionally, I started thinking about it immediately. And so did Scott. That did not happen.  

However, then in June of 2007 I woke at 1AM with the most terrible pain in my side. I thought my appendix was going to burst (the pain was on the right side of my lower abdomen.) Scott rushed me to the ER. After 2 hours in the waiting room and they stuck us in a patent room and did a bunch of tests. The Dr came in and said in a matter of fact way, “Did you know you were pregnant?” “Ah – No” was our reply. He barely gave us the chance to be ecstatic about this discover before he moved on to say that the pain could mean that I was having an ectopic pregnancy. He explained that that meant that the baby had attached itself to the fallopian tube and would not have the room to grow there. He did some more tests and could find no proof of that and said that I must be very recently pregnant. My hormone level was very low and they could see nothing on an ultrasound.

 

Despite the knowledge that we should not yet get too excited, we did. In fact we told our whole family. Moms and dads, brothers, sisters, grandparents, cousins. All were super excited for us. Unfortunately when the pain did not go away the next day I had to run back to the ER. They did some more blood work and gave me the most horrible news. I had been more than a few days pregnant (5-6 weeks) but I was now having a miscarriage. 

The Dr tried to soften the blow by telling me that it is very common to miscarry your first child. It does not mean anything and we should have no problem getting pregnant again. He rattled off statistic that only helped a little. I was devastated. We had gotten so excited and fell so quickly. 

To be honest, I knew something was wrong. I was guarding myself a little, but Scott took the news even harder than me at first. In the short 36 hours that we knew we would be parents, he had gotten very excited. We took the advise of several family and friends that we should name the baby. Shiloh is the name given. It means “It is God’s”. And that is what we did, gave it to God. 

Soon after that I found out that the reason for the miscarriage was Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome – PCOS. It is very common in women and makes it hard for a fertilized egg to attach to the uterine wall. I had VERY low progesterone levels and high blood sugar. My Dr put me on Metformin and a progesterone supplement. The Metformin was started first and seemed to have no effect. 

But when I started the progesterone – the worst “Marcia” came out of me. I was mean, depressed, scatter brained and never at ease. I was always mad with my husband and really angry with my dog. I had little patience with the children I cared for. This was not good and the med’s weren’t even working. 3 days after I stopped taking the progesterone I felt a cloud lift off of me and I could think again. I was able to be happy and I slowly became more patent (though that is debatable if you ask Scott). I decided that I would step up my diet and exercise in an attempt to level my hormones naturally. This proved very difficult for me. Though I am making good progress it may be a few years before my body naturally “resets” itself. 

After another 4 months of hoping for a miracle and not getting the one we expected we were moved in another direction. Adoption.

I have always wanted to adopt. When I was 12 I begged my mom to adopt a baby. Maybe this is why I became a nanny. To “adopt” and care for other people’s children. One of the first serous discussions Scott and I had was concerning adoption and my needing to marry someone open to the idea. He of course was very open with some genuine and wise concerns. So after 1½ years of marriage and 8 months of actually “trying” to get pregnant we decided to start with our plan “B”. 

In truth it was something that we probably would have done eventually. We reasoned that we might still get pregnant later on down the road but we felt we wanted to start our family now. So we would start with adoption and see what happens. I had heard so many stories of women “trying” for years and years only for it not to happen and then spending years and years trying to adopt. Either path we took – fertility and pregnancy or adoption had a path of stress and disappointment. It seemed our path to a child was certain to be a roller coaster. 

So, we made that decision. To some that did not know the path we took to get to that point it seemed rash and fast. But it truly wasn’t. Some might say that we are not waiting for God to act, that we are rushing into this, that we didn’t give it a long enough try. And I believe they would be mistaken. I believe that Scott and I are supposed to be adoptive parents. I know in my heart, I know every day when I pray about it, we are doing the right thing for us.

Arguably the most difficult decision you have to make when adopting is which route to go. There is the over seas adoption, domestic private adoption and domestic public adoption. Check out my blog posts about these options for adoption here.  All have benefits and disadvantages. For Scott and I this decision proved to be quite easy. We completely agreed from the beginning on domestic adoption. We think foreign is a wonderful thing but we know there are so many children right her in our own back yard that need loving families. For us to pay the thousands of dollars for a foreign adoption just didn’t make any sense. We looked into a few private adoption companies but never really felt a strong connection. We attended an orientation for foster and adoptive parents through Children Service Society of Wisconsin and knew as we walked out the door that was our route. 

We were both moved and impressed with the care and compassion of those teaching the class. We met a woman that has been a foster parent for 20 years.  We walked out of the building and I asked Scott “What do you think?” He replied “I think we should adopt though the state”. I said “I agree.”

 

So that was over 2 months ago and we are now in the middle of our Home Study and taking our 36 hours of classes we have to take to become licensed foster parents. We understand the added risks involved in “Legal Risk Adoption” and know that it may bring heartache. But God never said our path would be easy. We are just sure He said to start on it.

 

There are two great things about adopting publicly. One, it is almost completely free. We have purchased a lot of things for the baby when he or she comes but have only paid the cost of photo copies for the actual process of adopting. Two, it is very clear that they need foster and adoptive parents in the public system. There are so many children waiting for homes.