I chose the blogging topic Don't Ignore Family Building Opportunities...
We say we chose adoption to build our family, actually our choices were limited and beyond our control. Infertility prevented us from creating a biological family and we were placed at a crossroads in which we needed to decide our next step. Due to the type of infertility I suffer from many other options such as IVF were never on the table. Personally, I do not believe even if they had been we would have chosen them. Adoption was the next logical step for our family. Adoption was a fit for us.
After reaching a point of understanding that nature's course was not going to work we needed a plan. Brian and I had briefly discussed adoption during our infertility struggles and it was time to revisit the option. Neither one of us were hesitant, but I was probably less accepting of our fate. I felt ashamed, distraught, stressed and like a failure for not being able to give our families the gift of a child. After overcoming my own self criticism we were ready to forge ahead.
We began to research our options and to reach out to individuals we felt could help. My husband had worked during college for an attorney who handled some private adoptions. He was our first contact. We were told to complete a home study and go from there.
In an effort to complete our home study we researched local social workers willing to come to our home and start the process with us. During our initial visit the social worker asked us what our plan was to find a child to adopt. We explained we had no plan really and that we were in contact with an attorney back in our home state. She suggested an established agency she had worked with over the years. We called them and five months later we brought home our first son.
The process was such a whirlwind. We attended a seminar for prospective adopted couples at the agency's home office and came home ready to go. We started putting together a nursery. Our families were afraid for us that we might be looking at an empty nursery for many years. We didn't know what to expect, the agency told us it would be less than a year and to start getting ready so we did.
I do remember keeping the door shut on the nursery most of the time. I remember sitting in there folding clothes and wondering if it was just a dream or if it would become a reality. Our reality happened very quickly. We were called after several months and we were on our way to pick up our son within a week of being matched.
When the time came to adopt again, we went back to our original agency. Our experience was so pleasant we did not even consider anything else. Again, our wait was short only 10 months and our second son was in our arms. After bringing him home we felt our family was complete and our adoption journey was over. It wasn't.
A couple of years later we felt we were missing a piece. We felt we needed to be a family of five so we called the agency again and asked will you help us one more time? They agreed and the third time we were matched with a baby girl. Again our wait was not long, a little over a year.
Now 10 months after bringing home our sweet baby girl we feel complete. Our family is whole. We have three happy, healthy, beautiful children. Adoption was our opportunity.
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