Our Adoption Journey
Our adoption journey actually began in 2006, with the first of four miscarriages we would experience over the following four years. About a week after I lost what at first was a "big surprise" to us, I found myself listening to a radio program called "Focus on the Family," hosted by Dr. James Dobson. That particular week, he was covering a series he'd put together on adoption. I remember listening specifically to the story of a now-grown Vietnamese woman who gave testimony to her personal miracle of becoming adopted by an American family as a very sickly infant who was not expected to live. That day, when I came home from work, I asked my husband if he'd ever consider adopting if it turned-out we were not able to have another child of our own. He immediately said "Yes!"
However, I was determined I was not going to be "cheated" out of having another baby myself. None of the females in my family EVER had trouble getting pregnant or having babies! My mother swore that all my dad had to do was look at her funny and she was pregnant! (I come from a family of four children.) PLUS, we got pregnant with my son so easily, I never suspected we'd have any trouble. Heck, we weren't even trying and I got pregnant unexpectedly. I was convinced that it was a fluke or because I accidentally took and Advil Sinus; not knowing I was pregnant at the time!
Over the next four years though, and ump-teen visits and procedures at the Fertility Clinic, we finally uncovered the reason we kept losing our babies. Genetic testing, covered by insurance "only after the fourth consecutive miscarriage", showed that my husband was a carrier for what experts call a "Balanced Translocation." Basically, what that meant was that he had a skip between two chromosomes that would turn out either "balanced" like his, or "imbalanced" and nature would reject the fetus. The odds of having a successful pregnancy are something like 1 in 10 that will be either be balanced or normal (without the translocation).
It took a while to get over that news, but finally in July of 2011 (after quite a bit of prompting from our son), we decided to move forward, take a huge leap of faith, and pursue the adoption of an older child from Russia. I was inspired by a woman at the The Russian Lighthouse Project, who convinced me that although it was very expensive, difficult to go through, and did I mention expensive? - we COULD do it with God's help!
But, here we are, nine months later and a small hill of paperwork still ahead! We are now pursuing the adoption of two children; a brother and sister who have definitely captured our hearts!
