First, my heart is so heavy for all the posts I have been reading on the blogs that I follow.  Why do the holidays have to be so hard?  They all come like a train…Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s…none of it easy for those struggling to conceive or those that are conceiving, but struggling to give birth.  My story ended with a happy ending, but not the ending that I originally planned…biological children was our goal, but God blessed us in a way far better than we could have imagined. 

We look at this child sleeping in our living room.  Healthy.  A great sleeper.  Easy going.  Beautiful.  And then I look at myself.  Healthy.  Not in pain. Financially stable.  A mom. The timing of his birth was perfect; in fact better than perfect.

The road was not easy and it won’t be easy going forward.  We are in the process of figuring out the childcare situation.  We still have six months of monthly visits and a long road of open adoption and all the great conversations that go with this decision.  When it is all said and done we firmly believe God created this child for us in another’s woman’s womb, but this is our child.  The child that God intended to be ours and the child that God has big plans to accomplish, but needed us to help Him fulfill.

Again, adoption is not for everyone.  We know that for many you should keep the road to fertility and it will pay off in huge ways.  We know that if God had kept those doors open then we would be there, too.  We were fortunate that we had multiple doctors honestly tell us that getting pregnant was dangerous, costly and could result in a number of consequences.  We also knew that all our best intentions were repeatedly resulting in frustration and yet the adoption doors opened smoothly.  Let me stress again and again…adoption was not our original plan, but it was God’s best plan.  Adoption is not giving up and it is not second best.  Our son is proof of way better than we could have ever imagined, but it does come with some challenges and God must feel we are more than prepared to handle them all.

I just see so many blogs that make adoption sound like an insult.  Maybe for some it is and that is okay.  Maybe for many it is a cost thing and it is expensive, but take one IVF treatment and you have half the amount of adoption.  Again, adoption has changed a lot in the last few years and we were probably in that boat five years ago.  Every journey is different, but consider how much you love your spouse and he/she is not biologically related.  Adoption is like that.  You learn to love this child, not for his blood, but for your experiences together.

Okay I say all that to say, I pray for every woman out there in the blogging world that your family will be created in any way that is possible.  IVF, IUI, miracle pregnancies, natural cycles, medicated cycles, surrogacy, embryo adoption, closed adoption, open adoption, international adoption, infant adoption, foster care, step children etc. the list goes on and on.   Families are created in so many ways and many choose to not parent, but instead, be a mentor or guide to children. Our birth parents can have biological children, but they know this child needed more than they could give and they chose to place him in our care. They are now part of our family…God is good!

Some may ask, why do you care how I feel about adoption? I guess I just look back on how much our hearts have changed through infertility and my heart hurts for those experiencing it right now. It is heart breaking! Seriously, tragic. It is a silent killer and is it is hard to talk about especially with the fertile world, but know you are never alone. Know that there are more people that relate than you might think and know you are being prayed for on a daily basis. It hurts. It is costly, it is emotional, it hurts marriages, it brings guilt and there are physical burdens as well. I just feel blessed to be a mom, even if it was unconventional and I pray for all you ladies wanting to be a mom, too. If you are a birthmother reading this, I cannot thank you enough for your courage and strength to bless another family. If you are an adopted child reading this, know how very planned you were by a family that was waiting for YOU and only YOU!!!

The good news is: I look back at last New Year’s Eve and Nathan and I kissed into the New Year saying “2012 will bring great things.” We knew this year was something special. We also knew that this year would be our last just the two of us. We had not started the adoption process, but we just knew. We were heading into November, questioning our expectations and yet here we are. I am typing at this laptop, my husband is rocking our son, our dogs are snoring on the couch, my grandmother is looking down from heaven and we are all angry at the Dallas Cowboys. No matter how this year ended, we would still put our trust in God knowing that our time on this earth is just a small piece of a larger life in eternity. I must keep my perspective; our time is limited and we must make the most of each day. We chose to take a leap of faith and landed right where we should be.

I pray for every situation in 2013 that you either get what you want or learn something about yourself in the process. Our journey was a three year process to get here. We know hurtful holidays and we know negative pregnancy tests…yet we survived and thrived in spite of it all. Keep your head up no matter what your situation and know each experience both good and bad brings a new perspective.