I read Heather Whittaker’s blog quite religiously. I think she’s an amazing mother and wonder where she gets all her creative juices. She wrote this post recently which persuaded me to follow through with what she was encouraging us to do.

So here goes:

As most of you know… though we’re pregnant with our second son right now, it wasn’t always this “easy” of a journey for us.

Brian and I were married back in May of 2001. After years of trying to get pregnant, being diagnosed as “infertile” and trying our luck out with infertility treatments (and failing), we finally decided to adopt. In all honesty, it never really mattered to us whether our children came from my womb or not… we just always wanted a big family.

I remember when Brian and I were in pre-marital training, he had said he wanted something like 5 kids. I said 3. But now, I think we’re at 4. God only knows.

ANYHOO!!!

We were well on our way to adopting. We had decided we were going to Kenya and had all our paperwork, finances and dates set up. Now, I have to include this part. Adoption is ridiculously expensive. We didn’t have the financial means to do it, though we had the heart, home and everything else. But then, God provided another family to enter our lives.

A family heard about Brian and me through the grapevine and offered us an interest-free PERSONAL loan to adopt our first child. She was an adopted child herself, and when her mother passed away – leaving her with a chunk of change, she and her husband decided to use the money in a way that would make her mother proud. This made the adoption process almost obstacle free. I’m not sure we could have been more ready.

This was in November 2004.

December 2004 – we found out we were pregnant.

This is when we began to debate whether or not to continue with the adoption. We had lost babies before – we weren’t really banking of this one keeping… though we were hoping with all our might that it would. PLUS, it had seemed God had orchestrated everything else to go so smoothly with the adoption… we didn’t really know what He wanted us to do now. We told our immediate family members and a few close friends, asking for prayer.

At four months into our pregnancy, we decided (with a broken heart) to put the adoption on hold. God had opened the doors to adoption for us before and we knew He would again.

Fast forward to now.

Chance Hayden is going to be THREE on September 1st. Our second son is due November 7th. They are going to be 3 years apart. I get really, REALLY sick with my pregnancies and have decided that due to health reasons, this will be our last pregnancy (unless God has a VERY different plan).

We’re not done raising children. The waiting list for China is over TWO years – maybe THREE. Kenya is no longer really an option for us. Ideally, we’d like to keep our kids 2-3 years apart… which means we need to start our adoption process now. We LITERALLY have to start over – choosing an agency, finding funds, finding a country, etc.

You probably think we’re crazy, weird, out-of-our minds. You’re probably right. However, we’re just getting started.

Did you know: if every family in the United States adopted ONE child, there would not be any orphanages?

God calls us to care for the widows and orphans. Since I don’t really do anything else God tells me to do, I thought I’d do this one.

I could go on and on about this… but I’m not sure what y’all would like to know, so I’ll open it up.

Questions? Comments? Ideas? Advice?