How It Started

Some of you tuning in to this blog might not know how Mark and I have gotten to this point in our adoption journey. It’s a story worth telling, because it reminds me that God has been a part of this process and He will finish it. It can be hard to keep that in mind when there’s no news and all we can do is wait. I’ll tell it in small chunks so the posts don’t get too long. First: our decision to start trying to have a baby.

Three years ago, Mark and I started talking about wanting to have children. Because of job uncertainties and such, we weren’t sure if it was wise to start trying at that point, so we committed to praying every day for thirty days, asking God if now was the time. On a Sunday morning, the last of the thirty days, we talked at breakfast about the decision. We decided that, even though we hadn’t heard any direct word from God, we wanted a baby, so that was probably a sign in itself that we were ready.

We went to church that morning feeling good about our decision. At the “greet your neighbor” portion of the service, a friend of ours came up to us and, out of nowhere, asked, “So, when’s the baby due?”

We just stared at him. This friend had no idea we were considering having a baby. He said that when he walked in to church and looked at us that morning, he saw me holding a baby in a pink blanket (this is one of the reasons why I have thought our first baby would be a girl). He said he “saw babies all over” us. We didn’t know what to say, but one of us finally told him that we had just finished a month of asking God each day if now was the time to start a family. Kevin said, “God’s saying yes—have a baby and keep on having them.”

We figured we didn’t need any more confirmation than that.

We were pretty amazed, but we did take this whole thing with some caution. We knew that this might not mean we would conceive right away. I was preparing myself for a little bit of a wait. But after two years of no birth control, temperature taking and trying to time things right, we were still waiting. So we decided it was time to look into next steps.