Friday, June 8, 2012

Our New Adventure

The short story (that is sort of long): A long time ago, Steve and I were married and enjoyed our swinging single lives together. We accomplished a lot including law school and business school- they were great times (?) Well, not the first year of law school anyway. But, of course we both wanted kids! So, we started trying. And trying. And trying. No luck. With great help from a friend, I went to see an endocrinologist who diagnosed me with gluten intolerance. I tried it with a lot of skepticism, and got pregnant in 3 weeks. Crazy.

The second time around, we tried and got pregnant. Super super blessing. I really thank Heavenly Father for this one because as an only child I know the greatest blessing you can give a child is a sibling.

These two children have been the single most important thing I have done in my life- next to Steve (of course!)

Now... we should be happy !! And we are, but we just want one more (well maybe more than 1 more? We are really not sure)!! But- we tried, and tried, and tried. Many miscarriages later. Many tears. Many heartaches. Much money and trips to the doctors office. It was not a fun time.

I remember thinking "When am I just going to know to stop? Is this going to last forever?"

Well, one day, I told Steve that I was done. The roller coaster was just too much, and I needed a break, if not an infinite break. Without going into much detail, it was a super hard last miscarriage, and I don't really want to do it again.

As life would have it, we changed churches and met some new friends from Maddie's school... in our new church we met a family who adopted 4 of their children, and at school became great friends with a family who was ready to start their adoption journey.

Could this be our solution? It really wasn't something that we jumped into quickly, and we both had a lot of concerns and fears. But- for some reason, I started to become really excited.

Our excitement really hit its highest when we were attending one of the adoption classes- in a room full of strangers of every age, skin color etc in a small packed room in San Francisco.

They taught us about the new ups and downs of raising a mixed race child, the excitement of adding a possible new culture to your life, unraveling the talents that may not be apparent in your family... we really really loved the way this sounded.

And, so we did it. We signed up! We are now on the waiting list to adopt a baby somewhere born in the US. Although we would love to adopt internationally, it just takes so long- and we want to add on to our family soon :)

This baby could come to us in 1 month, 3 months or 1 year-- it is another roller coaster. But- we are extremely excited and hopeful that it will come.

But- now for the somewhat amusing part !! When you become an "adopting parent," you have to send in 1 billion pictures for the advertising teams. I didn't expect this to be so hard- but when you have to send in 40 pictures of you and your husband doing things you "like to do," you start to run out of ideas and fast!! This took us forever, and we were DYING to come up with ideas... we almost brushed our teeth together :)

Here's some (yes, very cheesy) pictures of us and our happy selves :)












Cross your fingers!!

5 comments:

Ashley said...

As this post was going on I started to think it was going to culminate with news that you were getting a baby tomorrow--I was holding my breath! I love this--I love that you guys are doing this and I love these pictures--they look like they should be in Better Home and Gardens or something! Totally cute! I can't wait to one day hear that you really did get that call--hopefully soon!

The Mostess said...

You look so natural in all of your photos. Like you two just sit around painting houses and add air to your tires!

I'm so with you on the annoying fertility stuff. It takes a huge toll on you in every way possible.

I'm so excited for you guys to get this baby. Keep us posted!

Alie said...

Better Home and Gardens-- no way dude!! But- thanks for the kind words :) I know- seriously so natural- painting, air to tires. It's so hard to thing of "stuff to do!" I'd love to see your guys' pics!!!

teuscher travels said...

You look gorgeous!! And I second that somehow you make it look effortless! I am so sorry to hear how hard it has been, but so excited for you and a new little babe that will be SO lucky to be part if your family. It is definitely ok to want more, sometimes you know when your family isn't quite done yet. Let us know if we can help in any way!

Ashley A. said...

I loved reading all these updates on your blog, especially this one. I can't wait to hear about how everything goes.

I agree--cheesiness aside, those pics look really good! What great hobby models you are. :)

We'll miss you guys. Thanks for being such good friends to us.