An Adoption Story(or should I say novel?)....

I've been thinking for awhile that I wanted to tell our adoption story because I want to be an advocate for adoption and I think the best way to do so will be to share our story. I haven't thought a lot about the whole process the last few months because I've just been so excited about getting our baby, but when I look back at the last year, I'm amazed at how smoothly things have gone for us. We've been so blessed and feel so lucky.

As our families and most of our close friends know, Dan & I have been trying to start our family for over four years. After three years of medications, tests, and doctors appointments, we were finally referred to the fertility clinic at the University of Utah in January 2007. After one month, they gave us a diagnosis of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and told us the next step for us would be artificial insemination. Dan immediately knew that he would rather start the adoption process than pursue fertility treatments further. He had actually been ready to start adoption paperwork a year earlier, but I felt like we were "giving up" too easily on getting pregnant. Well, this time I agreed that fertility treatments weren't right at this time. So, we called LDS Family Services and got our initial paperwork. We attended our orientation meeting on April 4, 2007 and started our paperwork right away. The paperwork wasn't as difficult as I had thought it would be and we actually go through it fairly quickly. We were able to get our paperwork, interviews, and home study completed by the end of May, and within a couple of weeks, finished with our birthmother letter and our picture collage. We were approved for adoption on June 20, 2007. This was such a happy day because we knew we just had to wait.

I underestimated how much patience would be required during this "waiting" phase. At LDS Family Services, they refer to this period of time as the "finding phase", and really encourage couples to do their best to get the word out that they are adopting. It wasn't until September that we really felt like we needed to be doing something other than waiting. So, Dan started to put together a family website and I started composing a letter that we were going to email to everyone we knew to let them know of our plans to adopt. We guided people to our website as well as our online profile through LDS Family Services.

About three weeks after emailing our letter, we got a call from our caseworker asking us to come to the agency and sign some paperwork. I was a little suspicious because we had just met with her a couple weeks earlier and she told us that everything was in order with our paperwork. I convinced Dan that we should leave work early and go to the agency right away. He told me not to get my hopes up and that we probably were just signing paperwork. Still, my heart was pounding as we walked into the agency, thinking to myself, "Is this it? Is this what we've been waiting for?" Our caseworker led us to an office and showed us in. She said, "There's something on the couch for you and I'm just going to leave you alone for a little while." (I'm getting teary just writing this and remembering it all!) On the couch there was a small box with a letter. I think I was in total shock as I read the letter telling us that we had been "chosen." After reading the letter, and crying (of course), we opened the box and found a pair of baby shoes. We sat there for a few minutes, trying to digest it all. After a few minutes, we went and found our caseworker and talked to her for a little while. We had a million questions and she was great to help us as much as possible. Less than two weeks later, we were in the St. George office, meeting our birthmom. We fell in love with her immediately and had such a great first meeting. I don't think it could have gone any better. We found out that she was having a boy, which we are absolutely thrilled about.

Since that first meeting, which was the end of November, things have continued to progress so smoothly. We have regular contact with our birthmom and grow to love her more all the time. We feel so grateful to Heavenly Father for leading her to us and have never doubted His role in this matching. As the birth of the baby grows closer (56 days until the due date!) I become more and more grateful for this wonderful woman who is giving me the gift of motherhood. It was a heartbreaking experience for us, but now I am so happy that I rarely remember the pain I felt before. I no longer see pregnant women or women with new babies and feel sad, but I get so excited. I know motherhood isn't all fun and games, but I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to experience the ups and downs of it.

Adoption is such an amazing blessing in our lives, and in the lives of many couples, like us. I have so much respect and admiration for birthmothers and the strength that they have. They are angels. We used to think it a little cliche when we would hear adoptive couples talk about how great and amazing their birthmoms are, but as soon as we met ours, we felt the same way. I will forever be grateful to her for the opportunities she is giving me.

"Not flesh of my flesh, Nor bone of my bone,
But still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute,
You didn't grow under my heart - but in it"
--Fleur Conkling Heylinger