Our Journey

Our wish to have a baby has finally become a reality and Jason and I are so excited to announce that I am pregnant and this is the one. It has been a journey through a lot of joy, a lot of heartache, a lot of learning and a lot of faith.

After 2 miscarriages, my heart was broken and my only question was, "Why?" My Doctor recommended me to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist that ran lots and lots of tests, but wasn't able to target anything that would be causing the problem. So we began to try again and for months and months it just wasn't happening.

At that point, we began to re-examine our future and realized that maybe God was leading us in a different direction. We began to research adoption, the many different programs and fell in love with an International Program from Ethiopia. Within a few months, we had submitted our paperwork and started all the interviews and approvals to begin the year long process to adopt. As you often hear, when you stop trying that is when it happens and for us that was the case.

The next month I was pregnant.

The reason I wanted to share this story is that my question of "Why" wasn't answered (and a lot of times in life it isn't), but instead through time I learned to ask, "What can I learn from this?".

We realized that we not only wanted to have biological children, but would also love to adopt. There are so many children in this world in need of loving homes. We fell in love with these children, their amazing stories and their beautiful faces. We are so excited for the future and can't wait til we can begin the adoption process again.

It also made me realize how grateful I am for all that I have been blessed with. I have so much to be thankful for and we often let life pass by without counting our blessings, especially during the difficult times. Everyday I would remind myself of all the wonderful things I do have. You realize when you start each day that way, the little things that you don't have don't seem so significant.

I wanted to share my story, so that I too could someday help out other women going through the same journey. Most people don't talk about miscarriage. It is so common, but often makes you feel so alone. I have gained so much information and am hopeful that I can be a friend to help support, guide or just give a little extra love to someone going through the same journey.

Most importantly...
We want to thank everyone, our family and friends, for their constant support, their words of encouragement, their prayers and their love. You'll never know how much it meant to us. I feel so lucky to be bringing a baby into our lives that is filled with so much love.

Baby Maddox is due March 25, 2009. We can't wait to meet the little one!

Here is our attempt at the ever popular pregnancy test picture. We thought it would be fun to include Marley (since she is one of the fam), but almost lost one of the tests. I loved the photo since it makes me laugh and was my favorite of the bunch.