One Year

Mitch and I have been trying to get pregnant for a year now. We we're hoping that about this time, we'd be bringing home our first born from the hospital. Instead, we are now having to look into infertility treatments. We don't know for sure that there's a problem yet, but I am starting to have problems that I've never had before. It's frustrating that they have come just at the exact point that we are trying to have a baby.

Back in September/October, I thought I was pregnant because I was very late, had mild stomach issues, and had some other signs. All of my tests kept showing up negative, so I went to the doctor. He thought maybe I had Ovarian Cysts, but that test was also negative. He wanted to do more checking, but I didn't have the time to worry about it because we were moving.

Since then, I have been quite irregular, and have spent hundreds of dollars at this point on pregnancy and ovulation tests. The baby business is just like the wedding business. They know people will pay anything, so they jack up the prices far beyond a normal markup. I have gotten quite frustrated with the ovulation tests because I find them hard to read, unless I get the expensive ones with the happy face or no happy face, but those have never been positive for ovulation, so that too is frustrating.

In deciding how to move forward, Mitch and I have talked a lot about some different options we have. I've always wanted to adopt, as well as have my own kids, and fostering has also been an option. While I'm not totally sure that we're ready for fostering, we have made some phone calls, prayed, and decided to start the adoption process.

We are anxious to get the ball rolling, so when we found out that orientation wasn't until the end of July, we asked to go to an earlier one. Unfortunately, it was last weekend. We had just contacted Christian Homes last weekend, and Mitch had a big project due on Friday, so he couldn't take the days off. So, July it is. In the meantime, our case worker (I don't know if that's what she is or not) has decided to help us get all of our paperwork in order so that we're basically done once we've been through orientation. We will be working for the next few months to get the information in that they need.

In the mean time, we will still be working on having biological kids, and if God blesses us with both at once, that would be wonderful!

The other thing that we are considering is adopting siblings. Our nieces and nephews are between the ages of 2 and 10, and I would love for the older ones to have cousins around their ages. I was close to my cousins, and I want my kids to have the same experience. We saw a family of kids online that looked a bit like us, and they were the perfect ages. The boy was 8, and the girls were 5 and 6. There are some emotional problems with the girls though, and we're not sure that we're ready to take that on, having not been parents already. We'll have to continue to pray about this one.

Please just keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and we'll keep you informed as updates come to us.