The Rest of the Story

Well, that was a long dinner! LOL!! Life happened and I haven't been able to get back to this until now. Where did I leave off? Hmmm, I better go back and check my last post. Be back in a moment.

Now, the rest of the story . . . We were married on October 15, 1988 and I immediately got pregnant! So much for wondering if we could have children. Our wonderful son was born in August of 1989; what a joy he is!! We still wanted more children, but didn't have as easy a time the second time around. In September 1991 our daughter was born; she, too, is such a joy! Now we had the perfect family, or so everyone was telling me. However, we wanted 4 children. It was a while 'til I wanted to try to have another child, but when I finally did, pregnancy did not come. We talked about domestic adoption but knew that a private adoption would be the best for us because of expenses.

We became aware of a chaplain in a women's prison that counseled pregnant inmates to give their child up for adoption. One particular inmate was in prison for child abuse and was pregnant with her sixth child. She agreed to let us adopt her child; however, while in she was in jail she lost the baby at 8 months. The baby, a beautiful little boy, we are told, strangled on the umbilical cord. We were heartbroken.

We still tried to conceive but weren't having much success. In 1997 I lost about 40 pounds and wouldn't you know it, I got pregnant! We were thrilled, but from the very beginning I sensed that something was not right. I miscarried on November 1st. Needless to say, we were devastated. We didn't know what the Lord was trying to teach us, but we were willing to learn. During this time, adoption never left our minds.

In 2000 we moved and once again I felt the urge for another child. My dh gave me the go ahead to do the research on adoption agencies. I was floored at the cost and knew that we just couldn't afford it. Adoption was once again put on the back burner and we decided to try to have another biological child. However, that was not to be. I was told in the spring of 2001 that I had pre-cancerous endomitrial cells (official diagnosis was stage 1 uteran cancer) and need to have a hysterectomy asap.

Fast forward to 2007. My heart ached for another child, however biological children were no longer a possibility and in my mind, neither was adoption. God had other plans for us. My cousin and his wife were in the process of adopting from Guatemala and I followed their adoption story with great interest. Often I felt very jealous because they were living my dream. So, I once again brought up the subject with my dh. His response, was as always, do the research, choose the agency and we'll sign. We found our agency, Christian World Adoption (the same agency that my cousin used), filled out the application and waited. We were waiting for the funds to send in the application. I finally asked Ralph when we could send the application in and his reply was, "When the tax return comes back". My thought was, "And that will be when?" I put the form aside and prayed and waited.

We didn't have to wait long. Guess what was in the mail the next day -- you guessed it, our first tax return. There was great rejoicing that day! The check was deposited into the bank, another check was written to CWA and we were on our way. Our country of choice is Ethiopia and we are hoping to get a child between the ages of 6 and 18 months. We are willing to take a sibling group of 2!!

The Lord is amazing! I am finally learning to wait on the Lord and not to run ahead of His leading. Why has it taken so long?!? I wish I had the answer for that, but at least I'm finally learning.

This has gotten long, but I wanted to finish the story before another month went by. I'll try to post some more this week and let you all in on some updates.