What happens when all of your best laid plans come crashing down around you? When the dreams you had for your family seem to be unreachable and impossible? Caylee has been there; weeping at the dreams lost and feeling like their plans for a family were hopeless. Today she graciously shares the story of how two became three, how none of it happened the way she anticipated, and how it was better than they could have ever imagined.
It was December 31, 2018, I was laying in bed with a pillow soaked with tears, asking God why He was allowing my life to be this way. Two weeks prior we had lost our second baby in a very unexpected second trimester miscarriage. In 2018, we lost two babies within a five month period, in two completely different ways. I was sobbing a talking to God when He clearly told me that our next baby would not come from my womb. I would love to tell you that I stopped right there and surrendered it all to Him, but that is not what happened. We were waist deep in the middle of IVF; we started the IVF process the beginning of 2018 with three beautiful healthy embryos, and two of them were in the arms of Jesus. In my mind, we couldn’t turn back, we had to complete the path we were on. With one embryo left my “plan” was to move forward as soon as my body was healed.
We started preparing my body for our third embryo transfer in April, and our transfer date was set for June 24, 2019. Everything was going according to “plan” until the end of May, when one of my lab test came back abnormal, and it was going to postpone our transfer date three more months. Devastation, anger, and hurt consumed me for about a week. Around the first of June that year, I was reminded of what God had spoken to my heart on December 31, 2018. Kevin and I had talked about adoption many times over the years, but we always thought the timing wasn’t right. That afternoon I emailed Susan with Christian Adoption Consultants to set up a time to talk the following Monday. We prayed and prayed over the weekend, asking God for guidance on this very new and scary road.
On June 24, 2019, the very same day we had anticipated transferring our last embryo, we said a very scared “yes” to adoption. It's crazy to look back and see how He already told us something special and exciting would happen on that day, but it wasn’t at all what we thought or planned. We became an active waiting family on July 26, 2019 and our daughter was in our arms November 26, 2019, exactly 4 months later.
Even though our adoption process was quick, it wasn’t without fear, doubt, and anxiety. Some days we would have three to four situations a day and other days we would see none. I will never forget the day our daughters expectant mom’s situation popped up on my email on a Friday afternoon. I read it sitting at my desk at work with tears in my eyes and knew immediately I wanted her to see our profile. Kevin and I talked and prayed about her all weekend, and on that Monday we told the agency we wanted to be shown. On September 10, 2019, we got “the call” saying that we had been chosen. There were no dry eyes on either end of the phone. Such a special and sacred moment that we will never forget.
The next two and a half months were spent getting preparing for the baby and loving and getting to know our daughter's birth mother. We will always cherish the time we spent with her and the conversations that we had. The first time we met her we feel like we instantly became connected; like family. Just like parenthood, adoption doesn’t come with an instruction manual. We formed a beautiful relationship with such a kind and selfless women and mother in a very short amount of time. On November 26, 2019 at 9:03am I witnessed our daughter, Ayla Grace, be born into this world. It was a beautiful and heavy moment that I will cherish forever. We had so many sacred moments in that labor and delivery room and in the halls of the very crowded hospital.
Adoption is beautiful, and I am so thankful that I became a mother through adoption. We couldn’t imagine our life with anyone other than her, but that doesn’t mean her story doesn’t come without heartache and pain. Ayla’s birth mother had to make the hardest decision of her life to give us the title of mommy and daddy; a title we wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s all a lot. It’s heavy. It’s adoption. It’s beauty born from brokenness.
We thank Jesus for every twist and turn on our wild ride to become parents; we thank Him every single day for wrecking our best laid plans to fulfill our wildest dreams.
Adoption stretches you; it stretches you far outside of your comfort zone, but it's there where we found our deep relationship with our Heavenly Father. I’m so thankful for the years of waiting, and the trash can full of one line pregnancy tests, because it led us to our sweet Ayla. A life without her is one we never want to know. If you are in the midst of infertility or adoption, don’t lose hope, God writes the best stories.
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