Our journey to build a family began like many other couples. Even before we were married we dreamed of and imagined the children we would have. We spent 6 years dealing with infertility, including 7 ivf cycles, 35 embryos implanted (our angel babies), 3 resulting pregnancies and 3 miscarriages at 7, 7, and 10 weeks. The last was a baby girl with Down's Syndrome. Looking at it from the outside, it may seem that we sure wasted a lot of time pursuing medical assistance, but we prayerfully considered each step and walked through the doors as the Lord opened them. By the time we reached our last procedure, our final frozen embryos, we were ready to be done with this part of our journey and felt God was finally closing this door and opening our hearts to the world of adoption.
Our dear friends, Amy Jo and Joe Pleune, have adopted two kiddos with the help of All God's Children International. They are based in Portland, OR, with offices in Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky. We fell in love with the agency and it's mission of orphan care and adoption, so we contacted them in the fall of 2009. They had a new domestic program allowing families to adopt out of the Oregon foster care system, which appealed to us on many levels. And to be completely honest, was much more affordable than international adoption. We had spent all of our savings on infertility treatments, so this seemed like our best option, and it just felt "right." Our home study was approved April 2010 and we started waiting and watching for bulletins of kiddos who were "legally free" to be adopted. The bulletins gave basic information and pictures of the children. We submitted our name for several and were eventually chosen for a group of 2 brothers. The agency sent us all of their medical information to study and we talked with their foster mom. After much prayer, conversations with trusted friends and many tears, with heavy hearts, we concluded that we could not parent these boys. It was the right choice and a week later we learned that they had been placed with another family, affirming our decision. After two years in this progam, with the state of Oregon making many new welfare policies, only 16 children had been placed. AGCI recommended that the "Oregon families" transfer to an international program.
Since we are convinced that the Lord wants us to be parents, we agreed to the transfer. We had our choice of 3 countries and decided on Bulgaria (China and Ethiopia were the others). It is the most stable program of the three and, let's face it, we needed to grab on to something stable. And, truth be told, there were no divine revelations that we were "supposed to" adopt from Bulgaria. We just know we want a family and we are sure God wants us to have a family. Let me be clear that we do not feel like we are, in any way, settling for second best. We just continue to move in the direction that God seems to be leading us. We know that He knows what our family looks like and, apparently, they are Bulgarian! We can't wait to meet them and are thankful to have you share in our journey.
