The journey to our kids: History!

I've started this blog to tell the story of me, my family, and the journey we're on, creating the family that God has planned for us. We've encountered many bumps and potholes already on this journey, that when I got married almost 4 years ago, I naively thought would be so simple. Thinking that having kids would be easy and quick I never even dreamed that It would take us this long and be so difficult. Let me give you a little history, S and I have been married for almost 4 years and we both knew that we wanted to be parents fairly quickly. Like any newly married couple we dreamed of the day that we would have our first child. Wondered whether it would look more like me or S, and whose personality it would take after the most, etc. We "planned" to wait for one year before starting our little family but plans change and it wasn't long before we were counting the days to that positive pregnancy test. But months passed and it wasn't long before I knew in my heart that something was wrong, seriously wrong. The doctors assured us that it could be fixed and that we would be fine, but after all the tests and procedures they had to tell us that their was nothing they could do, and that we would never have biological children. Needless to say we were shocked and heartbroken, I never dreamed that I would be in this place, asking God why he had done this to me. I thought that children were a blessing and wondered what I had done to not deserve that blessing. Maybe I had sinned or angered God in some way. We grieved the loss of our children and attempted to put our life back into some kind of normality. We went on a cruise and tried to forget and reconnect with each other. After a few months we both knew that it was time to pursue adoption. When we got married we discussed one day adopting, so it wasn't hard for us to take that next step. We still to this day grieve the loss of our biological children, but the pain lessens with each passing year. We researched all the different options and decided that we wanted to pursue an embryo adoption. This is where you adopt someone else's embryos and have a FET done in the hopes that I would become pregnant. We sent in our application and waited to be chosen, full of hope, knowing that this is what God was calling us to do. It wasn't long before we were chosen by a wonderful family and everything was finalized. We had officially adopted their 13 embryos. We set the dates for our first transfer and started the meds. The transfer went beautifully and the positive pregnancy test was further proof that everything was going according to plan. It wasn't long before our happy bubble was burst with the miscarriage of our first child. Again we asked God why, but had to trust in his sovereign grace, knowing that he has a plan for our lives. A plan to help us and not to harm us. We set a date for another transfer and again it went beautifully. Again the positive pregnancy test seemed proof that everything was going to be fine. Again we had a miscarriage, this time we knew that we needed to step back and take a break. We were so broken that we just couldn't face another loss. Not long after the loss of our babies we were approached by a family that wanted us to adopt their baby. We were overjoyed thinking that this was Gods answer, but God said no that it wasn't the right time and again we moved on. At this point we were approaching the 4 year mark, no closer to our dream, in debt, with nowhere to turn. I had stopped asking God why, having learned that you never get the answer your looking for. Some days I didn't even know how to talk to him, not even knowing what to say. I tried my best to trust in him and know that he was sufficient. Many days I failed miserably and quite often I was so angry with him I wouldn't even open my bible to do my devotions or pray. I think I hoped that if I ignored him that the pain would go away, but it didn't. Many times I surrendered it all to him only to wrestle with it all over again the next day. Through it all I knew in my heart that he loved me more than I loved myself, wanted what was best for me, had a future planned for me, and one day would either give us children or take away my desire to have children. We still knew that we wanted kids and that adoption was our way to see that dream fulfilled. We still have 6 embryos left and hope to try again in the near future, but wanted to pursue a different avenue in the mean time. This is when we were asked by Seeds of Hope to move to Zambia and oversee their building project. Adopting from Zambia can be done but is quite difficult. We prayed hard and decided that we would go on a short term missions trip to the country first to be sure that this is what God was calling us to do. On that trip he brought into our lives our twin girls ( I call them ours because we view them as ours even though nothing is finalized yet.) We are officially fostering the girls even though at the moment we are home in Canada getting everything together to move back in about a month. They are in the care of the orphanage where we will be working and we can't wait to get back to them. They are absolutely gorgeous and we pray that everything works out and that soon they will be officially ours. They way that it works in Zambia is that you foster first and then when your fostering is complete you go to court and have everything finalized. The parents have until that final court date to change their minds. We are trusting in God that these are our girls and if not that he will sustain us through the loss.

So now that your all caught up on our history let me show you our girls.