Pack Your Bags

We all have milestones in our lives that stand out in our minds perfectly.  If we close our eyes & think about a day or a moment, we can place ourselves back in time & remember every nuance like it was happening all over again. 

 

…Picture day, 2^nd grade.  Falling off my bike after school due to a race-gone-wrong with my sister.  Her carrying me home, a bloody mess & all.  {Brooke}

 

…Canoeing down the White Water River with my dad.  We had all gotten out & I was caught in the current & taken down stream.  I was scared & my dad grabbed me & carried me back to shore.  {Kevin}

 

…Walking down the aisle & seeing Kevin’s face smiling back at me.  {Brooke}

 

…My last basketball game.  I played my heart out, really gave it my all & my coach took me out of the game.  As I walked back to the bench the crowd stood & clapped for me.  {Kevin}

 

…Our first big vacation for our 3^rd wedding anniversary to Vancouver.  Seeing the Evergreen trees and driving along the Olympic Peninsula.  Ferry rides.  Delicious food.  We felt free.  {Brooke}

 

We store these moments in our little suitcase & when we’re 80 they’ll still be with us to pull out & think about to make us smile.

 

Unfortunately, the seemingly bad milestones tend to make their way into our suitcases too & there’s nothing we can do about it.

 

One particular milestone for us as a couple set in motion what’s become a now 3+ year struggle.  Like most couples we decided to take the journey into parenthood, but what we didn’t realize is that journeying into parenthood cannot be controlled by a road map, an itemized schedule of when things should happen, or even in the ways most expect it to happen. 

 

What I thought about when I envisioned myself getting pregnant: Having a pregnant belly. The feeling of little feet kicking my bladder.  Listening to a heartbeat flutter & seeing a sonogram for the first time. Requesting weird food cravings to Kevin in the middle of the night. Having 9 months to design a nursery.   Having a baby with Kevin's perfectly blue eyes. 

What I didn’t think about when I envisioned myself getting pregnant:  NOT getting pregnant.  Peeing on sticks & taking my temperature every morning before I got out of bed for a year.  Reading blogs about ‘magic foods’ to increase fertility. Bloodwork, bloodwork & even more bloodwork.  (I’m deathly afraid of needles!)  Taking medicines that made me nauseous, irritable & emotional.  Talking to complete strangers about every most intimate detail of my married life. 

 

As with anything else you want in life, when you’re told you can’t have it, you want for it that much more.  The prospect that what you’ve been working for will no longer come to fruition can be devastating. After a year of testing, poking & prodding we were both diagnosed infertile with a less than 1% chance of having children of our own.  We were in shock.  How could this be?  No one else in our family has infertility issues.  Have we done something wrong?  Are we not supposed to be parents?  The questions were endless & our grief was relentless. 

When we prayed for test results, we prayed that it would be a ‘team’ problem.  There would be no blame, no finger-pointing & I’m proud to say that never happened between us.  For whatever reason (a reason we’re just now seeing come into detail) God stitched us together in mind for each other.  Our fertility, or lack thereof, was just as God designed it to be.  We were a pair in more ways than one. 

 

The week we received our diagnosis we took a trip to see friends in Salt Lake City & then toured Utah & Arizona.  We camped at the Grand Canyon, Kevin baptized himself at Zion National Park & we saw magnificent works of creation at Arches National Park.  It was the most beautiful distraction we could’ve given ourselves.  I will always remember that week together where we didn’t have to worry about the future.  We didn’t have to talk to anyone if we didn’t want to.  We were able to be silent & put a hold on life. 

 

Unfortunately, a month later my mom was diagnosed with cancer.  (Remember when God says He never gives you any more than you can bear???  Sometimes I wonder.) We felt numb, inside & out.  The house seemed quieter.  Words didn’t seem necessary.  It felt like the lights went out & we had been abandoned into darkness. 

 

Fast forward to about 9 months later (with Mama Harris in remission - yea!)...God's certainly provided & revealed Himself to us in ways we could never imagine. 

We've cycled through the stages of grief probably dozens of times & now comes the point of this blog:  Are we accepting of our infertility?  Yes.  Are we happy about it?  No. Do we still want to become parents?  Heck yes. 

 

 

All this to say…

 

WE’RE ADOPTING A BABY! 

 

 

 

Does my heart clench when I say that?  Yes.  Do I still feel sadness when I think about our infertility?  Yes, that will never go away.  Do we believe this is what God intended for our lives?  Y-E-S. 

 

We have no due date.  We have no idea where our baby will come from, or what race he or she will be.  We just know that someday in the (hopefully) near future we’ll experience another happy milestone to store away in our suitcase. 

 

On a day where we received one of our earlier diagnoses, we had tickets to see Rosie Thomas at 12^th & Porter downtown.  After the shock of receiving such unexpected news, neither of us felt like going to a show.  Even though we’d been looking forward to seeing Rosie after YEARS of loving her music, we almost considered staying home.  Looking back, going to her show was what we needed on that day more than anything else.  If you know us at all, you know the value music plays in our lives.  Well, Rosie spoke to us that night.  God used her to speak directly into our hearts & give us a gift so comforting, we look back on that night with such gratitude.  The title of our blog was inspired from a song she recorded called ‘Sometimes Love’.  There is a link to it below, but here are the lyrics for you to read: 

 

Sometimes love's a paper tiger
That haunts you in your bed
Sometimes love's a two fist fighter
That lands you on your head

When it comes
Don't try to fight it
There's nothing you can do
'Cause Ii finds you when it does, and leaves you when it wants to

Sometimes love's a perfect poem
That words have never said
Sometimes love's a big disaster
That leaves you good as dead

When it comes
Don't try to fight it
There's nothing you can do
'Cause it finds you when it does, and leaves you when it wants to

So when I come
I'll come insisting
You hear the thing I say
Do not run
Do not resist me
Don't look the other way

We have time
We have tomorrow
We don't need reasons why
Now you have to decide

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jernJD3L7c

 

Check our more of Rosie’s music (www.rosiethomas.com) because she is just a wonderful musician & an even more wonderful human being. 

  

Many thanks go out to our family & friends who have supported this journey because we haven’t always been easy to be around & we realize that. We believe that this new adventure we are embarking on is really exciting & our hope is that you’ll experience it with us. 

Please pray for the journey ahead!   Pray for our future birthmom, because she will be facing a lot of decisions, obstacles & fears in the near future.  We desire for her to be at total peace in making one of the most important decisions of her life. 

Subscribe to our blog & follow along on our amazing, scary, stressful, yet totally fulfilling adventure.  Here's to lots of new memories to store in our suitcases!

 

Thank you to our dear friends Stef Atkinson (photo), Jaye Haynes (makeup) & Lauren Kaufman (graphic design) for your help with our super cute announcement postcard!