The Decision to Adopt

I have blogged about this decision before, so you may already know some of this story. For those of you who don't know our story, here it is.

So...you know how it goes for most women, you have your whole life planned out...married by 25, 3.5 kids, a dog and a cottage house with a white picket fence!

I didn't have that much of a detailed plan, but I have for as long as I can remember, wanted to adopt a baby. I remember seeing the plight of the Romanian orphans on 20/20 and begging my parents to adopt a baby. I promised to take care of it. My heart couldn't bear to see those children suffer and not act. My parents, in their wisdom beyond mine, knew that at the age of 15, I was not ready to take care of a baby and further more, they were finished having babies in their house. Mom says that this was not the first time I had mentioned to her that I wanted to adopt, but this is the first time I remember my heart aching for children who didn't have a home of their own.

Life went on for me and I find myself in my late 20's dating Nathan. We talked about how many children we each wanted. I would love to have three, he only wants two and I am o.k. with two. I mentioned to him that I had always wanted to adopt and that frankly I had little desire to carry a child in my womb. I explained to him that I had always envisioned myself raising a child that I did not give birth to. He said he was totally fine with that. So here is where "our plan" comes into play. Our plan was to have a homegrown child and a child through adoption. Sounds like a great plan, right? That would be a great plan, but it was not God's plan.

After about two and a half to three years of being married, we noticed that our arms and laps were lonely. We were ready to start to build our family. Without going into a lot of details, we were not successful. I went to my doctor who did all sorts of tests on both of us, only to say that it was possible, but not probable for us to conceive. We didn't get a lot of definitive answers, but we were told that we could being to go down the path of fertility treatments. I think that in general fertility treatments are a great thing for a lot of people, we just didn't have a high tolerance for such. As you know, these treatments can be very expensive and you have no guarantees. To be quite honest, we didn't have time to waste. I was at least 35 or 36 years old at this point. We tried a couple of rounds of fertility medication with no success and that was it for us, we were ready to pursue adoption.

We talked and prayed things over and we decided that International Adoption from Korea was the best choice for us. You can read more about that decision here. After making that decision, I became ill. That is another blog for another day. After recovering from the illness, we found out that I have a condition that would make it dangerous for me to carry a child. Does God know what He is doing or what? It is no coincidence that God placed the desire in my heart to adopt! It is exactly the plan He had for me for my whole life.

We are thrilled with our decision and we know that God is in our plan. All along our path, we have seen God at work. It is our pleasure to be a part of what He has in store for our sweet baby. On days that I feel discouraged (kind of like today) that we will never get a referral, I try to remember that God is in control of this plan, not me. He knows what He is doing. I know He is working behind the scenes on my behalf.

It has been so much fun for me to write "Our Story." Thanks to all of you who have read along. I can't wait to add to this story as life goes on for us.

Married Life

So now Nathan has decided that he loves being married. He wants to know why we didn't do it sooner. He also tells me that had he known that when you got married you could have 300 thread count sheets, he would have done it sooner. Very funny N Dub! I tried every trick in the book and all it took was 300 thread count sheets!

As you can see, Nathan has a great sense of humor and he remains my very best friend. We have so much fun together. Often times at night we turn out the lights and have a giggle fest. He often tells me that if we were in third grade, he would pull my pig tails. My favorite thing to do is steal his pillow when he gets out of bed or lifts his head in any way. I lay there and giggle as if he won't know what just happened. Now if he has to get out of bed...the pillow goes with him so that I don't steal it.

We love attending and serving at church together as well as spending time with family and friends. We both love our in laws. We both got great ones! We adore our three nieces and one nephew and take every opportunity we can to spend time with them.

We manage to stay busy, maybe even a little too busy. Both of our Mom's remind us that we "go too much." Weekends are often jam packed with activity and more things to do around the house than what anyone could possibly expect to get done.

After about three years of being married we noticed that our arms and laps were lonely and we decided it was time to start a family. As we usually do, we had a plan. One homegrown and one adoption. No problem, right? Well, God had another plan. Stay tuned...

The Engagement & Wedding

One day Nathan wakes up and decides he is ready to get married. I am not sure of his entire thought process, but he has told me that one day he came to the realization that he wanted to share his entire life with me. I was the one that if he had good news, he wanted to share it with first, he wanted my opinion on stuff and he thought I was just plain fun. I am all for being fun, but I am not sure why when I read our adoption home study that fun was the one thing he kept saying about me - she's fun. What am I a circus elephant?

I had been giving my Dad plenty of warning that he could be receiving a phone call some time soon. I can't say that I blame him for his "I'll believe it when I get the phone call" attitude. We had been dating 7 years! I just thought that 7 years was time enough for him to adequately prepare for "the call." Nathan had purchased the ring and was trying to get my Dad, who suddenly was unavailable, on the phone. Finally, he reached him, asked his question and my Dad said something similar to "I have a lot of questions for you and I am not prepared, can you call back?" Do you believe that? Seven years and he was not prepared. Of course, Nathan complied. They made a time to talk a few days later. The date March 31. So what is the big deal about March 31? When you have been dating someone for this long the last day on the calendar you want to propose is April 1!

They talked and Dad gave his blessing. Nathan called me at home (about 10:00 at night mind you) and said that he spoke with my Dad and it did not go well, could I please come to his house so we could talk. I made it to his house in record time. He started telling me about their conversation and how, by the way, he was joking, it went well. I knew the proposal was coming, but I didn't expect it that night. There was a gift bag on his dining room table. I asked what it was and he said it was a belated birthday present for me and I could open it if I wanted. Of course, I did. Inside was a giant paper weight shaped like a diamond ring. We were joking about how I could show it to the girls at work and say "Look, he finally got me a diamond ring." Then he said "Or you could show them this" and he pulled out the most beautiful engagement ring I had seen in my entire life! Needless to say I was ecstatic. He got down on one knee right there in his kitchen (now our kitchen) and asked me to marry him. He says this was not what he had planned, but he knew he could not propose on April 1 and that he could not wait any longer.

I guess he thought we could just insta-plan a wedding. I had no idea what I wanted in a wedding (another area that I should have had time enough to plan but I didn't). It all came together and we were married 7 months later. I loved our wedding. It was so "us." We had a fall wedding. Our families helped us tremendously. We loved it that our whole family was involved. My nieces were flower girls, Nathan's niece was our flower baby (she was born in September and our wedding was in November), Nathan's sister did a reading and we carried on a tradition that she had started of having a candle lighting ceremony at our wedding. You know the kind like we have on Christmas Eve where everyone lights each others candles. We had great music hand picked by Nathan and his friend, our Music Pastor, Keith.

The reception was awesome. We decorated with mums, spray painted pumpkins and ferns. On the bride and groom's tables we had a picture of our respective parents on their wedding day cutting their cake and on each of the guests tables their were quotes about love from books, movies and famous people. There was so much food and we had a great time talking with all of our favorite people who came to celebrate with us this long awaited event.

That was the happiest day of my life. I know this sounds sappy, but I love being Nathan's wife. I had someone who tried to get me to sell make up for the company she was selling for. Her line was "You could have the life you always wanted." I looked at her and said "Honey, I didn't date this guy for seven years for nothing, I have the life I always wanted, it has nothing to do with make up." Needless to say, she didn't ask me again.

You know what they say, "After every wedding, there comes a marriage." Stay tuned...

Our Dating Story

Yes, I know 7 years is a long time. Please note is also the number for perfection! Let's just say that we both had a lot of maturing to do. When we first started dating, Nathan still lived at home. I was coming out of a very bad relationship and needed time for healing. I am thankful that Nathan and I stuck with each other and our relationship long enough for both of us to experience much needed growth. Believe me, at times it was not easy for either one of us.

We did so many different things while dating, but mostly our lives revolved around our singles group at church and the friendships there. Many of those friends are people we are still close to now. I remember my Dad telling me that I needed to put down some roots in my adult life. That is what I did. I asked God for a girl friend and He answered my prayer in abundance. Not only did He provide me with that one special friend, Melissa, but He provided me with a whole slew of other friends that I treasure. Melissa and I spent several nights talking on the phone about where my relationship was going with Nathan. She was always so great to listen. Nathan was thrilled that I had other friends and my life didn't totally revolve around him.

Like I said we did so many things. We saw a lot of movies, spent time with our other single friends, went to Honduras on a mission trip, went to Memphis to see "Phantom of the Opera" and we were in and attended no telling how many weddings for friends.

About that "Phantom of the Opera" trip, here is a picture. Notice we went with two other couples. When we bought the tickets, we were all single and by time to go to Memphis for the play one couple was married and the other engaged!



Literally, before we started dating, I made a list of what I was looking for in a mate. Things like, "Number One - must be a Christian, must be as comfortable at a Razorback game as he is at the symphony, must love my family, and they must love him." I knew that this guy met every one of the criteria on my "list." Not that he is perfect, but he is very good for me. Furthermore, I felt like God had told me that this was the person He had for me. I remember telling Nathan "I don't care if we date for years if we eventually get married, but please don't date me for years and then dump me." I was willing to wait as long as it took as long as it resulted in marriage.

I will never forget the day Nathan called me out of the blue and said he bought a house. Keep in mind that he still lived at home and hadn't really even mentioned to me that he was interested in moving out. His grandparents had seen a house that they thought he would be interested in. It had just gone on the market that day, he saw it and made an offer - then called to tell me about it. I about flipped. Don't get me wrong, I loved the house and was thrilled for him, I was just in shock! He drove me to see the house - from the road, we couldn't go in. He then proceeded to drive around the neighborhood and say, "See, don't you like it better than this house or that house?" How would I know, I haven't seen the inside of either one. We still live in that house to this day and I love it even more than I did the day he bought it. It is perfect for us and will be great for our family too.

I knew one day Nathan would wake up and decide he was ready to get married and he would want to get married immediately. Sure enough one day, he did decide he was ready. He tells me now that he had no idea that it would take so long to pick out a ring and plan a wedding. Stay tuned...