The Beginning

 The Doctors
I love kids...I always have.  I chose the perfect career for it too.  Teaching.  I could teach children all day, and be home and have plenty of time with my family too. When I taught 5th grade, I had a girl in my class whose mother was very involved in setting up adoptions in our state.  Although I was not even engaged at that point in my life, I asked for some information regarding adoption just so I could look through it...

A few years later my husband and I were married.  We practiced Natural Family Planning and quickly decided that we were both ready to have children.  The first few months we weren’t necessarily “trying” but I was a little surprised that I had not yet gotten pregnant.    We became a bit more serious about it and began charting my cycles.  I bought books on how to best chart and it was not making that much sense to me.  What all of the books said would be “obvious” signs were not so obvious.  

I huge fear of mine that I had had my entire life was that I would not be able to have children.  I chose teaching because I thought it was the best career to have if I wanted a family.  Here I was, about 6 months into trying to get pregnant, and still no baby.  Not only was I going to chart my cycles, but I was also going to try ovulation tests.  At first I bought the cheapest ones I could buy and then quickly bought the $40 smiley face ones that there would be no questioning if I was ovulating or not.  The tests showed that I was ovulating regularly every month.  I made an appointment with a fertility specialist after that.  All the doctors I spoke with said that I should wait a full year of trying, but I was at 10 months and getting frustrated, so I rounded up :)

The first time I went to her office, I saw a “Wall of Fame” with pictures of a lot babies that were born with her help.  That was a good sign, right?  There was a series of ultrasounds I went through each month to show if I was ovulating.  Every month I was ovulating at least one healthy egg.  I also had blood work done showing that my hormone levels were within the normal range.  I then had a hysterosalpinogram to see if there was any blockage in my fallopian tubes.  I was told this would be a minor procedure that would be slightly uncomfortable.  I came by myself and had the procedure done.  The good news was that there was just a tiny blockage that got flushed out of my left tube and my right side was perfect.  The bad news was that it hurt so bad that I had passed out from it.  I had heavy cramping and bleeding for a little over a day, but was hopeful that the small blockage was what was causing the problems.  

I waited a few months and the doctor decided to put me on Clomid.  She already knew I was ovulating, but wasn’t sure what else we could do, so we tried it.  The first month I did not have any side effects, thank goodness.  I did not get pregnant though...

The second month was a different story.  I was going to see a friend in Chicago the second day of taking the medicine.  I missed the bus to get to Chicago, so I had to drive there.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  I was furious.  I chased the bus with my car, and was screaming at the top of my lungs at the bus driver.  I had some of the most foul things I have ever heard come out of my mouth.  I then called my husband to tell him about my tragedy of missing the bus, which led to me bawling my eyes out and him hanging up on my because I was being so irrational.  

I finally got to Chicago, explained to my friends what had happened, and realized I had completely lost my mind.  I could not possibly go on that medication again.  

The doctor had no other recommendations and diagnosed me as “unexplained infertility.”  I decided to go to another doctor, who was known worldwide for some of the infertility issues that are out there.  She took months to get into, but I was hopeful she would be able to find something.  
The Adoption Process
In the meantime, my husband and I decided that we wanted to start the adoption process.  We just wanted children...it didn't matter how they came to us.   We went to a meeting about how to start the process and were overwhelmed with all of the decisions that needed to be made.  After hearing about how smoothly domestic adoptions typically go, we decided to do that.  We were also able to choose from many agencies who match couples with infants.  We were so excited!  

There were so many things to think about though...

Which agency?
Special needs?
Race?
Gender?
Wait time?
Open or closed adoption?

After a lot of research, we chose American Adoptions, a domestic agency that works with all 50 states.  The birth parents get to choose the adoptive parents, which we liked.  This way, we thought would make the birth parents as comfortable as possible with us.  

We had been working on our paperwork, but were dragging our feet.  It seems that we would switch off getting nervous and back off of the paperwork for weeks at a time.  Finally, we decided to take a long weekend and stay at a cabin and finish all of the paperwork.  We sent it in as soon as we got home.  It took a few weeks to get our clearances...the FBI clearance took a really long time!  However, we finally got word that American Adoptions had all of our paperwork and just had to look it over, set up our profile, and we would be notified when this would all happen.  We were also told that that could also take a few weeks.  

It was now the end of January.  My husband and I decided that we wanted to go to the March for Life in Washington DC.  Wow...what an experience!  It was amazing to see so many people marching to the Supreme Court who all were pro-life.  There were many adoption signs and an overwhelming feeling of support and love for children who have been adopted as well as parents who adopt their children.  As we finished our walk and were chatting with people in front of the Supreme Court, we got a phone call.  We were “active” in the adoption process!!!  Now all we had to do was wait for us to be matched with a birthmother!  

Waiting can be difficult.  Our agency told us to continue on with our everyday lives and to try not to think about being matched.  From everything we read, we had months of waiting, right?