Jeremiah 29:11

It has been a long few months for Jeremy and I. We have been busy with work, raking lots of leaves, prepping our home for winter, Christmas decorating and preparations, trips to visit our favorite people, and lots more. Aside from all this, we have had a lot of medical testing done.

As many know, we have been trying to get pregnant since we were married. Basically it's been like a year and a half now. So when I had my yearly check-up, I asked my doctor if there was anything we could be doing to help us out. She had me in for some blood testing, to see if there was anything glaring. Now, this seems simple for most people, but for me, its not so simple. I have issues getting my blood drawn. My veins are super skinny and they roll really bad. I usually have to get stuck 4-5 times before anything will come out. And then my blood clots REALLY fast, so virtually nothing can be drawn. So after passing out in the dr. office and a series of pokes and prods and very ugly bruises, they found that one of my hormones is VERY high. After testing one more time to be sure, they had to do an MRI. Usually the reason for this hormone being high is brain tumors (YIKES). Well, that came back clear so they sent me to a specialist to see about getting that hormone level lower.

In a nutshell, after LOTS of testing, they found that I have Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). While this is treatable and mine is not severe at all, they also tested Jeremy just to make sure everything was good there. Well, it wasn't. He produces about 1/100 of the amount of sperm that most men do. Of these small amounts, virtually none of them move.

So what we learned was with my inability to regularly produce healthy eggs and his inability to produce healthy sperm, we most likely will not be able to have kids on our own. While there is still a VERY slim possibility, it is not likely and it certainly will not yeild the big family that we want.

This was a very hard reality for us to hear, and while we want to have hope, we also want to be realistic. We have prayed very very hard about this the last few months. It has not been easy and I don't think it will get easy any time soon. However, we know that God's plan for us is for us to adopt. This has been made very clear to us and we are ready and willing to accept that this is God's plan and it is how He intends for our family to grow. With that being said, we have begun to look into the adoption process. We have a meeting with a counselor at Catholic Charities next week to get all of our questions answered and are looking forward to that.

We know that Adoption is a long process and it is a lot of work. However, we are looking foward to the road ahead and we finally can move forward in our desire to have children. It helps tremendously that we know a lot of families who have adopted, some very recently, and we can see that a family is a family no matter what their make-up or blood. We also have prayed and discussed at great length the openness towards children of other races, backgrounds, cultures, etc... We really feel that our home is open to any child that needs a home. While we are going to do an infant adoption the first time, we are not opposed to adopting waiting children either in the future. Each and every child deserves a safe and loving home. If the child that needs us most is green with purple hair, we will embrace that child as our own and raise it in a loving, Catholic home. That being said, we are not going to limit our options, as this significantly increases your waiting time, but also could significantly alter God's plan for our family.

So what I would basically like to ask all of you is your prayers. We would ask that you pray for us and for our future children. We just keep reminding each other that there are children out there who need a home and we are a loving and willing home for whatever children God brings to our door. Again, we are very eager to begin the process, but we ask that you bear with us as this is an emotional time and a very busy time for us as well.

Jeremy's aunt sent us a wall hanging that has this Bible verse on it and we have always had it hanging in our kitchen. It wasn't until recently that we really read it and realized what an impact it had on our home and on our lives. Having this on our wall has become a reminder to us daily of God's grace and His goodness and His infinite mercy.

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your good and not for harm, to give you a future of hope." (Jeremiah 29:11)