He flew to Utah a couple weeks after that. We were just hitting it off so well. One night as we were talking he opened up. I knew that he had had cancer and had been through so much a few years earlier. We had talked about that, but this night he went into much more depth--especially the side effects of all the treatments that he had undergone. He told me how he would probably never be able to have biological children and he asked how I felt about adoption. This kind of shocked me, but I cared about Ryan and wanted to pursue this relationship. I wasn't going to end things because of this news. And adoption had always appealed to me.
We continued our long distance relationship. In June, after about 6 weeks of going back and forth, I made the decision to move to Washington to be closer to him. Timing of the blind date was perfect so that I could make this decision. I had recently graduated from BYU and was working at two part time jobs that I could easily leave. In July I moved to Washington. I found a job and in August Ryan proposed.
We were married in October. From the first date to our wedding was not quite 6 months. I swore I would never do that, oh well, he was the right one, at the right time, in the right place.
We went on a cruise for our honeymoon. It was awesome! 
After being married for about 6 months, we both individually decided that it was time to add to our family of two. We knew that we would need to see the fertility specialist and do in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in order to have a baby. As we went through the IVF treatments, we had all the faith in the world that it was going to happen. The doctor told us that there was not a very good chance, but we had faith. Unfortunately it didn’t work. We were completely heartbroken.
Ryan and I filled out all the paperwork and did all the necessary things to get approved for adoption. After we were approved we told everyone that we knew that we were trying to adopt and asked them to help spread the news. A little over a year after we had been approved we got an email from my aunt who lives in another state. She told me that she knew someone that was pregnant and not married and was considering placing her son for adoption. My aunt had shared with her our blog and information. Our sweet Julie read it and felt like we were to be the parents of her little boy. She emailed a couple of days and we read the sweetest words: “I've read your blog and it really touched me. Ever since I found out I was pregnant I never felt much like it was supposed to be mine. Please let me know if you can consider adopting my son. I know you will be a great choice.” We immediately felt so peaceful. We started emailing back and forth and building a relationship with her. We visited her a few weeks later and she immediately felt like family. About 3 months after she contacted us for the first time, she called us to let us know that the baby was going to be born that day. We jumped on the next flight and made it to the hospital a few hours after our sweet baby Lucas was born.
 |
| Our family triangle: Ryan cuddling on me and Lucas cuddling on daddy with his feet on me. We want to be a family square soon! |
I find myself crossing my fingers more and more lately and hoping that the good news will come soon.Very recently we had an experience that gave us so much hope that we would be able to adopt a second child very soon. We started thinking that this was going to happen and although we didn't want to get too excited, we started thinking about and planning our future with this child. We felt rejection, sadness, and loneliness when the couple chose another family to adopt that child. We hope that things work out for them and their little girl. This is the way that adoption goes. I have been reading other couple's adoption stories. I don't know why some adoptions happen so quickly and some take years. It is a process and it is hard to compare one adoption experience to another. But I know that the child that is meant to be in our family will be. God has a plan for our family. We are very hopeful that we will be able to adopt again soon. We hope that Lucas will be a big brother soon. We don't know when that will happen, but we will continue to be hopeful and cross our fingers that the day will be soon.
It seems as though Lucas has picked up on crossing his fingers. We find him crossing his fingers sometimes too. The other day he announced to us that he wants a baby sister. Maybe he knows something we don't know. We aren't picky though, it doesn't have to be a girl, we would welcome a boy or a girl with open arms and grateful hearts.
My fingers are crossed.
