loss

My Reason Why

Dillon P.Leave a comment

Adoption. Kirsten and I started talking about it when we started dating. What should we do? When should we adopt? Why should we? Can we make this work? These were the question that were running through my head and some of those questions are still running through my head now. My then girlfriend and now wife continued to have these conversations with me but nothing seemed to take place towards starting the process. We loved the idea of adding a little kiddo to our family but we didn’t know what that looked like until just recently.

My wife and I have had our fair share of struggles in the 2 years we have been married. We have lost 3 children and that has been hard to cope with and learn how to love God in our valley and walk forward in our call to glorify Christ. We lost Matthias, Avery, and Riley, but they are with the Lord and they will dwell in His house forever.

I say this because adoption has never been our back up plan, nor has it been an answer to loss, rather it is the call on my wife and I to love the lost and care for the orphan. This is a priority to us and to adopt means that we are helping the child not only by giving them a life they deserve but by making Jesus a priority in their lives.

Our intention through this process is not that we would just be given a kid. We are here so that Christ would be known and that we would be a light in dark places. We are here to care for the orphan and the widow. We are here because we were given the ultimate sacrifice in Jesus and the sacrifice that he made on the cross, so that we could be called children of God because we have been adopted for life.

God has been good to us through these years of knowing each other and we are looking forward to this adventure together. Pray that we would see what the Lord wants us to see and we would not only rely on Him, but that we would find our strength in Him.

Why Now?

Kirsten P.Leave a comment

I am a planner, type-a, list making, google calendar fiend! I like to dream, make goals, accomplish tasks, and improve. I grew up making plans for my life. In Awanas when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew I wanted to be a mom. In high school I didn’t want to date for fun, I was looking for a husband (maybe a little too early but what can you do). I decided I wanted to adopt from Central or South America and I wanted a big family.

My desire was always to adopt. I wasn’t ever afraid of having a baby (like some friends) I figured it would be worth it. I decided in high school that I wanted to have my own baby and then start adopting. I wanted people to know that adoption wasn’t my plan B. Adoption was my plan A from the beginning, I loved that people who couldn’t have their own children wanted to adopt but I didn’t think that should be my story.

When I met my husband I made it clear that adoption was in my future and wanted to make sure that there was a clear priority. At that point I had been made aware that having my own children might not be simple. I tried to remember that women who have been told they would never have children have gone on to be some of the most fertile women. I just assumed I would join their ranks.

2 years after our wedding Dillon and I have been on a roller coaster. Just 3 months after our wedding I had a test in hard that said I was pregnant. There was so much fear, Dillon was still in school and looking for a better job, and we were trying to figure out what living life together looked like. I was in love immediately though, I didn’t really believe that all couples need 2-3 years together before they have a baby. If this was when God choose to give me a baby I was more than OK with it. After months of being on edge and waiting for the shoe to drop I had a second trimester miscarriage. It was the beginning of our journey through recurrent loss and infertility.

Months of endless tests, trying month after month, consistent vials of blood, needle pricks and ultrasounds we didn’t have any more answers. A 13 week loss and then a 5 week loss, I was at my wits end. No one tells you that being faithful is easy, there were times (and I am sure they will come again) that I seriously questioned whether God was still listening to me.

I always assumed that when Dillon and I started the adoption process we would have a biological child and be “grown ups” (no one really knows what that means). That is not the plan that God had for us.

My best friend had asked me a couple times if I still wanted to adopt and I kept saying that I did but not yet. I wasn’t sure why not yet, Dillon and I had considered starting foster care over the last year and realized that it wasn’t the right season. So why not adoption? I was hooked on my idea of the perfect adoption. I didn’t want anyone to assume that we adopted because we couldn’t have a biological child. On a Saturday morning, Dillon and I were at work and our Elder called. He wanted to check in on us and ask if we had considered adoption as an option. When Dillon told him that we wanted to we just didn’t know if we had the funds (very few people have the funds) He let us know that the church would help if we decided that was what was next for us.

That is where it began. Someone offering to walk with us through the journey was all the push I needed to understand that once again my plan was just that, a plan. God knows what He is doing, me on the other hand, not really.

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.

Proverbs 19:21