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