This post has been a lot harder to write than I thought it would be. I’ve been working on this post for over a week and I think I’ve restarted at least a dozen times. One reason, because I just have no idea where to even start and another reason is because it is hard for me to express my feelings. I like to keep my feelings inside. I’ve always been afraid to let someone down if they truly knew how I felt at times. I was always known as the smiling and laughing one. These past few years have been the biggest struggle in my life. I wasn’t always laughing or smiling in the inside. I was hurting and didn’t know to express my hurt and how to get beyond it. Here is my story of the road we traveled to start the journey of find our baby.
As I’m sure most young girls do, I dreamed of becoming a mom. I just couldn’t wait. I had it all planned out how it was going to happen. I would meet the man of my dreams, date of a couple of years and get married. After a year of marriage or sooner we would start our family. I wanted to have kids while I was young, starting by 23/24 and I wanted 6-8 kids. Adopting has always a passion of mine and I figured we would have a couple of our own biological children and then Lord willing a couple through adoption. As God as proven so many times in my life, my plan doesn’t always work out the way I had it planned.
Jay and I got married July 23, 2011- we were both 20. Our first year of marriage I was not on birth control. I was never on birth control during high school and after Jay proposed I went on it knowing we didn’t want kids right away. I had terrible side effects while on it, and had to go off of it. A year went by (and as much as I hoped, but didn’t hope) we didn’t get pregnant. In May 2012, we were ready to start trying for a family. After a couple of months nothing happened. We talked to our doctor who wasn’t concerned and said to keep trying on our own for another 4-6 months. It was hard to stay positive during this time. It seemed like everyone was getting pregnant. Although we didn’t know anything was wrong yet, I had it already in my mind that something was wrong. It seemed odd that even an “accident” didn’t happen within our first year of marriage and now we’ve been trying and still nothing has happened. We had people starting to ask questions when we were going to start a family and it was getting harder and harder to answer them. At the beginning of 2013 we decide to take a look at what infertility treatments would look like. We went to an informational meeting about infertility and what the whole process was. The whole process scared us, especially me. First, our insurance didn’t cover any of the treatments, second, they were intense treatments and I was scared of the end results. We put that aside for awhile and kept trying on out own. At the end of the summer we went back to our doctor. He did a couple of tests on me and found that my right fallopian tube was closed. He told us we could do surgery to try and see if we could get it opened, but it wasn’t guaranteed. He told us that I cold still get pregnant, but it’s harder. Around this same time I had two of my siblings call me and tell us that they were excepting. It seemed like everyone came at once. I just couldn’t understand why God was allowing this to happen. Why us? As much as I love kids, it was so difficult to be around them at times. I remember sitting at a band concert and wondering if we would every be there watching our kids. This is part of a journal I wrote that night.
I just feel like giving up. I don’t want to care anymore. I don’t want to feel pain anymore. I don’t want to be hurting anymore. I don’t feel loved anymore. I feel so out of place. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’m so angry. I’m so angry at this world. I’m angry at everyone I’m angry at God. I want to feel a different pain I don’t want to feel my breaking heart anymore. I’m emotional. I can’t take hearing about someone else getting pregnant or how their pregnancies is going or about their newborn. It hurts to much.
After finding out about my closed tube, Jay and I talked and wanted to do the tests on Jay before thinking about going on with any other infertility treatments. While we waited to see a specialist we kept trying, trying to not think about it or keeping track of it, but I knew deep down. In the middle of December we got some tests done and found out that Jay had low sperm count. We didn’t know the details of those results until the first week of January. That year Holiday’s were the hardest holiday’s I remember. It just seemed like a constant reminder what we didn’t have.. a “family” It was going to be another year, I was going to be another year older, and still no child. By now, I for sure thought that we would have had a little one and talking about adding another one. It just didn’t seem fair. High school kids were getting pregnant, parents that shouldn’t be parents were getting pregnant again, but we couldn’t. Was God trying to tell me something? Was I going to be a terrible mom? Was I not good enough? I could barely go on facebook without someone announcing their big news. Anytime I went on I would get down on myself, I finally had to just give it up. During this past year Jay had brought up adoption a couple of times, but I was scared and wasn’t ready to “give up hope”. Although Jay and I had talked about adopting while we were dating and engaged, it wasn’t supposed to happen yet. This wasn’t the way I had planned it. I knew that I could love that kid just as much as my own, but I was scared. I wasn’t ready to put it all in the choice of a mother to pick us, besides I was so down on myself, I didn’t think anyone would pick me.
In January 2014 we visited with the specialist that confirmed that Jay’s sperm count was low. We could try vitamins, but we should consider more the IUI and mostly IVF. As crushed as I was, I finally felt that adoption was the road that God was leading us down. Jay and I always said that we wouldn’t go down the IVF road, especially for our first kid, and the IUI were such low chances for us. I started briefly looking at adoption agency and was instantly crushed when I saw that the minimum age requirement was 25 for the agency we wanted to work with. I went down another roller coaster wondering why God would shut another door, when I finally felt we were doing something right.
The weekend of Martin Luther King Jr will be a weekend I will never forget. Our best friends from MI were visiting and the were ones that we cold share everything with. I remember my husband breaking down while we were talking to them, it was my first time I truly saw how he was feeling. He had always been the stronger one, I was always the one on the emotional roller coaster. I was so wrapped up in my feelings and how it was my body that couldn’t have a baby and how I might never feel the baby kick or hear its first heartbeat. How I wouldn’t be able to watch my belly grow and have the morning sickness or staying up all night because how the baby was positioned. How I might not ever go through the labor pains and hearing our baby’s first cry and having the stress marks of the beautiful miracle we created together. I forgot that my husband always had dreams of hearing our baby’s first heartbeat. Having me wake him up in the middle of the night so he could feel the baby kick. Kissing his wife goodbye and also her belly that was growing the miracle they created together. Or being in the labor room holding my hand as I pushed our baby out and hearing its first cry. He also had dreams and I didn’t even recognized it. Instead he was always holding me or telling me that everything was going to be alright. I remember something that he said that night that I won’t ever forget and how I knew that I am bless with the most amazing, compassionate, loving man alive. He told us that he was glad that his sperm counts were low so that I could stop blaming myself for everything. WOW! I was speechless. he wasn’t happy that we had two things working against us, in fact he told us that if could have it his way, it would only be because of him that we were having troubles starting a family. Our kids are going to have the best example of what love is with watching their daddy. This weekend was a fun filled weekend with heart to hearts with our best friends, forgetting about the stress of the past year, and excited for what this year might bring. Then it seemed so quickly, being ready to start looking at other options of starting our family, the thing I finally gave up might happen to me happened. My period was late, which wasn’t a rare occasion. It often was late, in fact I was surprised and not ready when it started on time. It was late more than usually and I felt something different. I don’t know if it was my mind playing trick on me again or what.. We all agreed for me to take a pregnancy test so that I could stop thinking about it. Sunday afternoon I took a test. What I thought would never happened- happened.. I got a positive pregnancy test. I couldn’t believe my eyes! They all tried to get my hopes down and said that I should take another one to make sure, but nothing really worked. I agreed that I would take another one the next morning. Monday morning came and I “forgot” to take one right away. I was scared. I finally took one later morning/early afternoon and my dreams came crushing down. it came back false. I started to research and found how you don’t get a negative positive test, but could get a negative negative test. That means that I must have gotten a negative negative test. I agreed to go to our doctor the next day to see what was going on. Tuesday morning came and I got up to play basketball, as I usually do every Tuesday & Thursday. I wasn’t feeling the best, but just thought it was from an exhausting weekend. We got to the gym and I could barely play a couple of minutes before sitting on the sidelines with the worst cramps I’ve ever gotten. We got in the car and on th way home I started throwing up. After throwing up, I felt better and I just thought it must have been morning sickness. Against Jay’s judgment, I went into work. I barely made it 15minutes before I felt like passing out because of the cramps. I was sent home and Jay came rushing home and brought me in. the biggest fear since seeing that positive test came true.. after a few tests it was confirmed.. I had lost the baby. They don’t know how or why- just said that my body must not have known how to react. I was devastated .. I t a doctor note saying I shouldn’t go back to work till the following week and I locked myself in my bedroom and cried. I just couldn’t understand why. Why would God give to just as quickly take away? Why would He do this to me to us after the years of trying and when I finally felt ready to take the next step. Why? I was angry, I was hurt, I was lost, and all of the feelings I felt that I let go came back. I was angry with myself, that I didn’t get more sleep or didn’t get healthier. I was angry with God of allowing this o happen to us and for “leaving” me again. The next month was long. I tried to keep a smile on my face like nothing was wrong, but as soon as I was alone it was gone. That Sunday after our miscarriage the sermon was about Gods faithfulness and it just made me angry and sad. I didn’t see his faithfulness at all in our lives for the past couple of years.. I just didn’t understand. The hurt never went away, but I have learned how to deal with it. I still catch myself saying that our baby would be so many months old today or wondering if it was a boy or a girl. This weekend I remember the baby we lost, but also rejoicing in the baby we are on the journey to find. I can be thankful for the positive pregnancy test I had and telling my husband that I’m pregnant, because I have no idea if it will happen again. I can rejoice because we found an amazing agency to work with and I know we will find our baby that we will love and cherish.
After our miscarriage the doctor was hopeful that it could happen again. I was at first, but after a couple of months, I was ready to give up the hope of getting pregnant and the hope of finding a baby that needs our love that we can give. After three months I told my husband that I was ready to adopt by going to the bookstore and finding a book about adopting along with a bib we got on our honeymoon. We started the researching of agency and although we were still not 25, but only 23, we had hope. We started calling different agency, some shut us down right away because of our age and others sent us information. In August we met with two different agency, and we were able to find the agency we are working with today. They also had a an age requirement of 25, but after meeting us they told us they would love for us to apply but we would have to get approved by their board. They also requested some extra reference letter and a letter from us saying why we were ready to adopt. November 19th we sent our application in and prayed. The 21st we got an email letting us know that she received the application and will be send it to the board for approval, but will recommend them to approve. we didn’t want to get our hopes up and prayed all weekend. Monday came and I checked my email a millionaire times that day. Finally an emailed came and I couldn’t believe my eyes. “it will be our honor to work with you” Jay and I were so excited and I finally felt peace in my heart. This is what God was preparing in my life. It still scares me knowing that the mom could change her mind, or not knowing where the $30,000-$35,000 is going to come from, or not knowing when we will get a child, but I have peace. I know that this is where we are supposed to be. We just had our second home study meeting and only have one left to do before we are home study cleared. We are working on our photo book for birth mothers and are looking at being shown by the end of February. We are in the works of painting the nursery and getting it all ready for when the time comes. God has definitely been working and I can’t wait to bring our baby home.
The Kiel's Adoption Journey 