I suppose our story, as we know it, really began on October 3, 2008. That was the day, after a little more than 3 years of marriage, we decided to “pull the goalie” and see what happened in the family planning department. I remember the hope and excitement of that time very clearly. I mean, people get pregnant right away and by accident all the time, right? … Right?!

Well, a few months of our casual approach yielded nothing. We decided to get a little more purposeful with our attempts, and started timing things a bit more. Still nothing.

It was in March of 2009 that things changed dramatically, at least in my head. It was in the wee morning hours of March 1 that we got a call from our close friends Dale and Hannah saying they were in labor with their second child. An hour later another call came, this one far different from the first. Everett had died. At 37 weeks. A concealed placental abruption had taken him without warning.

I remember sitting in the hospital, crying, looking at that perfect baby, thinking, This isn’t supposed to happen. I remember sobbing in the hallway with a nurse, telling her, This isn’t supposed to happen. You aren’t supposed to leave the hospital without your baby.

That event changed my life. All my hopes were replaced with fear. Fear that our lives, like Dale and Hannah’s, would not go according to plan. But at the same time, I thought, it can’t get much worse than this.

Right? … Right?!

Purposeful timing wasn’t working. I started charting temperatures, cut caffeine completely, stopped coloring my hair, switched to all-natural hair and body products, and lost 25 pounds. In September, after a year of trying, I finally cut to the chase and made an appointment with a leading fertility specialist. The initial consult went fine and initial exams and tests showed nothing of concern. We scheduled some more tests for a few weeks later.

On September 29, 2009, we went in for what I assumed would be the beginning of months or years of tests and trying. Little did I know that our testing would end there. A few hours after we got home from the hospital, our doctor called to tell us the devastating news:

We would not conceive without InVitro Fertilization. No treatment, no alternatives.

We were crushed. This isn’t supposed to happen. We had lived 27 years of our lives assuming you fall in love, you get married, and you get pregnant. You carry the baby to 40 weeks. You all live happily ever after. No problem. Now we were faced with a very different reality.

While crushed, I also felt a very real sense of relief that we had such a definitive answer. I know that some people walk a very long infertility journey of tests, trying, and miscarriage. At least we had two very concrete choices: IVF or adoption. If I said that we did not consider IVF, I would be lying. We considered it very seriously and it was our plan for a while. During our IVF consult, it seemed like the doctor was hanging this golden carrot in front of us. We were young! We were healthy! We had an excellent chance of conception! We could have a baby! But I could not escape the reality that in the first hours after hearing that initial devastating news, I also very clearly heard God telling me that we were supposed to pursue adoption. I tried to hide from that voice and rationalize why adoption was not the right choice for us. But eventually, I had to make a choice between following my plans or following God’s. I know that for some of you, those sound like the words of a kooky religious nut. So I hope you will stick around and watch as God’s amazing plan for our family unfolds.