Adoption - Life, Love and Thyme

Our First Loss

After having our two boys only 19 months apart, we decided in Aug. 2010 that we liked the spacing of our children and would like to try for a third child. We got pregnant right away and things seemed to be going along just fine after kind of a rocky start. I went in for my 16 week check up, after having a very normal ultrasound at 12 weeks, and they couldn’t find the heartbeat. It was quickly determined that the baby had died, but my body had not responded. I had a D&E a few days later. We were very sad, but knew that we still wanted a third child.

Our Second Loss

So four months later, I got pregnant again. This pregnancy seemed to be very healthy and the first with no bleeding in the beginning. We had another normal ultrasound at 12 weeks, where they even guessed that it might be a girl. But a few days later we received a call saying that the blood tests showed a high likelihood of a chromosomal defect. I had the recommended tests and after a very long wait, they came back with no chromosomal defects and that it was indeed a girl.

I was careful after that, but we felt much better and began to make plans. We went in for the 20 week anatomy ultrasound. The dr came in and said, “We saw a penis.” We were very surprised and from there discovered that the original testing had been wrong. We immediately had more testing and in a few days found out that the baby was indeed a boy with Trisomy 18…a chromosomal defect that is incompatible with life. We chose to end the pregnancy because the baby had two serious heart defects and with the chromosomal defect there was no way that he would ever survive outside the womb, if he even made it that far. It was by far the hardest thing I have ever gone through in my life.

Our Decision to Adopt

After a year of trying to complete our family and the loss of not one but two babies, we were lost. I immediately wanted to adopt, but Dave wasn’t so sure. Over the next nine months, we had many, many, many discussions about the topic. Dave was very unsure of adopting and wanted some time where things weren’t so dramatic. I just wanted a baby. We struggled and then we didn’t. We dropped the subject for a couple of months and then one day Dave came home from work and said, “I’m ready!” So I jumped on it and got the ball rolling as quickly as possible.

I hope that you will follow our journey to a forever family with the baby girl that will be the cherry blossom on top of a wonderfully sweet family!