Tuesday, November 15, 2011

National Adoption Month - Jamie and Jeremy

November is National Adoption Month. I will be sharing stories of families touched by adoption. This is the story of Jamie and Jeremy. Jamie has a wonderful design blog Kreyv .

In August of 2004, I was diagnosed with Hodgekin Lymphoma. I was only 24 at the time and was not concerned about any infertility issues. After all, the disease had an excellent cure rate and, in most cases, patients in remission were able to conceive a year following treatments. Unfortunately, the cancer relapsed in April of 2005, and in July of that same year, I underwent a stem cell transplant. It was during my second round of treatments that I was told that it was very unlikely that I would ever be able to become pregnant.

Of course this news was absolutely devastating. I think we all imagine our lives to be a certain way, and the thought of not being able to have children had never crossed my mind. As odd as it sounds, this news came at a good time. I was fighting for my life, and that's what I needed to focus on at that time.

A few years later, when it came time for us to start our family, we already knew that adoption would be the best choice for us. We chose domestic adoption and our agency. After becoming eligible, our profile was made public on the agency's national database. Potential birthmothers were then able to look through our profile and decide whether or not we were a good fit.

Our profile was posted in late April of 2009. We were contacted by Stella's birthmother in June and met her almost a week later. She had studied our profile, followed our family blog, and prayed for confirmation of her decision. She knew we were the right parents for Stella.

Everything happened so fast up to this point. I felt so many different emotions all at the same time. I was so happy, but so overwhelmed and very scared. As I quickly got to know this girl, the girl who would be giving us the most precious gift we could have ever imagined, my love for her grew, and I knew that the baby she was carrying was meant to be in our family.

From then until November, we were as involved as possible with the pregnancy. We listened to ultrasounds over the phone, recorded ourselves reading books so that Stella would recognize our voices, and had weekly calls with our birthmother. We could not have asked for a better experience.

In late November, I flew to Utah where my husband joined me a couple of days later. I was able to witness the birth of my daughter and hold her immediately after her birth. All of my fears and uneasiness disappeared at that moment. I knew that Stella belonged in our family. And though she didn't get to us the way I once thought she would, she was our daughter. Nothing else mattered.

We completed the adoption paperwork a day and a half later and took Stella home. She has been such a blessing in our lives, and we never could have imagined loving someone so much. We are so grateful for and blessed by the decision that Stella's birthmother made. We still keep in contact with her and visit her about every six months. I never would have thought that our path in life would have looked like this, but this path is better than anything I ever could have imagined.

1 comment:

anymommy said...

You have a beautiful family. So happy for you and so glad that you are here to raise your little girl.