How It All Began...

A Road of Loss

Having kids was something we always dreamt about. We knew when we started dating that we both wanted to become parents and build a family. When we began trying to build our family, we struggled. We experienced many bumps in the road that were definitely hard to overcome. We first tried doing IUI. In total, we did nine treatments. With each successful treatment, a miscarrigage followed. We ended up having three miscarriages all in one year with a total of five miscarriages throughout our whole IUI process. We were emotionally exhausted. After we were unsuccessful with the IUI we looked into IVF. It was so debilitating knowing you are doing everything in your power to have a child and the only feedback from doctors we were receiving was Amanda’s age.

Through several doctor visits, we found we would need a minimum of three egg retrievals. IVF is a hard process because you are investing so much money with no guarantee outcome. It was a hard pill for us to swallow. After many conversations later, we knew we wanted to look into adoption. I conducted an immense amount of research about adoption and different agencies when I found out my coworker adopted through Angel Adoption. We knew Angel was the place for us.

As we have been trying for so long, we knew that we wanted and hoped for a fast process. I am sure many others hope for the same thing. We were so driven to get our paperwork done and get our profile online that we did everything in our power to make it happen as fast as possible.

More Ups than Downs

After being live online, we got our first phone call from Angel that an expectant mother wanted to start talking with us. We were so excited while also experiencing a rush of emotions. After communicating back and forth with her, we found the conversation to be unnatural. Later, we received an email from Angel stating she was moving in a different direction. Though it was hard to feel rejection, we knew in the back of our heads she was not the one.

Months went by and we ended up talking to three more expectant mothers, all of which decided to not move forward with us. Our hopefulness started to fade and we were getting discouraged. Questions start rolling through our heads wondering if this was ever going to happen for us.

We were connected with a few more expectant mothers and still faced rejection. This seemed to be our pattern of talking back and forth and then either they decided to move forward with another family, or we just never heard from them again. It is truly emotionally exhausting because here you are trying to say everything right only to feel that pain of rejection.

Regaining Our Hopes

More months went by when we knew we had to put it into the hands of Jesus and just believe there was a baby out there for us. We regained our hopes and had to put our faith into God knowing we were meant to be parents. Though we had been communicating with seven expectant mothers up until that point, we knew we could only be fierce from that moment on.

Just after we had that conversation, we got a call about another expectant mother who wanted to talk with us. For some reason this one felt different. She was local to where we live, which made us feel very secure. We knew we had to be honest with her and lay everything out. We told her that her baby boy would be the center of our universe and we would love him unconditionally. She was in the dark about the whole adoption process and needed some guidance through life in general because she did not have many parental figures.

As we were leaving town for a trip, we received a phone call from Angel that this expectant mother wanted to move forward with us. Tears immediately filled our eyes as this was one of the best moments of our lives. After the tears came, shock followed. We found out she was due in just two short weeks. Grounding ourselves, we knew that God was looking over us because we said from the moment we started that we wanted the process to move fast.

The Life-changing Text

Over the next few weeks, we became very close with each other. One day she texted us saying that she was not feeling good and was possibly feeling contractions that were coming on strong. I advised her to call her doctor, though she ended up going to the emergency room to deliver. By the time she got there, she was already dilated about 6 cm. It was then we knew we needed to leave in order to get there in time.

When we arrived at the hospital, we found out we had to do a Covid-19 test. The moments we were waiting for the results ended up being the longest moment of our lives because all we wanted to do was see our baby boy. Thankfully, we were finally cleared to go and rushed to the delivery room.

Amanda was allowed in the delivery room for her support as she was doing this all alone. No words can describe the moment of when our precious Corbin entered the world. He was brought to me straight after delivery, allowing me to have that special moment. Tears of joy streamed down my face as I knew our little boy was home.

Our birthmother wanted to have a closed adoption. A few weeks after she delivered Corbin, she reached out and asked for a picture to show the birthfather. Without hesitation, we sent over a picture of our precious boy. We continued to text back and forth as we all kept saying how in love we are with him.

To this day, we continue to text. She updates me about her life sharing everything from finding a job to different recipes we both love. We could not have asked for a better birthmom. She is our family and always will be. She is the most amazing, selfless and strong human being. There is not a day that goes by where she does not exhibit a true act of selflessness. She always puts others before herself making her the most remarkable person. We can not thank her enough for giving us our precious Corbin.

God Has a Plan

This journey has brought so many unexpected hurdles and emotions we did not know existed. Though, if we never took the path of adoption or went through so many expectant mothers, we would not have Corbin. This journey is going to be hard, but you have to trust God’s plan and know it will happen.