My husband and I are young and we knew that we wanted to have kids when we were young. Before we got married, we were talking about starting a family right from the get-go. Adoption had always been in our hearts. I can actually remember coming back from my trip to Africa and saying point blank to Andrew, I am going to adopt and I want to do that before we try to get pregnant. Obviously, he was all for it because he, too, wants to have a big family. Adoption has and always will be a priority to both of us.
Life gets in the way and sometimes leads you down a path you didn't think you would take. We had the opportunity to try fertility treatments through our insurance agency, but we knew that we couldn't do both fertility treatments and pursue adoption. Therefore, we had to make a decision and a tough one at that. We decided to hold off on adopting and see what would happen with the fertility treatments. We went through three cycles of IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) and one very invasive and difficult cycle of IVF (Invitro Fertilization). At the end of all of these procedures, we still had not begun our family.
We felt like this was God's way of telling us that we needed to continue our journey to adoption. We are still early in the process and know that there is a long road ahead of us. But we also know that this, adoption, is where we belong. We know that it is through adoption that we will begin our family and that our child is out there.
In order to get the ball rolling with our adoption, we know that there are big financial hurdles for us to overcome. We have cut back on our spending and are putting as much money as we can into our savings account. We are planning on hosting a spaghetti dinner and silent auction in the spring and having a yard sale in the summer to try to raise funds for us to make our adoption a reality.
Our first fundraiser is a Puzzle Piece Fundraiser. We're all pieces in a puzzle, each one contributing to a beautiful story. Which is why we're so excited about this fundraiser. It's such a symbol of the unfolding picture that is adoption. For every piece sponsored, we will write your name (or whichever name you specify) on the back. The cost of sponsoring a piece is $10. The goal is to get all 1000 pieces sponsored so the puzzle will be complete and we'll be $10,000 closer to raising the money we need to complete our adoption.
Here's the thing. We won't get all 1000 pieces sponsored unless the word gets out! So please help us by sharing this with friends and family. Share via email or Facebook or any other social media outlet.
When the puzzle is all put together, we will frame it in a double-sided glass frame and hang it in our little one's bedroom. And someday....someday.....when our child's old enough to understand, we'll take that frame off the wall and we'll snuggle up in a chair and we'll turn that picture around and we'll point at all the names. I'll read each one out loud and with this precious child wrapped in my arms, I'll whisper, "Look how much you were loved. Look at how much you were wanted. Look at all these people who helped bring you home."
Below is a link where you can sponsor a puzzle piece to help bring our little one home!
Wolanin Adoption Puzzle Fundraiser
No comments:
Post a Comment