[Amber76]

Our adoption story is long and complicated! We first started looking into adoption in 2004, after being married for 4 years and after having doctors suggest all sorts of fertility treatments that we were uncomfortable with-everything from IVF to ICSI to donor sperm. We just didn’t feel right about any of the options they threw out there, but adoption seemed like exactly the right fit for us. So, we were scheduled to attend our first pre-adoption meeting with the agency we had chosen on September 11, 2004. Sadly, though, we never made it to that meeting because my dear sister and precious niece were killed by a drunk driver on September 10th, and we were traveling back to Indiana to be with our families and deal with our tragedy. My sister has two sons, then ages 10 and 12, whom I have always been close to and loved dearly. She had told me long ago that if anything happened to her, she wanted me to promise that I would raise her children. So, we became an instant family of 4, and in the interest of making as few disruptions to the boys’ lives as possible, we relocated back to Indiana. This put our adoption plans on hold indefinitely-adjusting to instant parenthood was a challenge, not to mention the grief all of us were dealing with.
In March of 2007, I started thinking again that I really wanted to be a mom and raise a baby. My nephews are a blessing beyond measure, but we really wanted a young child, someone to call DH and I mommy and daddy. I was driving one day and heard a commercial for an international adoption agency that was hosting an educational seminar to talk about their programs and adoption in general. Since DH was out of town, I drug my sister to the seminar, and there I fell head over heels in love with everything about the Guatemalan adoption program, and especially with the beautiful children that previous adoptive parents brought with them to the seminar. We began our homestudy and dossier preparation in April and in September our beautiful daughter, Ariana Maria, was born in Guatemala. I’ll never forget the call from the agency director or the first time I saw her pictures on the computer screen. It was love at first sight. Our process was going along very well, and on December 27 we made a trip to Guatemala City to meet our daughter and visit with her. We spent almost a week holding her, loving her, and getting to know her. It was bliss. We had to return her to her foster family on January 2 so we could return home while her adoption was processed. On January 7, 2008, she quietly, suddenly, and unexpectedly died in her sleep. We were beyond devastated, and we still miss her to this day.
Since Guatemala is closed to new adoptions, we decided in March to look into other countries. Instead, we ended up deciding to go with a domestic adoption, like our original plan back in 2004. We had our homestudy changed and I began working on our profile at the end of March. I sent it out to a few referral agencies, and we settled in for what we assumed would be a long wait. However, one night while surfing the internet, I accidentally clicked on a link that took me to a page of available adoption situations. There at the top of the listing was a brand new posting from that day, looking for a family for a Hispanic baby boy already born. I immediately emailed the agency who posted for more information. She got back to me right away and asked for our profile, which I sent that night. The next day, she called to ask some more questions, including how we came to adopt. I told her about our daughter in Guatemala. She was shocked and amazed to hear how much we had wanted a Guatemalan child and how we had prayed and prayed asking God where our child was and both felt Guatemala was the answer. The reason she was so shocked is because the baby she was trying to place had birthparents who were from-you guessed it! Guatemala! The agency had never worked with a birthmom of Guatemalan origins before even thought she had helped in placing many Latino babies. This all seemed too big to all involved for it to be a coincidence. Needless to say, we were chosen to parent that sweet baby boy, and two days later after relinquishments were signed, I was on my way to Texas to meet my son! DH was out of town for work again, but his company got him to Houston ASAP as well. I’ll never forget the moment I first laid eyes on him in his isolette in the NICU (he had some minor difficulty during labor and delivery and needed to be monitored for his heart rate and breathing). He was the most beautiful baby there. I remember asking the social worker from the agency if I could hold him, and I’ll never forget her answer, “Of course you can, he’s YOUR SON!” What a miracle he is!