I was asked to help contribute to a blog and share our story. I love sharing our story and will never give up an opportunity to do so!
In writing, my eyes filled with tears. It is always so emotional for me to think back.
I wanted to share here. Many know our story but I love sharing it over and over. Here is what I wrote:
My name is Tammy and I live in Wisconsin. My daughter, Hannah, recently turned 4. I met my husband, Mark, in 1996 and we got married in 2001.
Our marriage hasn't been easy. My husband struggles with severe health issues. Our first year of marriage consisted of triple heart bypass surgery, multiple hospitalizations and a kidney transplant. He has severe brittle diabetes and has had 3 heart attacks. When we first got married, we were simply thinking of "surviving" and cherishing each day we had together---thinking we wouldn't have many to cherish. God had different plans though and a few years after Mark's kidney transplant, we both had a desire to have a baby.
We never expected we would struggle though. After all, we had already gone through so much. God would make this easy for us, right? Unfortunately that wasn’t in God’s plan. We struggled 8 years and underwent 12 IUIs and a round of IVF before finding out that I had a rare genetic disorder in which my eggs would fertilize but stop growing. We were devastated.
I felt like such a failure. Failure as a woman, failure to my husband, failure to my friends and family.
I still had a strong desire to be pregnant so we underwent 2 FETs with adopted embryos. With our first FET cycle, my beta test was scheduled to be drawn on my birthday. I thought God was going to be giving me my best birthday present yet. It turned out to be the worst as the beta on that day showed I wasn’t pregnant.
It was the hardest thing we had ever gone through. We were devastated beyond words.
And yet, not ready to give up.
We underwent a second FET with donated embryos. This time, without any planning in our case, the beta test was again scheduled to be drawn on my birthday. I thought this was God’s way of showing His grace by giving me my perfect birthday gift that I didn’t get the previous year. He was giving me a “do over”.
I was right. The beta came back positive. It was my best birthday ever. I was pregnant!
Two days later, I got the dreaded call that told me my level had dropped. I was miscarrying.
I literally fell to the floor in grief and tears. I spent days in bed. I didn’t understand. I’d like to say I was trusting in God and believed He had a plan, but I didn’t. I admit I was so incredibly angry with Him. How could He do this to us? We had already been through so much.
After a few days of laying in bed and crying, I finally prayed to God, “God I can’t do this. All I want to do is crawl into a hole and never come back up. I need You to help me get up. I need You to give me strength”.
It was then that I could finally slowly get up and move ahead. I’m not saying things magically got better. I had many tears for months and still had days where I just stayed in bed. But God gave me the strength to keep going when I asked Him to.
It was months before we felt we could move onto adoption. Still, I admit it wasn’t easy. I knew in my heart we couldn’t keep moving on with trying to become pregnant. I had to grieve that loss of not carrying a baby and becoming the mom through ways I thought I would. It truly was a loss I had to accept and grieve before we could take the next step. I took time to cry, to be angry, to “just be me”. While others tried to encourage me and help me “get through it”, I knew only I could truly help myself and I needed to move ahead in my own time, in my own pace and in my own way.
But I also felt God really did have a plan. My desire to be a mom was still there even if my dream of being pregnant didn’t seem possible.
So we went through the seemingly never ending home study and paperwork. We submitted our profile to 7 different situations, all without being chosen. It was very hard to remain focused and not become discouraged. We continued to pray but there were many days we felt no hope.
Then a situation came up. It was $10,000 over our budget (our budget was $50,000 and this situation was $60,000). We regretfully asked our profile not to be submitted.
God had other plans though and the agency erroneously submitted our profile anyway and the birthmother chose us!
We could have said no to this situation but in our hearts we knew this was no mistake. God brought this little girl to us. But now we had to somehow come up with $10,000 in 6 weeks during Christmastime.
What seemed impossible turned out to be possible. Our church threw a benefit for us and many friends and family from all over the world gave. The total we were blessed to receive was about $9800---almost exactly to the dollar of what we needed.
Our daughter was born on December 20, 2011. Interestingly, Hannah's due date was only a few days apart from when my due date was had I not miscarried. We believe when we got our positive pregnancy test, it was God's way of saying we would have a baby in 9 months and indeed we were "pregnant", just not in the way we thought.
I believe the loss I’ve felt and the grief I’ve gone through has been no accident. God has paved my way and my heart to become softer and more understanding for my daughter. My heart was broken so I could help my daughter with her broken heart. I know when Hannah gets older, she’ll have many questions. I know she will one day be sad and feel a loss for her birth parents. I know one day she’ll come up to me with tears in my eyes and say “Mom, I’m so sad my birth parents made such a hard decision”. I’ll cry with her and tell her that I’m so sad too. We’ll talk about how much her birth parents wanted her, how they didn’t “give her up” and instead “gave her a better life”, how much they loved (and love) her enough to give her a more stable life, how she is so lucky to have two sets parents who love her so much while most people have only one.
She is a very lucky, blessed, loved girl.
I know everyone says their story was a work of God and had God's hand in it and ours is no different. Our story truly is a miracle and proves God's hand in it. He was so faithful and His timing was perfect. He will also send signs if we just look for them. He is always there, always providing and always loves us—much more than we could ever imagine.
Bringing our daughter home on Christmas Day
Our first Christmas picture
I was the first to hold Hannah. Yes, I'm crying and talking on the phone :)
Hannah's first picture. I was the one who cut her cord. :)
