Is this Plan B?

Aubrey and I are approaching our five (yikes, that's like a milestone or something..!) year anniversary. (June 20) So, we both understand that you might assume that we tried to get pregnant before deciding to adopt. While that is some people's story, it is not ours. Here is how we arrived here!

When we got married, and since then, we always hoped to wait at least 5 years before starting the journey of kids. Of course we knew we had little to no control over that, and we would have been fine with something different. We wanted God's plan for our family, not ours. I digress, about 2 years ago baby fever set in (with me) It set in pretty hard. It was one of those seasons where it felt like everyone around me was pregnant and having babies. However, as bad as I wanted to be a mom, I looked around at our current life situation (trying to get a business off the ground, I was still working part time, and we were nowhere near ready to buy a house) and knew it wasn't the right time. So, I just sat in baby fever limbo. It's no fun.

One day in a baby fever induced craze (i'm sure) I brought up the kid-timeline question to Aubrey. He reminded me that we had always said we would wait until we had been married at least 5 years, and I reminded him that we had already been married 3 of those 5 years, and his eyes got so big. Y'all, its like he forgot that "we'll wait 5 years" doesn't mean that we will always wait 5 years from now...(haha, sorry Aubrey! It was too funny!)

Once he stopped panicking we slowly began to talk about what that would look like. We began praying and thinking and talking and at some point (after looking at his grad school graduation date and where we hoped to be financially and with the business) and decided we would start he kid "process" in the spring of 2014. Whew! That was an exciting conclusion to come to! Now we just had to figure out if we were going to adopt or try to get pregnant when we got to Spring.

Aubrey brought it up first, God was obviously working in him before me, he just mentioned the idea of adopting from foster care first. I immediately had 14 reasons it wouldn't work, but God began working in my heart. Then the decision became to have one first or adopt from foster care first. I actually landed on adopting from foster care first just out of instinct. There was no major revelation that came to me, if just felt right, and Aubrey agreed.

In April (2013) I was doing research on the process, just trying to learn all about it, and I read that the large majority of kids in the Wisconsin system are 6 years and older and that younger kids are relatively rare. That statement began an unraveling of many sorts in me. From that moment on I began the debate between having one first or adopting from foster care first all over again. I told Aubrey about it and he was not affected. He still held firm in adoption, but firm in a way that let me find my way back on my own. The doubts flooded my mind, It seriously felt like I changed my mind every 10 minutes about what to do. I prayed and prayed that God would give us clarity on what direction to take to start our family. The paths were so very different and at this time we knew we were already less than a year away from starting whatever process we decided on.

One weekend at Jacob's Well, during a series on Jeremiah, John Stumbo spoke about being called. God knew before we were in the womb the calling he had for us. John said two things that hit my heart directly. 1. "It's not about who you are NOW, its about who God is making you to be." 2. "Don't ask, can I do this? But instead, Can God make me into who I need to be to do this" It became so clear to me that all my doubts about foster care came flooding in when I realized that it might be more difficult or not as pretty as I thought. The potential of older kids was scary, but God spoke to me that day saying, "Ask me, I can and will make you into the person you need to be to do this."

I came home and told Aubrey about my revelation, and he just smiled. He noted that with so many other "big" decisions in our lives he has been the one with the research, revelations, and reasons behind why we should do this one thing, and I have usually been the one who just "felt" like it was the right thing to do for no explainable reason, but that this time it was reverse! He had been there all along waiting for me patiently to get there too. So we looked at each other and smiled, I think filled with excitement and probably terror. We knew how we were going to start our family!

So, no we have never officially tried to get pregnant. No, this is not plan B, and honestly even if we had tried to get pregnant I don't think adoption would feel like Plan B. God's plan is always Plan A. This is God's plan for our family and we are so excited that this is the path he has for us.