our journey continues....

Welcome to our new blog. Patrick & I have been on our journey to have children for quite awhile now, and I thought having a blog detailing all of our highs and lows would be a good idea....

We have tried to have children on our own, but have run into problems along the way. Patrick's spinal cord injury has been a stumbling block & I wonder where the "fairness" is that so much has already been taken from him, why this too?! Anyway, we've been through IVF/ISCI a few times with pretty dismal results. Our last attempt was particularly difficult, as we finally got 1 embryo to transfer, but no success....doctor thinks it stopped dividing a day or 2 after transfer.

So, the jury is still out on whether we try IVF again. We're taking a break from dealing with it until after the holidays, as IVF is an all-consuming event....the hormones alone are enough to send me over the edge :-0

On a much more positive note, we started our adotption journey last summer. We have always planned on adopting and thought we should get the ball rolling. Deciding on domestic vs international was pretty much made for us...we were told that we could wait 4-6 years for a birthmother to choose us due to Patrick's disability. Tough news to take, but we're better off knowing our chances upfront rather than waiting & wishing. So, we turned our attention to international programs that would accept families with a disability & didn't require both parents travel. Ultimately, we've decided to adopt from Ethiopia!!!! We'll be working with WACAP in Seattle/New York as there are no Ethiopia programs in Maine.

Our 1st homevisit is TODAY!!!!! I am a bundle of nerves....having spent the last week organizing & cleaning our house. All things that needed to be done anyway & it was great to have an excuse to push me to get it all done. We're excited to talk with our social worker from MAPS about the process, etc. We'll also be attending a day-long International education workshop in Boston in a few weeks....we have to have so many hours of adoption education for our homestudy.

So, I plan on keeping this blog updated as well as possible, as i field so many questions about our progress in having children. This will be a good outlet for me as well.....here's to a home full of children!