WE'RE ADOPTING!!!

I tried to think of a more creative name for the post, but this is the best at expressing how we actually feel (yes, we are shouting!)

As most of you know who are reading this, we have been trying to have children for about 4 and a half years now, have gone through a bunch of fertility treatments and a failed adoption placement. We tried our best to always stay optimistic and faithful and knew that when we were meant to have a child, that we would be so blessed. We began receiving emails from a girl named Mindy (who found our online profile through LDS Family Services) in March, and we felt, from the very first email, that this was something special. We clicked with her right away and soon were sending long, wonderful emails back and forth several times a week. Then Mindy gave us her phone number and asked us to give her a call. I (Mary) called her while Mike was at work (she worked in the evening, but we didn't want to call her too early) and she told me that she had chosen us as the adoptive parents for her baby. I was in shock (good shock) and tried to figure out how to say thank you when the words "thank you" are so completely insufficient. After our phone call I called up Mike and told him the news and we both cried together on the phone. Mindy is from Colorado and was going with her sister to visit her other sister in Idaho, so we decided to meet in Salt Lake for lunch with the three of them, and already felt like we knew her from the moment we saw her. The meeting was great, and it was neat to meet her sisters as well - they were all so nice and easy to talk to. Since then we have been emailing back and forth and both we and Mindy have just felt the whole time that this is meant to be. We've always heard other adoptive couples say that when you are placed with a baby, you just know that that is the child that is meant to be in your family, and even though it's still in the future, we just feel such peace and joy.

And here are the details!

It's a girl! We would have been happy either way, but we're so excited for a cute little girl! She is due on July 24th (Mike said today, "She's gonna come out pushing a handcart - for those who don't get the joke, July 24th is a Utah state holiday, Pioneer Day, celebrating the LDS Pioneers coming into the valley). It will be a great time, because our sister in law Carisa is due on July 4th, my 25th birthday is on July 12 (Happy Birthday to me!) and our 5 year anniversary is on August 8th. Yeah, it's gonna be a good summer.

How open the adoption is, is totally up to Mindy, because Mike and I are happy to be as open as she would like, but we believe it will be a pretty open adoption, where we will send Mindy letters/emails and pictures, etc. Mindy has also invited us to be very involved during her pregnancy, which we feel so blessed for! Growing up, our daughter will always know that she is adopted and how very much she is loved, and that love, on both sides, is the reason she was adopted.

She also already has a name - Rachel Loraine. We had started looking and made a list of like 15 names that we both liked and were in the process of trying to narrow it down when Mike said to me one night that he knew what her name should be. He was thinking of her one day and suddenly just thought, "Aw, little Rachel." That took him by surprise as Rachel wasn't even a name on our list (though it wasn't one we didn't like). A couple days later he again thought of her as Rachel and the Spirit touched him as he thought of the name, but he still wasn't sure why. Then, walking up the stairs to work, he realized where the name had come from - the bible. Jacob (who later became Israel), fell in love with Rachel and wanted to marry her and worked 7 years for her ("and they seemed until him but a few days, for the love he had for her"), but then her father tricked him into marrying Rachel's sister Leah instead and made Jacob work 7 more years for Rachel, which he did. The Spirit testified to Mike and I that that is like our situation, where we worked and waited for a long time, and then were tricked (our failed placement) and then were blessed with Rachel. We asked Mindy if she would give Rachel her middle name. The name, Loraine, is Mindy's middle name and also her grandmother's middle name and great-grandmother's first name. We are so happy that Rachel's name has so much meaning.

Mike and I are also gearing up for bringing Rachel home and are getting ready her room and all the things that we'll need! And as anyone who knows Mike could guess, we are researching everything from carseats to formula to figure out the best things to get for her. I will be staying home once she is born and am so excited to be a stay at home mom.

We feel so incredibly blessed, and this whole process has just been absolutely perfect. We love Mindy so much and can't express enough the gratitude that we feel for her and the completely priceless gift she has for us. Words are truly not enough. We thank our Heavenly Father every day for the love He shows us in guiding and blessing all of us who are involved. We also thank everyone who has been praying for us and thinking of us - we have felt your love and prayers sustaining us. We know that Heavenly Father blesses us in the time and way that is best and that when we put our faith and trust in Him, everything will work out.

And no blog post is complete without pictures...Mindy is in the middle, and her sisters Jessica and Angela on her right

Us and Mindy

Mindy's sister gave us a hand that says "Go Utes," in an attempt to make Rachel a U of U fan. We don't have a problem with that.

Ultrasound pictures!