The Blakelys' Road to Adoption

For those of you new to my blog, or unfamiliar with our story... here is a brief explanation of the Blakelys' road to adoption.
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Eight years ago I got pregnant for the first time.  Nathan and I were so excited, and immediately started planning that child's future.  We were thinking of names... wondering if it would be a girl or a boy... hoping its due date of December 26th would not make it a Christmas baby.

But just a few days later I started bleeding heavily, and knew in an instant that that baby was gone.

We had only just begun trying to get pregnant, but I had so many friends experiencing infertility and I begged God to spare us from that roller coaster.

Our doctor told us that since we were so early in the pregnancy I would not need a D & C, and that technically I could get pregnant as soon as my next cycle.  

Which I did.

That pregnancy was such a relief, and I vividly remember thanking God that I was never going to have to walk the long and painful road of infertility.

A year after Beau was born we decided to start trying for a second baby.  We wanted four, so it seemed to us like we better whip 'em out!

God had different plans for our family.

The next six years were spent going from one doctor's appointment to the next... from one surgery to the next... all in an effort to figure out why my young and seemingly healthy body was not working.

About a year and a half ago I went in for another laparoscopy, with hopes that my doctor could remove one diseased fallopian tube in order to increase the chance of success with my third and final IVF treatment.

{If none of this terminology is familiar to you... thank God right now that you have not had to walk this road.}

During the surgery my doctor had to make the painful decision to remove both of my fallopian tubes.  It turned out that they were both so severely diseased, that not only were they non-functioning, but my doctor believed they were actually preventing the embryos we were implanting through IVF from nestling into my uterus.

The next month we had our last IVF treatment with our last two remaining embryos.

It was unsuccessful.

We were done.

We had always hoped to adopt a baby, even before we knew it would be our only option.

Only at that point, we were out of money, out of energy, and ready to close the door.

Then I met an amazing woman that has four biological children and eleven adopted children.  

Yes, I typed that correctly... eleven... which makes fifteen {in case math is not your strong suit}.

Several months ago, as she was getting ready to adopt number fifteen, we were lounging by the pool talking adoption stories. 

Long story short... she offered to pay for us to adopt a baby.

There is so much more to the story that I will share with you in the months to come, but the bottom line is that this friend and her husband are covering all of our adoption costs except for the cost of the Home Study, traveling expenses to pick up our baby, and a few other odds and ends.

Unfortunately, before we could even begin the process, we needed to come up with the $2000 for the Home Study fee.

With encouragement from blog readers and friends I devised a plan to try to raise our funds, and sent out an email asking for my friends and sponsors to partner with me.  Their response blew me away.

With their help, I put together three prize baskets valued at over $3,000 to raffle off on my blog.

Then, a friend of ours heard what we were doing, heard about my raffle, and felt moved to help.

She gave us $2,000 in cash so that we could begin our Home Study.

After six years of waiting patiently {although admittedly not-so-patiently at times} 

we began our adoption two weeks ago.  

We are so thankful that God has seen us fit to receive this blessing.  We take the stewardship of this blessing very seriously.

We still need to raise approximately $3,000 {from what we can figure}, and that is why we decided to go ahead with the raffle.

All of the funds raised from this raffle are going into a designated bank account and will be used only for adoption-related expenses.  It is our hope and prayer that there will be money left over in the end to share with another family awaiting a baby.

I would also love to make this an annual event on my blog.  The financial costs associated with infertility and adoption are the salt in the wounds of a painful, painful experience.  It would be a blessing to be able to ease that burden for others, as our friends have for us.

Thank you so much for considering participating in our raffle.

The other day when my sister asked Beau how he was feeling about all this his response was It's like every one of my penny wishes is coming true.  Thank you for helping my little 7 year old see that God hears every prayer... even the penny wishes.

{The raffle will begin Monday, June 28th and run through Friday, July 2nd at noon PST.}