Adoption Update

I know some people have been wondering where we're at with the adoption after having our little nugget in September.  So here is a quick update for y'all:

• We have found two agencies in CA that we are looking at going through and we just need to talk with them about our situation (i.e. army, living in the middle of nowhere, having one child, etc.) and see which will be the best fit for us. 
• Once we have chosen an agency we will discuss with them the best time for us to officially start. Corey is currently at training for two months in AL and his unit is scheduled to deploy later this year.  
• This means that we could either be acting really fast to be active in March or waiting until Corey returns from deployment.  We're just trying to time it as right as possible for our family.  

Unfortunately, that's the extent of what I have as an update.  We still have our adoption account set-up and we have not touched a penny of what was donated to us.  Hopefully soon we will have more answers for everybody and a much better idea of our timeline for all of this.  

What happens next

This has been a crazy, whirlwind summer so far and we still have a month left till school starts again in August!  Corey is still in AZ training for his new UAV and I have officially left the south.  We can now confirm that Ft. Irwin, CA will be our new home come August!  We've been in the south for the past 6 years of Corey's army career, so we're excited to see another part of the country.  It's also only about 5 hours or so from my parents which is pretty cool.  We had grown accustomed to being close to Corey's parents the past few years and we're happy to still stay close to family.  

I am currently in Maine visiting my best friend Kate until August.  I will then be on my way to Ft. Irwin sans Corey to start my new job as a middle school math teacher!  Corey and I always say that everything happens for a reason and somehow we have the most perfect of perfect timing and right around the time he finishes up training will be when I start teaching again.  Hopefully that means we can get all of our stuff out of storage soon after and begin getting our house ready for the womb nugget in October.  

But the big question: HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR ADOPTION?!

Now that we have official orders we can actually start using the CA state laws and paperwork for our adoption.  We had originally planned on going through a consulting firm to give us a wide range of agencies to work with anywhere in the United States, but with womb nugget coming in October we didn't think we could feasibly leave CA for upwards of 3 weeks while we wait for adoption paperwork to go through.  Instead, we are talking about working with one specific agency in CA so that we can go back home while waiting for the adoption paperwork.  Everything will still be a bit up in the air until we actually get to Ft. Irwin but we are still hoping to become active by January 2017.  Once we get ourselves resettled and adjusted in Ft. Irwin we will be doing some more fundraisers to help us reach our adoption goal, so keep your eyes peeled!

And just because I can never say it enough: Thank you for everything you have done for us. We have felt so much love during this process and we are so grateful that we have been surrounded with such amazing people in our lives.       

The Adoption Party

At the end of March I flew back to Arizona, where my parents currently live and Corey is currently training, for an adoption party that my mom threw together for us.  She enlisted the help of two amazing people, Lyndsay and Wendy, who gave us one awesome party!

These two ladies set-up food, desserts, drinks, games, raffles, photo booths, etc. all to help us fundraise for our little pleaboo!  By the end of the night we had made about $1500 towards our adoption goal! Holy crap! We had maybe 50 people at this party.  50 people who are amazing and supportive and donated so much to us.  I am still completely blown away by this 3 months later.  

It was an amazing party and we had such a great time getting to see everyone.  AND we got to announce our pregnancy which was so fun to see everyone's reactions.  I would share the video of our announcement, but we have learned that certain people cannot be trusted with technology so the video that we thought was being recorded, did not record at all :) But that's okay, I don't think Corey or I could ever forget the range of emotions we felt after sharing our news.  It was the perfect day and we cannot thank everyone enough who contributed that day.  We love you all!  

We're still here

I know, it's been a while since I updated.  It's gotten a bit crazy around here.

Let's start with the biggest news: we are pregnant!  Can you say SHOCKED?! Because I don't think we believe it still..... It just seems so unfathomable after being told us conceiving on our own wouldn't happen.


BUT, we are 100% still adopting.  Our timeline has been pushed back a bit.  Originally we had planned on being done with all paperwork and officially "active" by October.  However, the due date for this little womb nugget is October 2nd so we are giving ourselves a few months adjustment to a newborn, while working on adoption paperwork, and we hope to be considered "active" by January 2017.  It is a little further off than originally anticipated, but this will just give us more time to fundraise and prepare ourselves for our pleaboo.


We also had to put off the adoption paperwork until we have official orders for Corey's next duty station.  Right now, it looks like Ft. Irwin, CA will be our new home, but we cannot officially say that until he has his orders.  That may not happen for a few more months.  And because adoption paperwork does not transfer state to state, we cannot do it until we have an exact destination.


With all of that being said we are just slowly getting ourselves ready for not one, but two little nuggets within the next year.  We still cannot believe the twists and turns this journey has thrown at us thus far, but we are so excited by it all.

We thank you all for the prayers and support and the immense love you've shown us.  We're incredibly blessed.  Now, hopefully, I will get enough energy to write a blog post with the awesome details about our adoption party that was thrown for us in Arizona.  It was awesome and I can't wait to share it with y'all.

Just a quick update

I know it's been a while, but we just wanted to give y'all a quick update!

If you ordered one of our adoption t-shirts you should have gotten it in the mail by now.  If you still haven't received it by Friday February 12, let me know.

We will be doing another t-shirt sale at the end of this month.  These shirts will look a bit different from the first ones because they're a bit more personal to Corey and I.  I will make sure to let you know as soon as we start that sale!

Our Youcaring page has seen some love and we cannot believe how kind y'all have been to us.  We are so ridiculously grateful and I will tell you every time I see someone has donated to us I definitely tear up.  I'm a sap.

That's about as much of an update there is right now, but if anything else happens I'll be sure to post!

We get by with a little help from our friends

I am beyond speechless by the overwhelming love Corey and I have received for our adoption. Over our New year's break, Corey and I were so lucky to have our amazing friend, Ryan, film a short adoption video for us.  We were so excited to have such an amazing person helping us create this video. Ryan helped us create this adoption video, to give people a glimpse into who we are and to help us tell our story. 

We are so excited about this journey through adoption, but we know we will need a lot of help from our friends and family to be placed with our baby. We are so humbled by all efforts people have gone through to help us thus far and we are praying that you will continue to help us and share this video. 

Our Youcaring page is live and we hope that you will help us share this like wildfire. Asking for help is never easy, but we are so close to finally having our little family that we have put our pride aside to humbly ask for yours. 

Let's bring our little pleaboo home!

youcaring: you caring.com/pleaboo

Our infertiity

We know that as we pursue adoption many people are probably wondering why.  Although Corey and I have talked about adoption as something we would like to do, it never really seemed to be something in the forefront of our minds.  But God had different plans (is anyone surprised) and adoption became a more and more pressing thought for us within the past year.  In October, Corey and I knew that in 2016 we would be pursuing adoption full force.  But, I know there are many curious hearts out there so I wanted to share our journey through attempting to get pregnant.

Corey and I found out we were infertile in February 2014.  And man did it suck.  In December 2013 we went to my PCM (general doctor) and told her how we had been trying to get pregnant since August 2012.  She recommended us to a fertility doctor in Nashville and away we went.  Our first appointment was in January 2014, about two weeks before Corey headed off for training in Ft. Huachuca, AZ to switch his job from infantry to UAV operator.  

The doctor outlined the tests we would have to go through to test our fertility levels and see if we could pinpoint the reason we weren't pregnant. Corey had one simple test to perform the following week before he left and I had three tests that would happen over the next three weeks.  Two of my tests were simple things for blood work (which is actually never simple for me since I have this whole fear of needles thing) and then the last one was more invasive involving anesthesia and an exploratory element.  

All of this was a bit rough for me to endure without Corey, but thank goodness it didn't take long for the test results to come in.  However, I would have to find out the results sans Corey.  Thank God for good friends like Carla who are willing to hold your hand through a meeting you're both very unsure about.  Anyway, Carla and I headed to Nashville to talk to the doctor so he could tell us what he found out.  In the most basic terms I can put this, here is what the doctor told us:

• I have a severe hormone imbalance
• I produce waaaaay too much of one hormone and barely enough of the other. 
• This means that my hormones aren't preparing the egg properly every month when I ovulate.
• Corey's count, while actually a high number, does not have very many "live" swimmers, therefore aiding the improper preparation for an egg to become a baby. 
• These two things together make pregnancy on our own nearly impossible.  

Given all those things the doctor told me about the different options we had to get help to become pregnant.  These options included a lot of medications for me to take (some by needle), medications for Corey to take, and a toooooon of trips back and forth to the doctor in Nashville.  Corey and I were adamant from the beginning that if we were infertile we did not want to take those routes.  It is a very personal choice for everybody, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle the amount of bloodwork, shots, and medication I would have to take, without having constant meltdowns and I didn't want the process of bringing  a baby into this world to be riddled with that kind of stress.  (side note: that's just me! I know other people who can and have handled IVF and other similar treatments like champs and I have sooooo much respect for them.)  

Now this all happened with Corey gone, and we both had a chance to process individually and again together 5 months later.  It is something that still gives me a sharp pang when I realize I'm not pregnant each month, and something that I think will always be in the back of my mind.  However, it has just sped up our arrival to adoption.  Corey and I had discussed adoption for at least one of our children some day, probably later in life, and now we just get to experience this sooner than we had thought and perhaps even more than once.  It's been nearly two years since we have learned the full extent of our circumstances and we are ready to begin the journey to finding our precious baby.  There's a reason for everything (this has become our favorite saying since Corey joined the army) and we are sooooo excited to experience this all together and to share it with all of you.