Whitacre Baby Number One: One Couple's Start Along the Adoption Journey

** I am pleased to share a guest post from a friend of mine, Steph Whitacre. Steph and I attended Baptist Bible College (now Clarks Summit University) at the same time, and she was my RA for one year. Or was it two? While we were friends in college, I think our friendship deepened after graduation, and I have enjoyed keeping up with her through Facebook and her blog, Stephwhitacre.com. June is Adoption Month, and I asked her to share her experience as a soon-to-be-adoptive mom. Steph and her husband Tim are only beginning the process, but I am glad to share with you what she wrote! Steph occasionally writes about it on her blog, too, so if you are considering adoption, follow along! **

This month, Tim and I are celebrating our ten year anniversary. We had the good fortune to get married ridiculously young (I had been 21 for exactly a week), and to start our life together with all the idealistic expectations and dreams that come with the early onset of adulthood.

The first few years we were married, we would frequently drive two and a half hours north of our home in Pennsylvania to visit my family in New York. I’m the youngest of four and, during our visits, we would spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews. We loved these moments with them—swimming in the pool, playing on the swing set, going to the park and to get ice cream.

On our drives home, we almost always talked about our own family. We weren’t in a hurry to have kids, but we always had so much fun with my nieces and nephews that it would make us excited to think about the future. We’d talk about what kind of parents we’d like to be, how many kids we’d like to have (spoiler alert: we still don’t agree on this), potential names, if we hoped for boys or girls and in what order they should come, and the list goes on and on. Our plan always included adoption. It was something we wanted to do… but you know, later, once we had parenting and life in general figured out.

In the spring of 2010, we decided we were ready to put our kid plans into motion. We shared this with a few people close to us and they were so enthusiastic. We did some research, timed it all out, and thought within a few months, we’d be well on our way to Whitacre baby number one.

Then nothing happened. We felt so confused. Every month would bring the hope of things being different. I’d get so antsy waiting. At one point, we bought pregnancy tests in bulk. We ended up throwing the majority away because their expiration date passed before we had the need to use them. Our hearts broke in silence. Eventually our conversations on the drive home from visiting family shifted from talking about plans to the quiet of unspoken fears—things like, “What if that’s never us?”

Over the years, we’ve seen doctors and undergone tests. We still don’t understand exactly what has prevented our becoming pregnant. What we do know is that, after years of heartache and confusion—which, in all honesty, sometimes peek their heads up even still—Tim and I have found a way to stand our past plans on their head in order to create our own future family.

Earlier this year, we began the adoption process. We’ve filled out oodles of paperwork, had all of our fingers printed and printed again, and met with a caseworker on several occasions. As I write this, our caseworker is writing up our home study. Once our home study is complete, Tim and I will designate a placement agency who will help us connect with a birth family.

It would be a lie to say that there aren’t vast differences between the process of adopting and of birthing a baby. Each comes with its own set of emotions, struggles, joys, and pains. Yet, in the end, adopting isn’t this alternative form of becoming a parent like I viewed it when I was young. When I think about ten years ago, and all of our hopes and dreams for our children, I kind of love that the kids we imagined then are still what we imagine now. Six years of waiting to meet our first child hasn’t changed who we hope he or she will be when they grow up. I hope they are kind, determined, and willing to help others. I hope they are funny like their dad and like to be outside like me. I hope they like learning new things and are patient in passing what they know on to others. I hope they know Tim and I love them, and that having them as our child is way better than any plan we could have created.