Chris and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary in a few months. 10 years ago we were discussing when to have children, not how. I had always had the dream of adopting in the back of my mind but we planned to have natural children before we even considered this. But life doesn’t always go as we plan.

This story is deeply personal and painful and does talk about personal medical issues so if you’re sensitive to that kind of stuff, you may want to skip this post or jump to the bottom few paragraphs.

The Low-Lights

As many of you know, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis the day before Chris and I started dating. RA can be an invisible disease, something I try not to show but definitely feel every single day to varying degrees. I have been under the care of a Rheumatologist since shortly after my diagnosis who worked with me for years to try to find a medication that would give me a good quality of life including being able to have a baby (most specialty medications have unknown risks in pregnancy and some cause severe birth defects).

Once Chris and I decided that it was time to have children (about one and a half years after we got married) and I was off a medication that causes major birth defects, I assumed getting pregnant would be quick. When it didn’t happen for a year, I saw a doctor but I didn’t have infertility medical coverage so I didn’t pursue anything further. Within a year, we moved to California and had new insurance that had a little bit of infertility coverage and I decided to seek more medical care. An ovarian cyst was found on an ultrasound and I had surgery to remove it in May 2017 and was officially diagnosed with Endometriosis – a month before we left for Malawi, Africa (I wrote more about that here).

In Malawi, medical care for RA was very limited (minus some basic medications I could purchase over the counter there) or Endometriosis. My RA was out of control for the first few months until I did an elimination diet and found that gluten and dairy increased the RA pain (I said goodbye real bread for good!). I am so thankful that I found dietary triggers and that I was able to decrease the RA pain!

We returned to the US in May 2018. Neither Chris nor I had medical insurance and I applied to almost 200 jobs that summer looking for a position that would pay well and have good medical coverage. In June and August, I had terrible pain and battled between fighting through the pain and paying out of pocket for care. Eventually I had to get medical advice and a new ovarian cyst was found.

God provided a job for me in early October at Kaiser Permanente doing customer service. It was a difficult job but I had amazing medical insurance and was able to see an endometriosis specialist. Miraculously, there was (and still is, to my knowledge) a specialist within an hour drive from Spokane who was in network with my insurance (most experts don’t even take insurance). My care was almost fully covered!

**Little side note here for the ladies… if you are a woman who experiences monthly pain, know that it is NOT normal. I sincerely wish someone told me this when I was younger! And please do not go to any OBGYN for endometriosis care, most of them don’t know what they are doing and will cause more harm than good.**

I had my second endometriosis surgery in March 2019. My doctor did an amazing job but the first surgery caused additional scar tissue that made the surgery more challenging. He advised that it appeared that I also had adenomyosis, endometriosis in the lining of the uterus, but it couldn’t be confirmed without a hysterectomy. I had hope that we would be able to conceive naturally at this time but my surgery recovery was hampered by a back injury (you can read the story and how I processed it here).

During this time, my RA was also getting worse again. Shortly after the surgery, my medication was changed to the last RA medication that would be safe for pregnancy and potentially effective to treat the disease. As the months stretched on, pregnancy didn’t happen. By April 2020, the new medication had also failed and all the other medication options required me to be on birth control due to unknown complications with pregnancy.

At that point, it was clear that we weren’t going to be able to have natural children. Birth control was miserable. Endometriosis was still a problem even after a great surgery. I started to have pain again and knew I needed another surgery.

Since I likely had adenomyosis, I knew that even if the RA medications weren’t an issue, I would still struggle to conceive. And with there being no pregnancy-safe RA medications left, it seemed like a hysterectomy was the right choice. I would have less pain, I wouldn’t have to rely on birth control and it seemed that we weren’t going to be able to get pregnant anyways.

The decision was clear but excruciating.

I had a hysterectomy in December 2020. They confirmed that I did indeed have adenomyosis and the endometriosis had grown back (which is rare) and I even lost an ovary in the mess. Thankfully, recovery was better and I didn’t have other complications.

Joy in the Midst

So far, I have spoken of the prominent low-lights of the last 10 years. But not everything has been a low – not even most things! God was at work in through the trials. He was present even though he didn’t remove the grief we endured. Chris and I were drawn closer and we had many adventures together: moving to LA to start seminary, going to Africa for a year, coming home and moving back to Spokane so Chris could finish seminary amidst his family (blood relatives and church family alike).

During all of these adventures, the longing to have children hadn’t abated but we felt so transient that we felt we couldn’t pursue adoption.

In the fall of 2020, we traveled 4 or 5 times to Oregon for Chris to preach at a church whose pastor had recently retired. By the second week, we secretly began to wish we could stay. In December (only a few weeks after my surgery) the elders of the church to asked Chris to be the Senior Pastor. We were overjoyed! The congregation is warm and welcoming, the scenery is stunning and the community is friendly.

We moved officially in March 2021. We took a few months to settle in and then I began to research adoption. We initially started the process to get certified to adopt through the Foster Care system in Oregon. However, Oregon has recently adopted new laws that discourage Christians from this so this was a clear closed door for us. We looked into another agency but the same week I read an article about the agency’s shady adoption practices. A couple from our home church adopted a baby boy privately with an attorney in Florida and recommended her to us. We contacted her in May of last year and had our questions and concerns answered. She was amazing! We wanted to jump in but we had just purchased a house in our new town in April and needed to pay an initial $5000 fee to get started. In God’s kindness, we received a reimbursement check the same week for almost all the cost of the fee.

God has continued to provide for us financially (although the process is very expensive and we will be fundraising soon!). But more than money, he has given us hope in a process that often has felt hopeless. He has helped us take our longings to Him and turn them over to Him time and time again; we do want God more than we want children. And yet we continue to ask for children!

It is my not-so-secret hope that we will be able to adopt a sibling set or twins. We would love more than one child but would also love to not have to do this adoption process again. We also ask you to pray with us that God would answer our cry and bring children into our lives and home!

Thank you for reading this long, very personal post. If you are reading it, I trust you are someone who knows us and cares about us and we are grateful for you and for your friendship!