We do unfortunately share the infertility struggle along with so many other families. But that is not where our adoption journey began. For me (Jodie), it began years before I met Josh. In later high school I knew I wanted to adopt. I told Josh before we got married that I wanted adoption to be in our future.

I was told when I was only 25 years old that I had less than a 2% chance of conceiving a child naturally. And by God’s grace, we have 2 biological children. I will share more of that story in another post.

Fast forward several years to 2013. We had moved to Pennsylvania from the Chicago area with a 3 year old and a 2 year old.

While living there we went through the process to become foster/adoptive parents and were in the matching/waiting phase by 2014. Josh unexpectedly lost his job in 2015 which prompted us to move to Ohio. Because we moved to a different state we lost all the training/certifications we had in Pennsylvania.

After we renovated a house and got our household situated, we thought it might be time to start the adoption process again. But then I ended up with a freak 2ft. blood clot after a non-invasive knee surgery in August 2017. It was months of recovery for me and during that time God began to change my heart about the type of adoption I desired.

I had wanted to adopt a baby. And slowly, painfully I began to see that was not what God desired for us. I wrestled with God for months and I finally let go of the idea I had in my head and heart.

During this time, Josh had never felt peace about the adoption avenues we explored. He suggested we pray and wait. I LOATHE waiting. But that is what we did.

I became so frustrated during this time. It came to the point we didn’t know which adoption agency to talk to anymore. There are so many adoption agencies. And for the number of agencies, there are even more children waiting for families.

In my frustration, I said to God, please have the agency you want us to work with contact us…

Read the post “Why Haiti?” to see how He answered.