Theme Eight

I have often thought that maybe our lives are mapped out for us in a tentative way from the minute we are born and what we do with that map is left up to us. When opportunities are given to us we can either take them or pass them by. What professions we go into, who we marry, how many children we have are all choices that can change the direction of our lives. This is what I believe may have happened when my husband and I decided to have children. Our first attempt at having a child was marked by lost and years of seeing doctors. With the news of our first child we were so excited to welcome into our home was lost when I was only three months pregnant. Having people tell us that this might have been for the best because sometimes it is Gods way of knowing when a child may suffer more then if their live were taken before they were done developing. This was no help to either of us because it would not have mattered what issues the baby may have had because he or she would have been ours and we would have done everything possible for the child. Again this may have been something that was in our journey that we could not have changed no matter how hard we would have liked to. Soon our sadness was replaced by joy and a little fear when I become pregnant with our son. We worried and read all the books and followed them like a religion and our son was born in November of 92. Even with our happiness over having a son we still wondered what our first pregnancy would have given us. As time passed and our daughter was born two years later we thought about our first child but with raising two active children the times became less and less. We were always thinking that three children would be great but as the years passed and we were not given the gift of another child we fell into our lives of being a family of four.

This changed quickly in 2006 when a co-worker brought her grandson into work and I held him. While she was at a point in her life when she should have been enjoying her grandchildren and still having the time to enjoy being free to travel and have her interest she was contacted by Human Services that her grandson would be taken at birth from her daughter and placed in foster care if she was unable to take him and doing the only thing she could she brought the baby home. That first day while holding him I felt the same way as when I held my own children for the first time. I had accepted that we were only going to have two children but found myself offering to help his grandmother with his care. This was the beginning of getting to know my third child. During those months Ashton came to stay with us often and soon he was with us more then his grandmother. In December we were asked by human services if we would like to be Ashton’s foster parents we said yes very quickly and with in days he was ours. As he became more and more a part of our lives I know that if we were to loose him that it would be like loosing one of our birth children. Months passed and during one of our home visits the social worker asked if we would like to adopt Ash. In less then one second we both said yes. This process was long and at times a pain in the ass but we kept looking ahead to when he would be our son legally even though he already was in our hearts. December 5, 2007 our wait was over and going in front of a judge we finally had been given our third child. Sometimes it’s funny how our life changes.