Similar to my last few posts, it’s been a minute…or two. Hi, guys. How are you?

I’ve neglected My 3D Life because I’ve been out living it. I’ll spare you the annual recap and just rip that band-aid clear off: we’re growing our family!

But….let me back it on up a bit.

As basically all of you know because of my incessant over-sharing on Instagram, Chris and I have been trying to grow our family naturally for a little over a year. It wasn’t taking, which we anticipated given our age. But, we did sense that there was something off, so we proactively visited a fertility doctor early in the process to get ahead of possible complications. After a bevy of tests, he confirmed the worst: it would take a gosh darn miracle for Chris and I to conceive. Understanding that IVF was our only possible choice for a biological baby, we began the journey of preparing for that instead.

It’s funny when you start to go down a path that you know in your heart is not the right one for you.

As we began taking the steps for IVF, Chris and I both started to recognize a lot of signs that gave us this gnawing feeling in our guts. Our doctors weren’t getting back to us with test results, there was litter in a room where my blood was being drawn, a tech left the exam room unannounced, while I was on the exam table for an ultrasound and NEVER CAME BACK, and when the doctor finally did give us our results, he tried to understate my issues so that I’d pony up the cash for IVF.

Something wasn’t right.

Again, I’ll spare you the details of what and how and who and why because I’m anxious to get to the meat of this, but it dawned on us, before it was too late, that this wasn’t the path we were meant to take.

When Chris and I started talking about our options early on, we had always considered adoption. Adoption is in my blood (ironically). I am the youngest, and my parents’ only biological child. Even though my brothers are adopted, I’ve never for a minute felt that they were anything but related to me by blood. They were always just…my brothers. Full stop.

My mom also spent her life working in child services, writing adoption legislation for the state of Ohio and training adoptive parents. It’s been part of my life since I was born.

So while Chris and I were struggling through a bad fertility clinic experience, there was something gnawing and gnawing and gnawing at our hearts: we’re going to adopt. And the moment it dawned on me that this is what we had to do, a weight had truly been lifted.

And, I was happy. For the first time, in a long time.

Chris and I hadn’t breached the fertility subject in a few months because we just needed some time to think and breathe after the bad clinic experience and gnarly gut feeling, but it was time to talk.

“Honey, let’s talk about babies, again. I know it’s been awhile.”

Chris, “OK.”

“I’ve been thinking and…I think we should adopt. Something is telling me this is the right thing for us.”

Chris, “Ok. Yeah. Yes. You’re right.”

And just like that, it was decided.

Of course, there’s more to it than that. This wasn’t a flippant or careless decision. But the decision to adopt really was that easy. When something’s meant to be, it becomes abundantly clear.

A few weeks ago, Chris and I started calling around to different agencies and organizations who specialize in newborn adoption. Within just a few weeks, we were accepted into an adoption program here in Chicago. A LOT of you have had questions about this, so we thought we’d try to answer some of them here and will continue to use this blog to chart our journey to finding our beebs:

• Yes, we are adopting a newborn
• No, we don’t have a preference on gender or race
• Yes, he/she could be in our home as early as January…or 18 months from now
• No, we aren’t moving back to Columbus (yet.)
• Yes, this might be the happiest we’ve been
• No, we won’t be able to get to choose the birth mom
• Yes, she will be able to choose us

Right now, we’re in the process of drafting our adoption profile that our agency will use to match us with potential birth mothers who will choose US based on the life they want their baby to have (this is called an Identified Adoption). We’re also soon to start our Home Study, which is a very in-depth look at our lives, be it our physical and financial health, or ensuring we agree on how we want to raise our child. It involves home visits, trainings, classes. It’s a lot.

To say that I’m scared would be the understatement of the century. Only 50% of adoptive parents get matched on the first try, which means we could through several birth mothers before we find “our baby.” This has to do with a lot of different factors, one of which involves the birth mother deciding to parent at the last minute.

It’s possible, and it happens. And in a lot of ways, that’s what you want for both the mom and the baby, if the mom is fit to parent. But it’s no less heartbreaking for you.

While we’re not physically pregnant, we’re still going through the stages of expectancy. And we’re treating this experience as if we were anyway. We may suffer some miscarriages of hope throughout the process, and there are guaranteed to be heartbreaks along the way. I’ve been crying nonstop for the past several weeks to get it all out of my system.

And, it’s helping. I’m acknowledging the potential heartbreak and celebrating the potential joy. It’s a lot to navigate emotionally, but we’re ready.

And, we know that at the end of this journey, we’re going to have a human life that is entirely in our care. It may not look like us, it may not have my eyes and Chris’s heart, but it will have love. So much love. More love than I can even pretend to think about in this moment.

And love….love is thicker than water.