We Could Have Missed This

-Charlotte Sorrill-

It was month 21 of trying to conceive that everything changed for me. I had been diagnosed with endometriosis a few months prior and had undergone an unsuccessful surgery and several cycles of fertility meds. I was broken and defeated and I couldn’t keep torturing myself with shots and ultrasounds.

Adoption was slowly being put on my heart but I didn’t realize it at the time. I remember there was an adoption awareness month where KLove radio talked every day about adoption and every time I heard it, I would cry.

I started following adoptive moms on Instagram and was falling in love with their adoption stories. My friend Alex Congelliere was talking to me on a particularly rough day and I will never forget what she asked me, “Do your arms ache for a baby or does your body ache for a pregnancy?”

And that’s when it hit me. I didn’t care if I ever got pregnant, what I wanted was a baby that I could love and nurture as a mother. I didn’t care how that baby came to our family.

My husband was really leery of adoption, but I remember the exact moment he finally agreed to start the adoption process and the overwhelming amount of peace I felt. The burden of infertility was lifted off my shoulders and I wept with relief, joy and HOPE! It was a peace that only comes from God.

I felt a frantic rush to complete our home study and start showing our profile book to expectant mothers. I literally could not get things done fast enough. I immersed myself in the world of adoption and learned as much as I could from podcasts, blogs, and people from all sides of the adoption triad.

Our home study was finally finished in August 2016 and just three short weeks later we presented our profile book to our sons expectant mother and she chose us!

We flew out to meet her right away and the next 18 weeks were spent getting to know her and loving her the best we could. It was such a beautiful and exciting time preparing to become parents and growing a relationship with this brave woman that we already loved so much.

In January 2017 our beautiful son Charlie was born and placed lovingly into our arms. Never have we experienced such profound love, gratitude and awe. Not just for Charlie but for his birthmom as well. Looking back I can see now how everything was leading us up to this. The timing was perfect and everything I went through had put my heart in the exact right place at the right time for me to hear God and follow His amazing plan for our family.

The plan that was far better than I ever could have dreamed, even better than getting a positive test all those months that we tried. I never thought I would say that I’m thankful for infertility, but I am. We could have missed out on our precious Charlie. We could have missed out on the beauty that open adoption has brought into our lives.

We get to experience something so amazing that so few families get to be a part of. Adoption is bigger than us. It’s bigger than infertility. Adoption is God bringing brokenness together and creating something selfless and beautiful. We are so thankful to be touched by adoption.