The Adoption Journey...

So, for many of you, you already know that we have adopted a beautiful, healthy little baby girl who we named Lia (Brazilian spelling of Leah).    We also kept the name her birth mother gave her as a middle name: Krystyna.  She was born at 9 lbs 8 oz, which fits right into our family as Hannah was 9 lbs exactly.  Lia is very aware and alert.  She likes to see as much as she can and she is only 3 weeks old.  As much as we have come to love her, the adoption is not final until another 2 to 3 weeks.  This will take place in court where the birth mother will be able to relinquish all of her rights and then we will start our probationary stage, proving that we are taking care of and meeting Lia's needs. 

Many of you have asked me to write about our journey here, so I will do just that.

So, the adoption journey does not start when you get your baby, ours' started a few months after we were married.  I have always wanted to be a mother. Flavio and I started trying right after we were married, but month after month, nothing.  This became very difficult for me and I knew I needed to talk with a doctor.  Luckily for us, our doctor was very understanding and instead of making us wait a full year of trying, he allowed us to get tested right away.  These tests proved that both Flavio and myself had infertility problems and the doctors said that we had less than a 1% chance of getting pregnant on our own.  This was devastating, I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach.  My dream of becoming a mother seemed shattered.  However, we had some money saved up and we decided through prayer to try in-vitro.  For any of you who have gone through this, or know someone who has, you will know how hard this process really is.  With the shots and the hormones changes, the different tests and then the final procedure.  It is all very stressful and emotional.  Flavio and I both knew that this is what we were supposed to do, and so with the first round of in-vitro we thought for sure it would work, how could it not?  But, to our horror, it didn't and then it didn't the second time either. I went through what seemed like a period of grief, like you do when you lose someone early to death.  This whole time I was looking into adoption, wondering if that was what we needed to do.  But once again, we felt we needed to try the in-vitro again and after 6 months of trying in-vitro we were pregnant.  Hannah was born and, well, she is one of the most wonderful people I have ever had in my whole life.

So this adoption journey did not begin last week or even the day we found out about Lia.  This has been something we have thought about almost our entire marriage.  The actual journey to get Lia has been a life changing experience.  So many family members, friends and total strangers have come together in our behalf.  Lia has been surrounded with people who don't even know us, but have taken us in regardless.  So many people have loved Lia in her short little life, including her birth mother.  To give such a precious gift is beyond anything I could ever do.  Her birth mother will always be an angel to us.  There is still so much to write about, but this journey is not over.  We just hope and pray that this little gift will be ours forever and ask that you will keep us in your prayers for this purpose.  Thank you all for all you have done to help and support us during this miracle.  I will share our full journey once everything goes through.  We love you and can't wait to introduce you to Lia Krystyna Martins.