Divine Detours
By Nicole Merrill
If you have questions about adoption or infertility Nicole is available for questions. Just email her at anmerrill@yahoo.com
It’s difficult to know where our story begins because it seems that it started long before my husband and I ever met. As a young girl I would daydream about my adult life…. Who would I marry? How many kids would I have? What would they look like? What would I name them? For as long as I can remember, I have been completely enthralled by the whole concept of pregnancy. I’ve always wanted to know…what is it LIKE to feel another person growing inside you? I remember having “girl talk” with my friends in high school and college about these things. Even though almost all of my friends shared my desire to have children, many of them could take it or leave it when it came to the pregnancy part. For me, I was sure that experience would be one of the highlights in my life. To this day, I still do not know what it is like to feel a baby grow inside me (and doubt I ever will); however, I do finally know what it feels like to be a mother. It is truly worth all it took to become one.
When my husband and I married in June 2000, I was 26 years old. I had always had a gut feeling that pregnancy wouldn’t come easy for me. After a year, my hunch was confirmed and we began seeing a reproductive endocrinologist. I was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and began the “usual regimen” of fertility treatments. Over the next two years, we did three cycles of chlomid and several rounds of shots. On Christmas Eve of 2002 I had a laparoscopy and ovarian drilling to clean out my endometriosis and stimulate my ovaries in order to induce ovulation. No success. There was always that glimmer of hope with each cycle that it would be “the one”, but each time…nothing. As each month went by, I began to dread that stupid pregnancy test stick that became my enemy. It seemed I was always throwing it into the trash, furious that there seemed nothing I could do to make it happen. Each negative test was like an insult to me as a woman, a reminder that I could not do the very thing that seemed so natural to everyone else.
While we were doing everything under the sun to try to create our own family, our families of origin were falling apart. Both mine and my husband’s parents divorced within the first two years of our marriage. Needless to say, keeping my stress level under control was nearly impossible. During this time, I was working as a social worker doing psych assessments in an emergency room and as a therapist part time. My husband was extremely unhappy in his corporate job and decided to go back to school to get his teaching certification. In 2002, I started a new job as a school social worker while my husband went back to school full time. I loved my job, but my heart’s desire was to be a mom. It was beginning to consume my every thought.
Meanwhile, it seemed like baby showers were happening on a weekly basis. I tried to stay positive and be optimistic that “my time would come”, but with each phone call from a friend announcing a pregnancy, I just wanted to die inside. Many of my friends were already having their second and third child and I wondered if I would ever have just one. It seemed like we were on the fast track to in vitro-fertilization as our only option to achieve pregnancy, and we simply did not have the money to do it. Adoption was always something that appealed to us, but at this point I was still holding on pretty tight to my dream of conceiving a child ourselves.
The tears picked up and so did the prayers. We had nothing to cling to but our faith, and begged the Lord to reveal His plan to us for our family. Slowly, I loosened my grip on my plan concerning HOW I was to become a mother, and asked God to be the one to decide when and who and how this would happen. One of the most frustrating things about infertility is the lack of control. No matter how much medicine you take, how much you control your diet or stress (give me a break!), how many vitamins you take or how precisely you time your cycle...no matter what you do, or how hard you try, it is ultimately up to God to create life. As I journaled my prayers through these excruciating months, I began to understand that the very thing that I thought was my biggest curse (my infertility) could actually become something that God uses for His greater glory. This is what I remember as my specific prayer: “Give me a ‘God story’. Something that only He alone could achieve.” Little did I know how exciting His version of our story would become!
In June 2002, my husband and I were invited to go on a trip overseas to do children’s ministry. During our trip, we became friends with one of our ministry partners. Lamar was from Houston, and was one of the only ones there without his spouse. His wife couldn’t make the trip because she was at home on bed rest, pregnant though IVF with their first child after a five year struggle with infertility (specifically PCOS). My husband became fast friends with Lamar, who was also a high school English teacher (exactly what Gabe was going back to school to do). We seemed to have everything in common with Lamar and his wife Dana and kept in touch with them after we returned to our home in Indiana.
Our new friends, holding their breath through their own high risk pregnancy, were determined to do whatever they could to help us. Lamar had joked in that first week we met that he and Gabe would teach across the hall from each other in Texas one day. I had no idea then that this “far-fetched” idea would become a reality. Our friends, having just built a new house, offered for us to move to Texas, live with them, use the money from the sale of our house in Indiana for in vitro or adoption, and then buy a home of our own in Houston when we had a better idea of what we could afford. It was an extravagant offer that humbled us to our core, and after much prayer we decided to go for it. In April 2003, Gabe was offered a job as a teacher and coach at the same high school where Lamar taught. When we sold our home in Indiana to the first person to look at it, we knew we were part of a bigger plan. We arrived in Houston on July 6, 2003 anxious for the next chapter in this seemingly endless journey to become parents.
Our plan was for me to do IVF as soon as possible with the same doctor our friends had used. I was extremely anxious to get started, but we couldn’t do anything until our insurance started at the end of September 2003. In the meantime, I did what I think most of us who obsess about getting pregnant do: surf the internet for anything I could DO to make sure this happened as I hoped. This is how I came across the Resolve of Houston website where I learned about the Infertility and Adoption Symposium which was scheduled at the end of September 2003. I was definitely interested and more than a little intrigued by the drawing for a free IVF cycle. I figured if it cost $100 for us both to attend and there was even a chance to win…why not give it a shot? Plus, it really fed my need to DO something. Somehow, even though we were in the middle of Gabe’s football season, he was able to go with me. I joked with a friend that I wished for that free IVF cycle for my 30th birthday which was September 25th. Believe it or not, after a long day of seminars and pamphlets and speakers, the Resolve leader drew Gabe’s name for the free cycle of IVF! I don’t think we could have been more thrilled if we had won the lottery! To us it felt like we had won the lottery and we were both sure that this was exactly why God had led us to Houston. We couldn’t wait to get home and tell everyone about our good news!
The free IVF cycle was donated by a different doctor, so we made the switch and met with her the following month to get the ball rolling. We were so anxious to finally get to do the procedure after all these months of being “on hold” because of the move to Houston. On the same day we had our initial consult with our new doctor and began our IVF schedule, I received an e-mail from a friend back in Indiana that ultimately threw a wrench in our new plan. She and her husband were foster parents to a two year old little boy whose parental rights were about to be terminated. They were looking for placement for him outside of the immediate area to give him a fresh start. This was a child we had met prior to leaving Indiana. I remember having the thought while watching his foster mom, Darla, snuggle with him on the couch…Lord, I know I could just take that child as my own, and just be done with all these shots. Darla asked us if we’d like to be considered as possible adoptive parents for this little boy. Gabe and I decided to say yes, and just see how it all unfolded, intending to continue on with our plan to do IVF in November 2003.
After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, it was finally time to get started. It turned out that our wait would continue due to a cyst on my ovary. As I continued to seek God’s plan for our family, I couldn’t ignore this feeling that we needed to put IVF on hold indefinitely and get serious about positioning ourselves to adopt this little boy who was already here on earth and needing a family. Telling Gabe that I felt like we needed to wait was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do. My selfish heart desperately wanted that pregnancy, but God forced my heart to stay open to His direction. I reluctantly shared my thoughts with Gabe and he agreed. Our focus had shifted from IVF to adoption which meant trading ultrasounds and bloodwork for house hunting in order to begin the home study process. We purchased our home in December 2003, and began taking foster to adopt classes through CPS in January 2004. Once again, we were on a new path not knowing where it would lead.
Over the next few months we had several visits with this little two year old, blue eyed blonde back in Indiana. We were hopeful that he was “the one” and that we would be able to adopt him and then do IVF. As the months went by, and the whole process seemed to be so slow, we were feeling the clock ticking on our free IVF cycle that was to expire in September 2004. Although we were hopeful, we were completely unsure if we would be chosen as the adoptive family or if our licensure would be complete in time for a placement decision. We decided to go ahead and proceed with IVF in May 2004. We were thrilled to find out Memorial Day weekend that it worked and we were pregnant.
Unfortunately, we found out within days that my HCG levels were not going up like they should and the pregnancy failed. The day after we got the terrible news, our foster/adopt worker came to our home to do our home study. I wondered how I would survive it because technically, we were not supposed to be pursuing fertility treatment while pursuing adoption. How would I explain that my heart had just been broken? I was especially worried about a direct question regarding infertility and how I would answer. The last thing I wanted to do was be dishonest. I was just so afraid that the truth would take us out of the running completely and then what would we do? Thankfully, she didn’t ask. I had cried myself to sleep the night before, and didn’t know how I would find the words to answer any of her questions. Thankfully, my sweet husband rose to the occasion and did wonderfully.
I miscarried about a week later, and cried new tears because now I had proof that I didn’t dream the whole experience. There really was life inside me, and now there wasn’t. We were at an all time low. I began to question why God had given us this “free cycle” just so it could fail; moreover, why He had allowed life to come and go so quickly. It all seemed so cruel. All of our friends, both here in Texas and back home in Indiana, grieved right along with us and kept on praying for us. I think we all knew that even though none of us knew how it would end, the story was not intended to end here.
In their efforts to help us get away and begin to make sense of our loss, our friends Lamar and Dana graciously offered us their beach house in Florida for a couple of weeks. While in Florida, we began to redirect our focus once again on “our little guy” in Indiana, hoping that our home study would be completed in time for a placement decision in July. Maybe this was indeed God’s plan after all, and he really was to be our child. Two hours before our flight back to Texas, I received a phone call from our foster/adopt worker, Ashley, in Houston. When I saw her number on my caller ID, I thought, “Good! This means our home study is ready to take with us to Indiana!” I wasn’t prepared for what she really said, “Your home study is actually not ready for Indiana’s purposes, but I do have a two week old baby girl who is in need of a home as early as tomorrow. I’ll give you and Gabe an hour to think about it and call me back.” My heart started beating through my chest, and needless to say it didn’t take us an hour to give her our answer which was “YES!”
During our flight home to Houston we made a list of everything we would need for the baby and headed to Babies R Us directly from the airport. It was so fun to share our news with our friends and family and see the look of shock on their faces when we told them we were expecting a baby…..tomorrow! When the caseworker brought her to our home, she was draped in a blanket so we couldn’t see her at first. When she uncovered her little face I absolutely knew without a doubt that this was the child I had prayed for. She was absolutely beautiful with her olive skin and perfectly round head. She was IT. God’s timing was perfect. If we had received the call the day before, we would’ve still been in Florida. If it had been a day later, we would’ve already been in Indiana. (Our daughter arrived on July 6, 2004, exactly one year after we arrived in Texas from Indiana.) The unfortunate part was that once we said yes to our daughter, we were essentially saying “no” to the little boy in Indiana. However, it became more and more clear that we were not the ones making the decisions here, that we were part of a much bigger “God story” than we could have ever imagined.
After six agonizing months of not knowing if our little girl was here to stay, parental rights were terminated and we were given permission from the court to officially adopt our daughter. We consummated the adoption in March 2005. It was an amazing feeling to know, without a doubt, that she was the child God had intended for us all along. It was a long journey, full of twists and turns, but we’d do it all over again to get to her.
Of course, once our precious daughter officially joined our family, we were eager to adopt again. We submitted our home study in September 2005 for a five month old baby boy. We expected the process to take a while, but to our surprise we were chosen for the first child we were interested in! Our son, (who was eight months old), arrived just two days before Christmas when our daughter was only 18 months old. Now we had two children only 10 months apart! Needless to say, we were thrilled to now have a boy and a girl. Our desire had always been for three children, but we considered that maybe now our family was complete…or so we thought.
Only two months after the finalization of our son’s adoption, we experienced yet another unexpected twist. In January 2007, we found out that our daughter’s half brother was also in need of an adoptive home. Within the week, the judge ordered him to be placed in our home and we are planning to finalize his adoption at the end of August 2007.
We are completely overwhelmed with three kids under the age of three, but LOVE the story God has written for our family…and continues to write. We could never have imagined what was in store for us when we packed our truck for Texas. God changed our heart’s desire from the goal of “pregnancy” to the goal of “parenthood”. I can honestly say that I will still always wonder what it would be like to have a little person inside me, but I’ll never wonder what it’s like to love one as if I had carried them. We are so thankful for all the detours we encountered along the way. We now can see that each time we felt “derailed”, we were actually right on the course that God had planned for us, leading us to the exact children that we had prayed for all those years.