Jim and Therese and children on bicycles
Road to Becoming a Party of Five
Jim and I were high school sweethearts with a dream of what our future would look like. We were married in 1987 and lived in a one-bedroom apartment. Jim worked a full-time job and I was a full-time student. For the time being, having children would have to wait.
Fast forward to five years. Jim moved up in his company and I had a teaching position. We purchased our first home and we were ready to start building our family. Why not? Family members and friends were all having children. It would be nice for our children to grow up with them. But after years of trying and years of fertility treatments, it just didn’t seem that it was ever going to be. That is until we went to Adoptions From The Heart (AFTH) Information Meeting.
I can remember that day with such joy. Earlier in the week, we had found out that our fourth round of in vitro fertilization hadn’t worked. It was such a low point, but Jim looked beyond it and looked into the phone book for adoption agencies. The first one listed was Adoptions From The Heart and they were having an information meeting that Friday!
We knew very little about adoption and what we did know or thought we knew was scary. At the meeting, we were introduced to open Adoption, a birth parent, an adoptive couple, and Maxine Chalker. I distinctly remember walking back to our car after the meeting and turning to each other and saying, “This is for us!”
Now twenty plus years later, three wonderful children, an extended family that includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, birth parents, birth grandparents, and birth siblings, we can say without reservation, “This was for us!” Adoptions From The Heart helped us to build the family that we always dreamed of having.
