So our Journey begins

I remember as a child wondering what my children would look like and how many I would have. I couldn't wait to get pregnant so that I could feel the baby move inside of me. I never dreamed that I would have problems conceiving a child, because childhood dreams never reveal infertility and disappointments. I married the man of my dreams in 1992 and in 1995 I started infertility treatments. I gave up in 1998 thinking I would never conceive a child and then surprise! In 1999, our beautiful daughter Haley was born. I enjoyed every second of my pregnancy knowing that I had waited so long to feel this baby. 1 year after she was born, I never imagined that my infertility would start all over again. It's been 10 years now and my journey with infertility, doctors and surgery is over. My body can't do it anymore and the disappointments are too great. I have always thought about adoption, but was too scared to talk about it. I knew I would have more children, so I decided I was going to wait for the miracle, but not long after I decided to wait, adoption was brought up again and my heart started to feel different. Brent has always known my desire to fill our home, so he agreed to learn more about the adoption process. After months of meetings and talking with friends who have adopted and praying for wisdom, we both felt lead to an African/American Adoption. Our friends Chris and Lynnae adopted a beautiful little girl from Ethiopia and while visiting with them, we fell in love. After leaving their house we looked at each other and we both knew what the other was thinking. Ethiopia! We thought..."how can we do this?" We had our minds made up and now our plans were going in a totally different direction. What was God doing? Why Ethiopia? Were we ready for this? After praying and talking together, we knew that this was where God was leading. We sat down with Haley and shared what God was doing and she was thrilled. The first thing she said was..."Can I go?" She has walked this journey with us for so long; holding my hand during a procedure, crying with me when it didn't work and giving me words of wisdom that only a child could give. Of course she could go. We are TEAM SIMCOX and we will walk this journey together.

In March with our hearts beating with excitement and our hands shaking, we sent in our official paperwork for adoption and on April 28 we turned in our Formal Home Study Application. This new adventure is very scary, but exciting. One of the agents at the adoption agency said that this process will be like a paper pregnancy. Same feelings, but without the stretch marks. For fun, I put hangers in the baby's room and I felt that same feeling when I was pregnant with Haley. It was wonderful. My God is so good. He knows what's best for me and He knew that I would love this baby even though she didn't come from me.

We are looking forward to what God has in store for us and to see the miracles that He is going to do.

We are praying for our little girl, that she will be born healthy, we are praying for our financial adoption needs and we are praying for a smooth transition.