My Wife, Shelli

Shelli is the yin to my yang. I am real laid back and she kind of gets excited about stuff, and it works together perfectly. We make decisions together very easily. I love hanging out with her and she always pushes me to be a better person.

Shelli loves her job!

She loves her job taking care of children in the operating room. She loves taking pictures and putting them into photo albums, and organizing our home.
I know she will be an amazing mother. Shelli is a strong, take-charge woman, while also a sweet, emotional person. She is so caring to everyone and is very passionate about being a great parent.

3 Things I love about Shelli:
*her passion for helping kids *her curly hair!*her sweet nature 

Shelli is very active

Buying a book for the baby

Taking pictures

Trimming the dog's nails

My Husband, Adam

Adam has a huge heart and will do anything for friends and family. He is laid back, sincere, and genuine. He is very loving and is always there for me. He shows me things in a new perspective on a regular basis.

Sailing

I love Adam’s big smile and the fact that he is very ticklish. He is very funny and we laugh all the time. He surprises me with sweet things like a bouquet of flowers and nice notes. He treats me well and will do the same for a child.

Adam loves to make the yard look good!

Adam also enjoys yard work, hunting, working on small projects around the house, grilling and spending time with friends and family. I am lucky to be Adam’s wife! 

3 Things I love about Adam:
 smile loyalty calm demeanor 

Driving the dinghy

Ladder Golf!

Our Favorites

Our Favorites

	Adam	Shelli
Smell:	Gain	Beach
Movie:	Old Yeller	Steel Magnolias
Interest or Hobby:	Yard work	Pictures
Food:	Bacon/ chicken wings	Ice cream
TV Show:	American Idol/ HGTV	Biggest Loser/ HGTV
Vacation Spot:	British Virgin Islands	British Virgin Islands
Splurge:	Going out to eat	Jeans
Holiday Tradition:	St. Patrick’s Day family- friendly parade
Music:	Country, Christian rock, rock, and folk rock (We love live music & going to outdoor concerts)
Bands	Eli Young Band, Mumford & Sons, Kings of Leon

Vacationing in the BVIs

Sailing

Hunting

Go Cardinals!

We Love St. Patrick's Day! At the Parade

Our Adoption Profile

Our profile is complete and will be printed out this week! It was worth the wait. Lifetime did a great job with it, and I can't wait to share it with expectant moms.

When are we going to have a baby?

Only God knows the answer to that. Now that our home study is complete, it could be as soon as tomorrow (some women call Lifetime from the hospital) or more than a year from now. It all depends on when we get matched with a birth mom. Birth mothers are usually about seven months pregnant when they are matched with an adoptive couple, but no earlier than five months. Lifetime has been presenting us to birth moms since June with a temporary profile. Our official profile should be finished soon. A profile is basically a scrapbook with pictures and a letter to the birth mother or birth parents from us. It tries to describe what life would be like for their child if they choose us. It is a more detailed version of what appears on our website. So, now we wait for a birth mother or parents to decide that they want to talk to us. We then set up an agreeable time, and they call us on a 1-800 # we have set up. After that conversation we both tell Lifetime if we would like to be “matched”. If we both say yes, then we are considered match, and that is the baby that will be ours! We are really excited for this next step and we pray for God to bring us together with the right birth mother for us. 

Why we chose adoption

We knew when we started dating that we would most likely have a difficult time getting pregnant based on my history. We have talked about adoption since we met. We always knew we would be happy to adopt, and we have no doubts that we could love any child as our own. We started in-vitro fertilization (IVF) about six months after we were married. Our plan was to give IVF two tries and then move on to adoption. After three, we were very ready to close that chapter and move forward with adoption.

In-vitro fertilization is an extremely difficult undertaking. We did not realize there were so many different ways to do IVF, which is why we tried a third time. We tried a different medication regimen each time, and added an extra procedure to the third try hoping that it would result in a baby. Everyone's threshold for infertility treatments is different and deeply personal for each couple. I like to think that I am a tough person, but we both felt we couldn’t handle another IVF treatment emotionally, and physically. Plus, we were out of money. With IVF you are not guaranteed to get a baby, with adoption, you will become a parent. It just may take longer than you would like. Adoption costs, which vary widely, are about as much as two IVF treatments and will result in a baby. We personally liked that better than spending the money on two more IVFs with no guarantee that it would work. Especially since they didn’t know why IVF wasn’t working for us. 

One of the many questions you are asked and ask yourself while you are dealing with infertility is; which is more important, having a genetic child, or being parents? For us, we just want to be parents. After grieving the loss of our fertility, with no known cause of my infertility, we are 100% dedicated to becoming a family through adoption.

I started researching adoption during our 3rd IVF attempt. It always helped me to have a back up plan during our IVF cycle even though most of the time the back up plan changed. You can do all the pre-planning you want, but until you are in the situation all ramped up on hormones, facing yet another negative pregnancy test, you can't say what you will do for sure. You have to be extremely patient and flexible! There are many decisions to make while you are trying to become a family through infertility treatments and adoption.