Begin with Hope

On my way home from visiting a friend today, I felt compelled to stop by the Church rectory of my parish. I had not been to Church in the past two months however, I had this urge making me turn right into the parking lot. I realized that they were setting up for the annual Carnival that begins this evening. The odds of me speaking to someone, I assumed were low. Contrary to my assumption my experience couldn't have been any further from it.

When Andrew and I first decided we were going to move forward with adoption, we discovered the young priest in our parish, Father Mike, was adopted. He spoke about his experience in the spring during a mass. We reached out to Father Mike and had lunch with him one weekend in early spring. We listened to his story of how he was raised by two very loving parents and his life through adoption; his perspective was new for us. We also discovered that like Andrew, Father Mike was a surfer, and thus the spiritual connection between us became deeper.

When I opened the doors of the rectory Father Mike was standing in the lobby, almost as if he was waiting for me, unknowingly. I told father of our journey during the last five months in our adoption home-study. He was very grateful for my visit and said that he would pray that our wait would be short. I began to explain to Father Mike how empowered I felt from this experience and wanted to do more. There are couples out there like Andrew and I that want nothing more to become parents, yet they feel hopeless. They have no insurance to cover fertility, and no income to support what they assume to be the astronomical costs associated with adoption.

In what began as a two minute conversation, turned into a hour and half one. I found myself sitting in the kitchen of the rectory speaking to Father Mike, The Pastor and Pat, a friend of the family who works at the rectory. Father Mike, stood at the counter eat a banana. Monsignor Rich, spread out a handful of M&Ms on a placement and Pat and I picked at a bowl of cherries that were delicious. We began to brainstorm together on ideas of an adoption group at the parish. The Revered from the entire Diocese of our state is coming to our parish in the fall to have a meeting centered around adoption. They asked me to run it. I found myself being whisked away to a world of possibilities. How will I begin this group? Who will come? What will be the focus of our meeting. So begins my story.

My hope is to give hope to families who don't have it. There were times along my way that I could not picture our home with a child. A few years ago, I began to watch the world around me change, friends and family members becoming pregnant, moving forward with their lives...and I was not. My struggle to become a mother is going to serve a purpose, I have found my way...now its time to give my hope to those who need it most.