Day 37: What Inspired You to Consider Adoption?
Angela: This is a bit vulnerable for me to share, but I felt like it was important to do so, so I'm following my gut.
Shortly after getting married, Brian and I had a sweet and sacred experience coming across a family with two adopted girls from India at an annual flower festival. One of the little girls talked to us a few times and was delightful. She walked up to us while we were sitting on a bench, she leaned against me and gently placed her hands in my lap. She asked us very sweet, innocent questions and shared that she was adopted from an orphanage in India. After she left to rejoin her family, Brian and I had a sweet moment of, “What just happened?” We had a strong impression adoption would likely be in our future.
A year and a half later, I was pregnant with Corinne. Most of my pregnancy was typical. First trimester: I was very sleepy. Second trimester: I felt more like myself and energized. Third trimester: I felt (as my OB so comically prepped me for) like a beached whale. Without going into all the details, I experienced serious complications at the end of my pregnancy and during delivery. The morning I went to the hospital, I woke up with Bell's Palsy and although it was scary at first, we quickly learned it wasn’t life threatening (and I'm grateful that although improvement has been slow, it's been significant). Upon checking into the hospital, I was quickly diagnosed with a case of preeclampsia that grew to be very serious. I was later shared the risks of getting pregnant again, and they were very, very high. Upon taking in that information, we felt the safest and best decision for my health and our family would be to move forward with growing our family through adoption.
A quick note that I did not show typical signs of preeclampsia, and I believe waking up with Bell's Palsy got me in the hospital in time to safely deliver our little one. We love being parents and are so grateful to Heavenly Father for Corinne safely being brought into this world and also for the beautiful gift of meeting the sweet adopted girl early on in our marriage that gave us a glimpse of the beauty of adoption (a quick note that we are home study approved for domestic adoption and not international at this time).
The picture I am sharing is one that is very special to me. It is (I believe) the first time I got to hold Corinne after delivering her.
