Just some words (long)

Eight years after endometriosis caused me to have to have a hysterectomy I have become a mother. I only mention the hysterectomy due to the fact that some women out there may be feeling that the only way to become a mother is to give birth to a child. Well I am here to say that that just isn't true. Just look at the pictures of these precious children, MY precious children. God has blessed us twice and I do believe that they are why I cannot conceive a child. Now I am not going to say that I didn’t have my doubts because believe me I had many, many doubts that I would ever become a mother, but I never gave up hope that someday I would be a mom.
When I first heard that I would have to have a hysterectomy I tried to stay positive, I mean what could I do? I was in so much pain that all I cared about was that after the surgery that pain would be gone. I was single and wasn’t even thinking about motherhood or what this surgery meant for my future. I had always wanted to adopt; the thought of pushing a watermelon through a hole the size of a pea did not appeal to me at all! LOL! So when the surgery was over and I found out that they were able to save my ovaries I only thought about the fact that I wouldn’t be going through early menopause. Later I thought about being able to use a surrogate. In fact when Matt and I discussed starting a family this is what he would think of while my thoughts turned to adoption. Matt and I started seriously talking about starting our family in April of 2008, just a few short months after buying our home. I started researching adoption and surrogacy. I only did the surrogate research to appease Matt, I knew with utmost certainty that I wanted to adopt, but since we both had a hand in the decision I looked at all of our options. After researching we realized that surrogacy is very expensive and you are not at all guaranteed to have a child at the end of the journey, whereas adoption there is a guarantee. So then my research turned to what type of adoption would best fit us; International or Domestic. I did a lot of research on all the countries we could adopt from and I also got a lot of information regarding domestic adoption. Then on November 16, 2008, on our way to a domestic adoption seminar in Glen Ellyn, IL Matt announced to me that he was ready to start the adoption process and he wanted to adopt from Ethiopia!! YAY! See after many months of researching domestic and international adoption I had my heart set on adopting from Ethiopia. I’ll admit it was the last country I had researched due to the fact that the children would be black and Matt and I are both blond with fair skin. I wondered; How would our family react? or How would the public react? Soon I realized that I didn’t care, this was where are children were, I could feel it my bones, but most importantly I felt it in my heart. I knew God had placed this feeling in me and soon he placed it in Matt’s heart too. So since we no longer needed to go to a domestic adoption seminar, we turned around and headed home to tell our parents and Matt’s sister that we were going to be parents to a child from Ethiopia!! (Not until we started the adoption process did we decide to adopt two at once.) By the way are families were and still are thrilled for us. They could really care less about the race of our children; their only concern is our happiness.
We officially started the process in March of 2009 and now 1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks and 6 days later we are officially parents to 11 month old twins.
So you see just because you can’t give birth to children doesn’t mean you can’t be a parent. Parenting is so much more than giving birth. No it’s not the “normal” way to have children but what is “normal” anyways. These babies are my babies whether I gave birth to them or not they are my children in every other way possible!!! Forever! I hope that this gives other women and men hope and understanding that their children are out there somewhere. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder.
We would like to thank all of you that have supported us thus far on our journey to our children. We know we couldn’t have done any of this without the support of our family and friends. We are forever grateful for each and every one of you. The best is still yet to come. We hope to be bringing our children home in August.
Love,
Matt, Jennifer, Avery and Isabelle Barbee