Guest Blogger: Devin & Jared, hoping to adopt

Today I'm excited to bring you my wonderful guest blogger. This is Devin and her husband Jared. I met Devin a couple of months ago at a planning meeting for the Adoptive Couples Retreat (which is in a couple of weeks by the way! YAY!!) She is awesome to say the least! They are a hoping to adopt couple. If you or someone you know is considering an adoption plan, they may just be the couple for you. To find out more about Devin & Jared, you can check out their blog here. If you have an adoption story to tell, I'd love to have you guest blog for me. Just email me at jandscrown at yahoo dot com.

*******************************************************

Hi! My name is Devin, and we're hoping to adopt. I'd like to start out by thanking Sharon for letting me take this opportunity to share our adoption story. I personally feel like it's somewhat unique. I'm going to give an abbreviated version of it. For more details, feel free to e-mail (jndpayne@gmail.com) or look at our blog (jndpayne.blogspot.com). Anyway~ we went into our marriage knowing we'd adopt. Yeah, we've been totally blessed in that way. So here's how we knew:

It all started when I was born. I was extremely sick and the doctors could not figure out why. The doctors decided to run every test imaginable (and available for the time). One of the test they ran was a genetic test... looking at my chromosomes and how many of each I had. Well... it turns out that I'm missing a sex chromosome; I have XO. Women are suppose to have XX. This condition is called Turner Syndrome. As one of the consequences, and pretty much the only one in my case, is missing/non-functioning ovaries. Hence, I don't have eggs and I don't ovulate each month. I have more info. and a link on my blog if you're interested. Feel free to e-mail too. Sorry if this was too much info. I'm very open about it, as you can tell.

A little from my husband's perspective. Jared is one of my heroes! I was so scared to tell him that I could not have biological kids. I've gotten better, but I use to be total chicken about telling people. Don't know why. Anyway~ when I finally got the nerve to tell Jared, it was late one night. I just kind of blurted it out. He went home and over the next couple of days he thought about it. He went over to his brother's (who at the time was about to enter into medical school) and talked to him. Together they talked and found out more about Turners. Jared also talked with his parents. After about 3 days or so, Jared decided that he didn't care. Turners was apart of me, he loves me, and so he could handle me having not giving birth. Totally an incredible man in my opinion.

A little from my perspective. I was raised and grew up knowing I'd never get pregnant. For a long time I was okay with that. It was not a big deal to me. I thought I had emotionally dealt with it. However, that all changed when I got married. After we got married, I was at the point in my life where I could be a mom. I'd say the first couple of years of our marriage was so hard for me in the fact that I wanted to be a mom, and knew that I couldn't get pregnant. This is when I really did emotionally deal with it. I have now come to terms with my infertility and at each chance I get I talk about adoption.

So, yes, we went into our marriage knowing biological kids were out of the question. We chose adoption though because of the sacred, special nature of it. Birth moms another one of my heroes! I don't think there's anything that comes closer to the atonement of Christ then placing a child for adoption. We also feel like there are tons of kids out there needing a good home, and adopting is how we can help.

We love getting to know more people, don't mind talking about our story, and like I said we're very open about who we are. Please, ask or comment away! Thanks so much taking the time to read our story. Thanks again, Sharon, for letting me tell our story.