The Turners Adopt

Growing up I was always a huge baby doll fan. I loved pretending to baby sit, be a mother, and run a daycare. I remember saving up my birthday money to buy a Lee Middleton doll because they looked so lifelike. I knew from a young age I would want a family and I would become a mother one day. My childhood love for infants led me down my career path as I grew older. When I was in high school, I knew some form of healthcare with infants or toddlers was ideal for me. I made sure I had above average grades and I was a part of different academic school groups such as the Beta Club. I figured out my junior year in Highschool I wanted to become a nurse. I loved watching Greys Anatomy and learning things about the healthcare field. Human anatomy fascinated me. I went to vocational school to learn more about the healthcare field and shadowed nurses in the hospital. My senior year I applied to UAB and once I was accepted it was on from there. I always made sure my GPA was 3.0 or above so that I could get into nursing school. When I applied to nursing school my only thoughts at that time were to graduate and do what I love for a career. I went on to nursing school and had my sights set on being in labor and delivery. When it was close to graduation, I applied to Brookwood Medical Center for an L&D position as well as numerous other fields. I landed the job with Brookwood and had a guaranteed job before I even graduated nursing school. Let’s put it this way, I graduated nursing school December of 2015, took my NCLEX January 2016, and started working as a new nurse in labor and delivery in February 2016. I currently still work there and love my job every day. Shortly after I graduated my husband and I decided it was finally time and we wanted a family. I knew deep down this is what I have been waiting for and now it was finally time. After seeing and being a part of a miracle every day at work my “baby fever” grew. I knew from a young age I would always want a family and it was time! Rewind a little bit to when my husband and I first met. We met on a blind date when we were both seventeen years old. We have been inseparable ever since. We were high school sweethearts and he is literally my other half. We have grown up into our adult years together and have been together nine and a half years. He supported me through college as my biggest cheerleader and I the same for him. Now, back to where we were, so now we decided to have a family……. how hard can this be right? My husband has eight brothers and sisters and they all have children. We have fourteen nieces and nephews combined. I see it every day and how it miraculously happens. Well it turned out to be a lot harder than we thought and it sent us on an emotionally dark road. So, the whole year of 2016 we tried to conceive on our own with no luck so in the end of December 2016 I spoke with my GYN about fertility treatment. I knew I had a history of extremely painful cycles, but I didn’t think it was relevant. I was sent to a fertility doctor and many tests and blood work were done as well as a history on both of us. We started a medication called clomid which is supposed to help you ovulate. We did a few rounds of clomid and tried on our own. When that didn’t work, we found out I was not ovulating on my own with the clomid and I needed closely monitored cycles as well as injections added. The diagnosis of PCOS felt defeating. From there I went once or twice a week for an ultrasound and blood work. My husband also had his sperm analyzed. We went on to do two IUI’s with no luck. I wasn’t having a period after that as well so at that point we decided it was time for a second opinion when the fertility doctor could not tell me why I wasn’t having a cycle anymore. By this time its November 2017. We found a new fertility specialist that many recommended and she had good reviews. Our first visit involved more paperwork, more bloodwork, and more of a detailed history. My husband also had another semen analysist at this appointment. We found out his sperm count was low, so they started him on clomid as well to increase his sperm count. We were baffled on how this wasn’t caught with the first fertility doctor. However, we kept going with what they told us to do because we were so desperate to become a family. More failed IUI’s, tears, heartbreak and anger came. We decided at this point IVF would be our best option. More frequent visits, ultrasounds, and bloodwork yet again happened. We started oral medication as well as injections to make my ovaries grow more follicles which simply means “eggs”. I knew that this was our chance! I’ve never heard of failed IVF before. So this had to work right? They collected 26 eggs, 17 were mature, 10 fertilized, and only five made it to the embryo stage. When I received this news all I could think was “wow only five”. We transferred the best-looking embryo and waited. During that time, I got hyper stimulated, so my ovaries were so large they were touching behind my uterus, my abdomen was filling with fluid, and all of the cysts on my ovaries were starting to bust. This put me in excruciating pain. It was not bad enough for me to be hospitalized but I did have to take off work for a week and be on a different diet to take the fluid off and go to the doctor every few days for an ultrasound to confirm the fluid was going down. I remember waiting and waiting and waiting for the doctor appointment when they would draw blood to see if I was pregnant. The wait seemed forever but the day finally came, and I went in with hopes high only to have to wait again for a phone call. I went home after the doctor and waited anxiously with my husband. The phone rang and I could tell by the nurse’s tone of voice it did not work. That was our first IVF cycle in February 2018. All I could think of was why us…. why is this happening to US? You know, you hear of other people having trouble with fertility but think that will never happen to me. After all the heartbreak and tears we decided it was time for a break from the fertility and to focus on us. We got back into church and literally became a PART of the church. We joined and started to participate in activities and grow spiritually. At this point we met other members of our church that were doing foster care and listened to their stories. My husband and I discussed for months on if it would be a good thing for us to do or not based on all the heart break we have already endured. We literally felt led to do this. So, in December of 2018 we decided to sign up for foster care classes and do one last round of IVF. We started foster care classes in February which consisted of four-hour classes each week over ten weeks. We did our last IVF in March 2018 where we transferred two embryos. It did not work either……My husband and I stayed strong and figured our plan was bigger than what we know, and God has something special planned for us, so we kept going with foster care classes. Since we started classes in February, we were supposed to be fully licensed the first of August. We knew we had to get a nursery ready and fast for the home studies. I remember feeling so good when I was finally able to buy baby things to put into our house. With the help from our church, work family, friends, and personal family we were able to get all the supplies we would need for a nursery. We decided ages newborn to five years old would work best for us. Once August came and went and we did not receive a phone call letting us know we were licensed we reached out to DHR to find out why. Come to find out our license took longer to complete than necessary due to the lack of social workers in the system. While our social worker had our load of paperwork to complete along with the fifty people in our class, he was also loaded down with other cases that were current where children were being taken from their home. So needless to say, he had his plate full of tasks to do. Also, documentation that we had already filled out and sent in was lost so we had to fill it out again and send it in. My husband and I stayed on top of phone calls and trying our best to do everything we could to become fully licensed so that we could finally have a  child in our home to love even if it was for a short while until they returned home to their families. We knew that reunification was the key and were willing to help in any way that we could. We just felt led to help and open our hearts up to young children. We knew with our license coming up fast that a phone call would come shortly after for a placement. I have always struggled with very painful cycles and I finally decided to talk to my GYN about exploratory laparoscopic surgery to see if I had endometriosis. My husband and I had finally given up hope of having our own children naturally so at least if I have endometriosis, we can get rid of some of the pain I was having month to month. None of my fertility doctors suggested the surgery even though endometriosis itself can cause infertility. I did speak with my fertility doctor before my last IVF cycle about the possibility of me having endometriosis and if she recommended the surgery. She assured me she did not recommend it because it was irrelevant for doing IVF since we had reached that point. So back to where we were…… I go see my GYN and we schedule the surgery ASAP due to a possible foster care placement soon. I go have the surgery and come to find out I did have endometriosis. I was absolutely baffled on how the fertility doctors didn’t recommend this surgery sooner or before we even started fertility treatment. I had stage 2-3. The stages of endometriosis can go up to stage four. How was this missed or looked over by the fertility specialists. The multiple tears shed over failure could have been prevented with this new knowledge. My husband and I were absolutely appalled by how different things could have been if we had started out fertility treatments knowing this. Here we are now in September of 2019 still waiting on our license from foster care and I receive a phone call from someone I know regarding a mother coming into the hospital wanting to put her unborn baby up for adoption. My husband and I cried in each other’s arms as joy filled our hearts and we thought we were finally going to become parents. We were currently not working with an adoption agency and did not know the first steps we even needed to take but we did know we were absolutely and positively ready to be parents! The infant was born the same date my father had passed away two years ago so my husband and I knew that this was a sign and that our time had finally come!. I spoke with the birth mother and she and I clicked and had a lot in common. She was the sweetest lady. I also got in touch with an adoption attorney to help us legalize the process that was going to occur in two short days. We already had clothes, bottles, a room, and a car seat due to preparing for foster care. The mother had my information as well as our adoption attorney and on the last day she had in the hospital she called me crying. I knew what this phone call meant, and I told the mother she had nothing to cry over and that this is an amazing thing she is doing keeping her sweet baby. I knew she was going to be an amazing mother. I told her to keep my contact information and if she ever needed me to talk to about absolutely anything rather it be something I don’t know about or just to vent that I was only a phone call away. I pray for this strong woman daily now and the baby that she took home with her. I know she had been through a tremendous amount of emotions to even consider putting her baby up for adoption and I have so much respect for her I can not put it into words. Needless to say, my husband and I were crushed and just starting to believe us having children is not in our future. Then with our endless battle with foster care we were called to have a meeting with them regarding our license. We scheduled to meet them early and went in scared of what the meeting held. Were they going to deny us license to foster or say we were not fit? Then we meet with our case worker and the supervisor. We sat down and were told that due to our history of infertility they were going to only place older children with us. My husband and I were dumbfounded because when we had our home study, we only prepared our house for newborn to five years old. We do not have any children of our own so we would also be dealing with the school system if we had older children. My husband and I have a lot of respect for foster parents who foster older children it just isn’t for us at this point in our lives. We were told in our classes we were able to choose the age range we would be able to do. Now here we were sitting down with the supervisor who is telling us different. We felt defeated once again……However, I do feel  God was doing this to protect our hearts because now looking back at it, my husband and I would not be able to have an infant or child in our home for years on end and then they go back to their parents. The realization of this hit us hard when the failed adoption occurred. We are currently now taking a break from everything and positively know we are ready to be parents. So, we have reached out to numerous adoption agencies and know that we have some serious saving to do. I always have people ask me why my husband and I haven’t considered adoption when they find out about our history of infertility. Well it’s not anyone’s fault that they don’t know but adoption can cost anywhere from $28,000 to $50,000. Verses a private adoption where it’s just lawyer fees and only $3,000-5,000. A “private adoption” would occur when “a friend” knows someone that’s wanting to adopt, and they meet each other and decided on the adoption outside of an agency. At that point an agency is not involved it is just the lawyer so as you can see the fees are dramatically decreased. When we were going to adopt from the mother I had met it would have been considered a private adoption. Then a friend of mine confided in me that the infertility that we have faced is nothing to be ashamed of and that our story deserves to be heard. So here I am telling OUR story. My husband and I have been through tough times together, but we stayed strong in our journey together and know that God has a plan for us. We have decided to pursue adoption and have found a great agency that we are working with so here we are raising money to make our DREAM of becoming a family finally come TRUE. Any donation that you make we will write your name, even if it is anonymous, on a white puzzle piece. The puzzle contains 526 pieces and will be put together in our baby’s nursery. This way as they grow older, they can look at the puzzle and know how many people love them and helped their mom and dad bring them home.

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