To answer the question most of you want to know...WHY?

Ever since we mentioned the word adoption, we have been asked "Why?"...and I know without a doubt that there are a few of you out there who want to know the same thing, but just don't ask in fear of offending us... Well, I am here to tell you how we came to this decision, and why it is the best for our family.

We both had always dreamed of having two children, neither of us were only children and we knew we wanted our children to have each other. We wanted to start having children early so that we could have them young, and have them close together, with the thought of having two or three. Well, little did we know that one pregnancy was all my body would tolerate, and there were even questions during my pregnancy about whether it was going to be able to handle that! Once I delivered Ri, my blood pressure went up and stayed there..even til now! But that wasn't the biggest problem..during a routine check up with my cardiologist, she took a picture of my heart to have before another pregnancy just to have an idea of what it looked like before an additional pregnancy. She thought my blood pressure was good to go and saw no reason to not have another biological child. So I set up to have my IUD removed and everything! We were so excited! It was right before Ri was turning 1, things were working out just how we wanted! Well about three days after my appointment, I got a call from my doctor. During the "routine" ultrasound, they found a dilation (enlargement) in a part of my pulmonary artery, which could possibly be an aneurysm, and she wanted me to have an MRI the next week to have it checked. So, after a few days of trying to figure out exactly what that meant, I had the test done. Results : Confirmation of a pulmonary artery aneurysm. Crazy, right? Do you know how common this is? IT'S NOT! So, after that appointment, I had it checked every 3 months until just recently when we have moved to every 6 months. At this point, it's not gotten any bigger, but the odds of it tolerating a pregnancy are slim. So, I have been strongly advised to NOT get pregnant because the outcome could be bad. It would do our family no good to attempt it and end up with no mommy. It isn't worth the risk. My family I have now means WAY too much to me. :)

So, with all of that said, we just cannot settle with Riley being an only child. We have always had the dreams of having at least two children, and we will not settle for less. Just because we cannot have another biological child does NOT mean we cannot be a mommy, daddy, and brother to another sweet baby. While in most cases, babies are born from our belly, it does not mean a baby can't be born in our heart. In this case, for us, that's where we will start. We had talked about this decision over a period of 2 years now, and we are at the point in our life where we are ready to jump! So, here we are, in the process, and we could not be any more excited. Riley is excited to have a brother or sister (even though he says he wants a sister and if he gets a brother he will name him sister). We are blessed beyond words to have been able to have one biological child of our own, we could not be any more thankful for that. And now for our number two, the biological aspect does not matter. The baby that is meant for us will be "ours" regardless of where he/she comes from!

So, there ya go. That's our story. Now you know "why" we chose what we did. We have been truly blessed to be supported by such amazing family, friends, people we work with, people we haven't talked to since high school, family friends, and then some people we don't know! It is truly such an amazing blessing to have so many people behind us. Words cannot express the feeling that gives us! So, thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have helped us at some point, thought about us, spread the word for us, and mostly just prayed for us. Keep it up! We are still very early in the process and while these days are exciting for us, they can get stressful, and the best has yet to come!

Stay tuned for more info as we travel along this road!

You can also visit our fundraising page @ VaughtAdoptionFundraisers.Blogspot.com