The Prequel

The prequel to what, you may ask?

To a new chapter in our lives.  One that actually started some time ago, but only recently became exciting.

Today is T minus 28 days.  T, standing for transfer.

An embryo transfer, to be more specific.

This is a term that I'm sure not a lot of you are familiar with, so let me start our story a little earlier.

Tim and I have been traveling a difficult and faith-stretching road for about five years now.  A road that has made us trust God and lean on each other more than we had ever thought we could.  A road of infertility.  
In 2006, Tim finished technical school and had started a new job here in Pittsburgh.  I had just left my teaching job and was substituting in the area.  Our life seemed pretty stable and we thought we were ready for some instability.  We had no idea.
After almost a year of trying to expand the Ferguson family, we realized that we needed help.  Medical tests and consultations with doctors gave us the diagnosis: infertility.  But with the serious miracles of modern medicine available to us, we didn't give up hope.  Time went on and our hope started to wane as nothing we tried was successful.  Together, we came to the conclusion that this wasn't what God had for our lives.  We both had a definite peace about pursuing another avenue to have a child.  That's not to say we weren't disappointed.  It's hard not to be when you've grown up with a desire to have an 'ideal' life, only to realize that there is no such thing.  But God is faithful.
We were connected with a local adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services, and had an introductory meeting with a case worker.  After telling her our story, she asked us if we had considered embryo adoption.  I told her that I had read about it on their site.  The rest of the appointment consisted of many questions and many answers and finally a decision to move forward with embryo adoption*.
*This is a new concept for a lot of people, but to make it simple: embryo adoption is just like in vitro fertilization, only the embryo isn't biologically ours.  It comes from a donor couple.  One who went through the in vitro treatment and had leftover embryos after completing their family.
After much paperwork, more doctors' visits and, did I mention paperwork? our profile was complete and we were ready to be matched with a donor couple.  We passed on the first two profiles sent to us.  Of the second two we really felt drawn to one.  We expressed our interest to the coordinator at the donation center and things were set in motion.
In the whirlwind that has been the past two weeks, we've gone from getting our first profile, to having met with the donor couple and drafting the open agreement for the adoption.  Needless to say, we're pretty overwhelmed and excited and...well, there's about a million different adjectives that I could use here.
Yes, that's just an overview.  Yes, this first post is long and yes, I realize that some of you might never come back to read again.  But we want to share our story with family and friends in hopes that God will use it in your lives as much as He has used it in ours on this road of what started out as infertility.  But what is now a road of acceptance and faith.