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I am really just procrastinating the pile of laundry that I need to wash in the back yard pila! However, I am also excited to tell you all about a very special developement in our lives! If you haven't read my post in January about snowflake babies, now might be a good time to get the background on what I am about to share.
As God expands the capacity of our hearts, He gives us vision for higher the purposes of His kingdom and we begin to follow His leading into new areas. What I mean is, three years ago, I had no idea that there are hundreds of thousands of embryos frozen in "banks" waiting for their fate to be decided. The Bible tells us that God knit us together in our mothers' womb, and that He knew us while we were still in the womb. As Christians we know that from the moment of conception, each little life is precious in the eyes of our God.
So.....durring our time here, we find ourselves led to add to the number of our family by adopting embryos from Guatemala that have previously been frozen after the process of in vitro fertilization then donated by the parents who have finished having children by this method.
You may wonder why we would choose to adopt embryos when we are surrounded by orphans and needy children. Well, first of all, we want to adopt children that by most of society, aren't even recognized as a valuable life, and are legally labelled "Biological material." We feel called to be ambassadors to advocate for their lives and set an example that others may choose to follow. Secondly, as much as our hearts go out to the orphans that we work with in Guatemala, our minisrty to them here is forced to be only temporary because for the time being, Guatemalan Government prohibits international adoption, so we must be satisfied to extend the love of Jesus while we are with them and pray that God will open the doors again for these children to be a part of families that love them.
Steve and I have prayed in earnest about this decision, clearly it is not one to be taken lightly. We have even put out some fleeces of our own and we feel certain that this is the right thing for us to do. Our children have been involved in the discussions as well. Though they don't really understand all the processes, they know that we are going to have one or more babies that will be from Guatemala but are going to be born into our family. It is actually quite simple to explain these things to kids because they are so accepting of the fact that God made each of us and has a purpose for everyone! The only thing that they thought was a little confusing was why we couldn't have a Guatemalan baby AND an Australian baby at the same time!
In preparing my body for pregnancy, I have to have hormone injections every day to control my cycle so that the embryos can be implanted at the right time. They aren't very fun, so I have been getting everyone involved by bullying them into giving me the needles. Laine and Rebekah both overcame their fear of needles to help out!
On May 12, will are adopting 3 embryos and having them implanted into my waiting womb. We will have knowledge of their genetic characteristics, but we won't know who the parents are. They will be 3 day old embryos and statisticly, each of them has a 25-35% chance of succeeding in the implantation. I will be on bedrest for two days then before we begin our journey home. We really appreciate your prayers as we prepare for this new pregnancy and exciting chapter of our lives.
Please also continue to pray for wisdom as we build new and existing relationships here, as the cultural differences are sometimes challenging as are language barriers. As a praise report, we have really learned a lot of Spanish and though we have a long ways to go, we are able to communicate more. Also, we are exploring areas where God may choose to use us in the future here in Guatemala. Thank you all for your support.
Blessings.