As many of you know, when Aaron and I first got married, we decided that God was telling us we should not go on birth control and that we should just trust Him instead. When we first made this decision, it was very hard because all I could think was that I wanted some alone time with my husband before we had a baby and I thought that I would for sure get pregnant within the first year of our marriage. I had no idea at the time how hard it would be for us to have children. I just knew we both wanted to have kids and that God was going to bless us with children and I thought it would be almost immediately. So the first few months after Aaron and I got married I took a pregnancy test every month on the first of the month (because I didn’t have regular cycles so we wanted to be sure that we didn’t miss anything). After a couple of months, I started to get discouraged. I started feeling like there was something wrong with me.
We started going to a couple different doctors because I wasn’t having regular cycles. They thought it was due to me not gaining weight and if I got to about 110-115 pounds, I would start having cycles. So they put me on progesterone to help me gain weight and to help me have cycles (without the use of birth control). We started charting temperatures and taking ovulation tests, but nothing. My temperatures were all over the board and I wasn’t ovulating. I was so discouraged. I felt like a failure because I couldn’t ovulate and without ovulating, there’s no way for that sweet little baby that I desire so much to be conceived.
Around the time I started realizing this, my focus turned to foster care and adoption. I talked with Aaron and we both decided this is what we wanted to do. Caring for the fatherless has been a passion for Aaron and I for a long time and this seemed like the perfect next step. Soon after we made this decision, we had an opportunity come up with a little baby boy and thought that everything was going to fall into place and that we would be parents soon. We had the lawyer on standby and although there were some hurdles to jump over, we thought it was going to happen. It got to the final minutes of waiting when we realized, that no this was not going to work out. The mom of the baby did not agree to let us have her child. So after a time of mourning, we moved on to the next one. We went through foster care training to have the option of foster to adopt. We finished all the classes and were about to do the home study, but that came to a halt because at the time we were living in a basement, which is unsafe and not allowed for foster care. So we had to wait until we got into our new apartment. Not too long after that, we had another baby come into our lives. This time it was a baby girl and it seemed like God was piecing everything together perfectly and placing this one in our laps. And yet again, last minute, things happened and that aunt of the mom decided she wanted the little girl. Within a week of this happening we had a little two-year-old boy named Zion come live with us for a little over a week. It was such a precious time in our lives. Our dreams of being parents were finally coming true. It was difficult starting off with a two-year-old, but we didn’t care too much because we loved being parents! Not too much later, the mom decided she wanted him back and that she was going to keep him (long story). We were glad she wanted to care for her son and that he was going to be reunited with his mom, but we were also devastated because that joy to be parents was gone again. There were many nights where we missed him so much we would just sit next to his toys crying and thinking about how much fun we had with him and how much we missed him. Earlier this summer we finally sold all of his stuff in our garage sale because we could not bare to look at it anymore.
We became even more discouraged, we couldn’t become parents naturally or through adoption. After a year of “trying” we finally went to my female doctor and asked her to do some testing to see why were not able to conceive and why I wasn’t ovulating. We had told her that we were interested in possibly doing Clomid (to help me ovulate), but that was where our line was drawn as far as “help getting pregnant. She ran several tests and had no answers at the end. There is absolutely no reason why I’m not ovulating. I’m just not able to right now. She also ran some tests on Aaron and it showed a few things wrong, which means even if I were to ovulate, it’s unlikely that we would conceive. So that took out the option of Clomid. After praying A LOT about it, Aaron decided that we were going to stop “making it happen” and start trusting God fully with it. If He wants us to have a baby naturally then He will open my womb and we will have a baby, but for now that isn’t happening. At this point we are completely surrendering it to Him. It’s not easy because all we want is to have a baby, but I know that He is going to bless us with a baby in His timing.
For the past several months Aaron and I have just been praying and waiting. Waiting to see when it was time for us to take the next step of becoming licensed in Texas to become foster parents so we can yet again pursue the avenue of foster to adopt. I’m happy to say that about two weeks ago He laid it on Aaron and my heart to start this process. I contacted a Christian foster/adoption agency in town that has been wonderful. They are helping us get things started and we should be, if all things go smoothly, approved this spring to have our first placement. We yet again have had 2 opportunities for possible adoption from moms who are pregnant come to our attention in the last week or two. We found out that one of those two possibilities is due around the same time that we will be completely approved to do foster care. We are excited about what God is doing and we are doing our best to not let our hearts get to far ahead of where He is moving right now. That is much easier said that done. We are just trying to focus on Him and letting Him prepare us to be godly parents.
We are letting the foster care agency know that we want our first placement to be a baby under 6 months. After experiencing a week with a two-year-old “son” we knew that we needed to start with a baby first. We need to have the experience of being parents first and gradually growing into the idea of how do we want to discipline and how we handle different situations. It will be better for us and our future child.
Since Aaron and I may never have the opportunity to be pregnant, we have asked that God would allow this time while we wait to be approved to be as if we were pregnant. So you might see an occasional post here or there showing how we are getting the baby’s room ready. No we are not pregnant, trust me we will tell you when we are, but we are acting as if we are pregnant with this baby we are going to adopt. Please be patient with us while we go through this process. We just want to experience the excitement of waiting for our baby. We want to have a nice room set up for our child. There’s a lot of things that we can’t experience like feeling the baby kick inside of me or me going through labor, but there are somethings that we can do to make it similar. We were so blessed to get to experience some of that with Tim and Abby Schweitzer. It was so wonderful to sit next to Abby and feel Kade kicking inside of her and to see him be born into this world. Without that experience, it would make this idea of not having a baby so much harder. So thank you Abby for letting me a part of your birth! It is an experience I will never forget and a time that I will cherish forever.
The first thing that you will be seeing shortly is the crib that we just set up for our little precious one, whoever it may be. Yesterday, the Stribling family offered to give us their oldest daughter’s crib. It’s beautiful! We set it up last night in the future “nursery”. We will be taking a picture of it soon to post on Facebook. We are so thankful for our church family back home and all of their support and we are also so thankful that God has given us another church family that is just as full of love and support for Aaron and I. So excited to see what God is going to do as He brings us closer to our future son or daughter!
Thank you to all of those who have already prayed for us! We so greatly appreciate it! We ask that you would please continue to be in prayer for our future child and for our hearts. Pray that we would stay in step with God and not get too far ahead of where He wants us to be. Pray that we would glorify Him with every step we take and everything we say.
In Christ's Awesome Love,
Julie Zapata
