The Beginning...(part 1)

It is difficult to find time to write here. I feel like I am either holding, burping, feeding, changing Ari or cleaning up the mess that the burping, feeding and changing has made. But it is Sunday, a day for resting from our labors, so yes, my house is a mess, but I get to write part of our story! (and notice it didn't get published until Tuesday :)
This a going to get personal. I have debated about how much detail I should go into here, but I keep thinking, "If I had read someone else's story when I went through all of this, it would have helped." So, I want to help anyone who is struggling with infertility or maybe a birthmom who is still trying to make her decision. Here is my and my husband's story. This is what we had to go through to have our beautiful little girl...
Ben and I were married December 27th 2005, after we had dated for a little less than a year. Both of us wanted a big family, the only thing we had to decide on was when...Ben was majoring in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies and needed to do a study abroad to complete his major. We signed up to go the summer after we got married. The idea of getting pregnant and being in the middle east truly frightened me, so we decided we would wait before trying to have kids. This is a decision I regret, not the decision itself, but the motivation behind it...I was scared. I didn't pray, I didn't ask the Lord, I was just too scared. I could have had the peace that infertility was all part of the Lord's plan, but I didn't leave it up to Him, I made the decision. I still am left with the question of "What if?" What's done is done and I have learned a valuable lesson...make decisions with the Lord and if things don't turn out like you thought they would, they are still part of His plan, have faith. It this lesson, make decisions with faith not fear that actually helped to prompt us to talk to the Birth Father and get Ari...the Lord works in mysterious ways.

On the Nile River

Ok back to our story...Ben and I left for Jordan in April of 2006. It was the most wonderful trip we have ever taken, I would go back in a heartbeat. I felt more at home there than I had almost anywhere else. It was there that I had an experience that changed my heart and I had the faith to start a family. We were out walking one evening (that is the only cool part of the day) and people slowly began coming out of their homes with their families to play and talk in the streets. I have never really seen anything like it...this community was completely focused on family. We were surrounded by chatter and laughter that echoed in my brain. This is what I wanted, this was the life that I wanted to lead...my fear left. I wanted a family.
While we were in Jordan we got phone calls from two different friends to announce that they were pregnant. We were excited that we would all probably be having kids around the same time, but also a little disappointed that it hadn't happened yet...but it just takes time right?