Will there be any more?.....(First installment of Agirl's story)

I had never known such a feeling of completion, fulfillment, and contentment.
I was complete in my marriage, fulfilled in my relationship with Christ, but something was missing for many years! No contentment in the area of my overwhelming desire to be a mom.
When Jman was placed in my arms, the desire of my heart came to fruition and outside of the joy of being in Christ, what greater joy could there be!!!

After all we'd been through physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually, we couldn't imagine doing it again! We didn't know how we could! We were finding contentment in the fact that our family was complete. We had the child we'd prayed for, we were done!
People would begin to ask after awhile and we would say, "No, we likely won't have anymore." It took so long, we were not getting younger, and honestly, our resources were tapped out! We'd taken a small loan for a portion of the fees and we'd joke that we had a note on our child like our car! Not funny but, you find the humor in the pain!

Well, Agril, I guess your story begins around the time your brother was nearing 3 years old. My heart began to wonder and question, "Will there be any more?". "Is this it, Lord?". "Are you finished adding children to our home?" "I am beginning to get that 'feeling' again and I know it's not just baby fever!".

I would approach the subject with Coach and time and time again he would tell me, "We are done. I know in my heart that we are. We can't go through all of that again. How would we even begin to finance another adoption?", ...........so, I would not mention it again for awhile.

For us, the decision to have another child was not as easy as, "Hey, let's have another baby! Throw out those pills! Increase the love and activity and let's have another one!"
I think something in the back of my head used to still think "now that you've adopted, you may get pregnant, it happens"(we'd had a male factor, that had been corrected, and we had reached the point of 'unexplained infertility' meaning, the dr.s had no idea why we weren't getting pregnant (no physical or scientific reason!!) Was God getting a little amused at our attempts?!!!) although, that was truly no longer my desire and I certainly wasn't working to achieve it!! I was too exhausted from trying to make that happen for so long! (Can you say, "Can we just hold hands for awhile? HA!)
So, there was no overlooking the fact that for us, it's long, difficult, and expensive from the get-go to achieve this goal!

My heart felt, earnest prayer became, "Lord, change my heart or his. I am beginning to feel strongly that you are not done with us. That you have another/more child/ren for us. If he is not feeling that too then, we have to be at the same place. Lord, make my heart content and give me a peace that our family is in fact complete OR show him that you are not finished with us yet."
I prayed this for years! At least nearly two! I think he would tell you honestly that I didn't nag him or bug him or persist in it. I knew it had to come from the Lord, to both of us!

I believe the turning point was the death of Coach's grandpa in January of 2004. It was a hard loss, they were close, and he began to reflect on a lot of things. I also suspect that he too had been praying about whether or not we were to pursue another adoption.

Early in February, Coach says to me, "Let's do it! Let's get started on adopting another baby! I don't want to have any regrets somewhere down the road and I don't want to be the cause of yours. If you feel this strong desire again, there is a reason and there must be another child for us." OR, it was certainly something to that affect!

I could not contain my excitement!! And....................I walked to the filing cabnet and retrieved the packet of paperwork from the agency.............that I had requested be mailed to us.............many months before!!! :o) (I had a feeling..........what can I say?!!!)

We began that night completing the packet! I don't remember that it was quite as involved as the first time however, there was a lot there!
We quickly completed it, mailed it off, and had to wait for an orientation meeting at the agency! That would not be until there were enough couples to fill the class......and so the waiting begins.....again!!