Michelle and Christina

My wife, Christina, and I have been together since 1990. She had always wanted kids. I, on the other hand, was not so sure but in early 2001 Christina felt the time was right and we decided to pursue artificial insemination. A friend of ours graciously offered to be our donor and we were off into the unknown.

Christina got pregnant right away, but this pregnancy was not meant to be and she miscarried almost immediately. It was devastating, but we soldiered on. More months of trying and Christina became pregnant 2 more times – miscarrying each time.

By the spring of 2002 we were emotionally wiped out. We decided that we could not continue with insemination and we both believed that our dreams of a family were slipping out of reach.

Then a ray of hope appeared in the form of Rosie O’Donnell and the show Primetime Live. They did a special on adoption and for the first time we thought that this might be a way of creating the family we both so desperately wanted.

The day after seeing the special I contacted our local department of Health and Welfare. Adoption is not for the faint of heart. There were mountains of paperwork, background checks and seven weeks of mandatory training classes. Finally, everything was done and we waited to be matched with a child.

I religiously checked various states’ websites looking for a child. In the fall of 2002, I found a sibling group in California that seemed like a good fit. It was a 7-year-old girl and 2-year-old boy. I sent an email inquiry and waited.

In December 2002, a social worker in California called to see if we were still interested in taking the three kids we had inquired on. Three kids? I knew that we had never inquired on three kids. I called the social worker back and found out that the two kids I had originally inquired on had a new baby sister and the state wanted to keep all the kids together – would we take three? I said yes immediately and in March 2003 we were on our way to San Diego to pick up our new family. The adoption was finalized a year later.

We were happy as a family of five and I never really considered adding any kids to our family. But in August 2004 we got a call from our local social worker about a newborn baby boy that needed a home. Christina and I talked about it and decided that we really didn’t want a newborn. I called the worker back, fully intending to say no. The worker told me the baby was biracial, had been born drug addicted and no one would take him. Then she said the one thing that made me know this was right…his name was Jordan. Our other three kids are Jessy, Jayden and Janelle. His was another “J” name. It was too perfect. I had to say yes and 10 minutes later we were on our way to pick up our new son.

That was almost 2 years ago. We are now a very happy family of six. Our kids think they are special because they have two moms, and we have never felt any discrimination because we are a non-traditional family. That is saying a lot considering the fact we live in a very conservative part of the country.

Our journey to parenthood has not turned out how either of us expected it to, but we finally have the family we dreamed of for so long.

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