Why Adopt?

Our story differs a bit from the norm as we do not know the source of our infertility and we did not go for any grueling treatments or procedures. I am almost 34, never been pregnant or had a miscarriage in my life.

We were late starters, Riaan and me. When we moved in together 9 years ago we did not want to start a family. We struggled through our 20ties to find our feet and our place in the world. But we got ourselves together and got married when we were both 30 years old. And then we were finally ready for a family. So the trying started. At first it was fun and we were full of hope - this was going to be easy! We both come from families who had big families and no problems popping out babies. There was nothing to worry about. Then the first month went by, nothing. Second month, nothing. Third month, nothing  - etc etc etc. Somewhere during those early months my period was a couple of days late and I was convinced that I was pregnant - had all the early pregnancy symptoms. I took a test (the one and only test that I ever took) and it was negative. It broke my heart. I swore that I would never take a test again unless I had no period for 3 months in a row. Never happened though, have one every month.

Going through this for 2 years made me realise that I would not survive treatments of any kind, whatever the problem is. Having an immense fear of doctors and hospitals to begin with I could not imagine dealing with the disappointment of going through the process and then ending up not being pregnant.

So, I started thinking about adoption. Then I started e-mailing. I've send e-mails to every possible contact that I could find on the web. I got a lot of Delivery Failures, a couple of replies, most of them referring me somewhere else and a couple that said that their applications were closed. And then finally someone referred me to Procare. I completed their online form and got a response! Success at last!
I went home with the info & application form and spoke to Riaan about the idea. He said ok, lets do it. And so we did. Our journey began.