Everything happens for a reason

I believe in destiny and I believe in fate. I also believe that we have a say in it... perhaps that is a contradiction?

I believe that things happen for a reason. I believe we are presented with opportunities and our choices create new paths for us.

For instance, The Dad and I chose to pursue fertility treatments while simultaneously pursuing adoption. In our minds, it was the family we wanted, the getting there was not the issue.

I would have loved to experience pregnancy and, to this day, I own a small place inside that hurts when I contemplate the reality that I will never know what it's like to feel a life inside me or know what it's like to give birth. But most times the pangs are fleeting. After all, I wasn't trying to get pregnant so I'd know what it felt like, we wanted a family and we got our family.

I believe the months and years of buying ovulation kits and then pregnancy tests and being disappointed over and over again are things that we needed to endure. I'm not sure why. I know that the infertility experience changed me, it changed The Dad, but I will never know in what way - but I do believe there was a reason for it.

I believe that we were destined to have the children that we have.

The Dervish and The Girl were pure serendipity. We were on different paths when each of them came along and they suddenly happened out of the blue (on separate occasions to boot!)

We were in the process of applying to adopt 2 little girls when we suddenly got a call that a baby boy was available and did we want to be put on the list the birth family would look at. What's meant to happen will happen, but only if you are open to allowing it to happen.

Yes, of course we wanted to be on that list. Two days later we got the news that we had been chosen to adopt him.

Three years later, and having had decided that our 2 boys were enough (honestly, it was Dervish's intensity that had us convinced that we were good with 2 kids) we got a phone call out of the blue that Dervish had a sister and did we want her. How can that not be 'fate' or 'destiny'?

So, while I never did get pregnant, I don't regret the journey, I don't regret trying and, even if we had been successful once, we probably would have adopted after that to complete our family, but that wasn't what destiny had in mind for us.

Destiny, it seems, had another plan. We were meant to have a Pie, A Dervish, and a Girl. Intensity and all.