“我的一生，我一直都知道我有一天会收养一个孩子。我不能完全说出我为什么知道这一点，但这只是我内心深处扎根的感觉。我已经告诉家人多年来，这将会发生。I don’t think reality hit for me, my wife at the time, and our families until a 19-year-old girl messaged me on Facebook and said, ‘From the moment I saw you, I knew you were meant to be his moms.’
Let me back this story up a bit and tell you about the very rocky road that led us to our son. It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies; it was more like one minute being on top of the highest mountain, and the next minute being shoved off it with so much force the wind is knocked right out of you.
Kylie and I met working at a local hospital. She was a nurse and I was a respiratory therapist working the nightshift. Things just clicked for us and before you know it, we were married. We knew early on we wanted a family and we had discussed the many options now available for same sex couples. Ultimately, we chose to try the adoption route.
我开始对LGBTQ友好的收养机构进行研究，促进采用计划和私人机构。我们最终发现了加利福尼亚州的一家代理商，该代理商特别针对LGBTQ社区。他们的网站看起来很棒！希望采用的夫妻的个人资料非常专业，成功的故事给了我们很大的希望。我们拿出了总计超过16,000美元的巨额贷款，并迅速签约。该机构提出了我们的专业知名度，并开始“销售”我们。
在一个月内,我们有一个想说话的人to us. We were ECSTATIC! We could not believe someone wanted to get to know us so quickly and possibly choose us to raise their child! So we began talking right away. The potential birthmother was in her lower 30s, a single woman living in Indianapolis, who wasn’t in a good place to raise a child on her own. She ultimately told us she chose us to be the parents of her child, and even informed us it was a girl! She sent us ultrasound photos, doctor appointment information and the expected due date. Our minds were in overdrive with excitement, nerves and every other emotion imaginable. We began buying a few baby essentials such as car seats, strollers, the cutest baby girl outfits and more.
Pretty soon it was time to start looking into hotels and flights for our trip to Indianapolis for the arrival of our daughter. I was at work one day, on the phone with a Holiday Inn, when I had an odd feeling of, ‘hmm, maybe I should do a little detective work of my own just to confirm all of this is true.’ (Ask my friends; if they need information on a new love interest, I’m the one to come to. I can find out anything with a few quick internet searches.) After hanging up with the hotel, I downloaded an app called Been Verified. They have an option for reverse phone number look up. So I entered the ‘birthmother’s’ phone number and was confused when it came back to a name other than what we had been calling her. I went ahead and searched this name and found a Facebook profile for a girl in Indianapolis that looked nothing like the photos we had been sent. At this point, I would be lying if I didn’t say I was getting very worked up. Were we being lied to for the past 3 months?! No way. No one would do that! I had to find out the truth right now. The due date was less than a month away!
I did some of my famous Facebook creeping and found a relative of this ‘birthmother.’ I had nothing to lose at this point, already fearing there was no baby, so I sent this man a message. To my surprise, he immediately responded and asked me to call him! I was literally shaking with fear, anxiety and dread at this point. I dialed the phone from the break room in the hospital where I worked. The man answered.
‘Can you tell me what’s going on?,’ he asked.
我疯狂地告诉他：“我和我的妻子已经与您的家人聊天了几个月，我们即将收养她的女儿即将来临。”
He fell silent. When he spoke again, his voice was a mix between anger and sympathy.
‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this,’ he said, ‘but she is not pregnant. I just saw her at a family gathering last week.’
他继续告诉我，实际上，几年前她以悲惨的方式失去了一个孩子，自从她失去以来就一直以这种方式骗取希望的养父母。我感谢电话上的那个人，挂断了电话。我立即感到肚子病了。握手，我立即打电话给我的妻子。
I told Kylie what I had found out and we were beyond upset. Our families were devastated, and we had lost all hope. How can someone lie about something as serious as this? And for what reason? This girl never got a dime from us or the adoption agency. What was her motive? Boredom? Just something to do for fun? Most likely some form of mental illness? It made no sense. It never will.
我们对“出生母亲”和收养机构都非常生气，我们为甚至没有得到怀孕的确认而付了数千美元。我们也把很多责任归咎于自己，但是我们不认识任何曾经收养过的人，我们不知道它是如何工作的。我们非常兴奋和充满希望。我们不想通过质疑机构和“生母亲”来弄乱它。
快进到今天，我们有一个惊人的18个月大儿子卡森。After the fiasco with the adoption agency, I thought, ‘What the heck, I’m going to try on my own!’ I made a simple Facebook page and posted information about Kylie and I, photos of us and our families and asked everyone we knew to share the page. Two weeks later we were contacted by a 19-year-old in New Mexico. She had commented on a photo of Kylie and I: ‘Hey, message me, it’s important.’
Immediately my heart skipped a beat – could this be good? I sent her a message and we talked back and forth for the rest of the day. She asked me to call her that evening and I dialed as quickly as possible. She said, ‘Hey! As soon as I saw your faces, I knew you were meant to be his moms.’ His?! So it’s a boy? Now I was getting so excited! The next day, she FaceTimed us from a doctor appointment and we got to see the ultrasound live. From there, everything just fell into place perfectly. She chose us to be his moms, and our son was born in January 2018.
尽管我们很幸运能在我们的生活中拥有卡森，但过去几年的压力随着我们的关系造成了巨大损失。凯莉（Kylie）和我不再在一起，但是我们继续共同遵守我们的神圣儿子。我们确实一直处于那座山的顶端，我们也被推翻了好几次。卡森将永远是我们继续爬上山的原因。我们非常感谢将我们带到他的艰难旅程。
And the old saying that ‘everything happens for a reason?’ I could not agree more. I have no idea what life has in store for me in the future, but I do know that I was lucky enough to get to be Carson’s mom. That will always be the highlight of my life.”
这个故事提交给beplay网络一直不畅西弗吉尼亚州惠灵的亚历克西斯·诺尔顿（Alexis Knowlton）。你可以跟随她的旅程Instagram。你有类似的经历吗？我们想听听您的重要旅程。提交自己的故事here.务必subscribeto our free email newsletter for our best stories, andYouTubefor our best videos.
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