Like so many young couples, when Brian and Christine Anderson married, they were full of hopes and plans for their future family.
But when they decided it was time to begin having children, things didn’t work out the way they had planned.
For years, Brian and Christine struggled quietly with infertility, feeling heartbroken, alone, confused, derailed.
“I wanted to be a father, that’s what I wanted to do,” remembers Brian. “As time went on, in that ten year quest, it got to be a frustratingly long time.”
At first, adoption wasn’t something that Christine wanted to consider. “I had this idea that I HAD to have a biological child,” she said. Ultimately, however, they decided to move forward with adoption.
And that changed everything.
This is how Christine describes the moment their first son was placed in her arms by his birth mother, Ashley: “She brought him to me. She bounced him a little bit, gave him a little pacificer. She kissed him on the forehead–and she handed him to me. I can’t put into words what I felt, except to say that when she placed him in my arms, it was as though he looked to her to say ‘thank you,’ and then to snuggle up to me. It felt like he’d waited a long time for this, too.”
Now they are blessed with three little boys and the love of their sons’ birth parents.
In the end, after all the wondering and the waiting, Brian and Christine’s dreams came true. “It’s not the dream I thought it would be,” says Christine, “but it’s a beautiful dream, and I wouldn’t change it.”
