We ask that you would please read this before you watch the slideshow.

In August of 2003 we discovered my girlfriend was 2 months pregnant. We were heartbroken, lost, confused, desperate, seeking... The pregnancy was unplanned. There seemed little hope for our future, including the child inside her womb. A lot of unanswered questions enter your mind, some answered of course, but most not. And your mind gets to a point of possible shut down. I was drained, of all emotion, of all feeling, of all reasoning, and I began to let things into my head that ordinarily I would not. Considerations, compromises, rumors, obligations.. and my whole life, my whole future flashed before me.. then was gone. How do you deal with this?? Maybe the test was wrong.. we were so careful.. or maybe not. Why??? Good Lord, why, why would this happen to us, and not the others who had the same kind of relationship we had? Is there anyway around this? And yet the answer is always there staring us in the face, even before it happens. We did this..

Before, I was apprehensive about her moving in with me, now it seemed the only right thing. We lived together for about six months. And in that time we got help at a near-by Crisis Pregnancy Center, found out we had TWIN daughters, told both our parents the news, and found out we are the hardest people to live with on earth. Twin dauthers... this was appointed, this was life. Who are we to sit on a throne and say whether or not our child can have life? Who ultimately does this child belong to? We were against abortion to begin with, but now it was impossible and even painful to think of. Are we this self-ish? The absolute hardest six months I've dealt with. Supporting a pregnant woman with a full time job and full time college career was not working, even with help from the center. One of the three had to give, and it was college. Put off until another day, it was time to leave. We moved in with my parents, who gave us all we needed. It should be very intensely noted that our relationship was on the rocks from the very start. It had just about every ingredient needed for a nuclear explosion. But we loved each other, and we wanted to make it work for these girls.. Christian counseling, government assistance, parents having guardianship until we were on our feet, and lots of praying together and alone.

I can't stress enough how important praying was for us. We did not want to do adoption.. but we knew our relationship, and we knew we needed to have it ready if our plans fell through. When we found Charlotte and Mills, it was like no other agency we've dealt with. They were so personable and still knew very much what they were talking about. It was hard to sit in sometimes with them because we didn't want to go through with it, but we needed to know details. After looking at a couple agency's pictures, profiles, and testimonies of families, we found the one we liked, cause they had Winnie the Pooh. But to be honest, we didn't really think much of it, we just wanted to be ready... and kept praying... Counseling twice a week for us, once for us as a couple, once for us by ourselves. Thank the Lord the counselor took medicare. Christmas rolled around, and I was so desperate. I wanted an answer of what was going to happen, now. There was one big question in my mind. Would we have time to work on our relationship and take care of two babies? It would be almost impossible without help.. And help was so expensive. All the while, even though our relationship was more stable than it had ever been, it was highly irritable and erupted many times. It was looking more and more hopeless each week. We went back to the adoption sheets. The profiles looking so familiar, as well as why we did and didn't choose to keep them in our reference. We looked over the family we picked, then the others.. We hadn't looked hard enough to make a true decision, we could tell. After hours of going over and over the profiles and pictures, to our astonishment, our second choice, turned out to be our first. Everything, with the way they worded their testimony, to the way they talked about their relationship with God, was felt in our hearts.. and we knew this was the couple.

Charlotte tells us the best thing to do is meet with them to see if they are who they say they are. So, we meet. Two times we meet, and we love them.. :-( It's hard, we know that they are the ones.. We schedule for a third meeting, but never make it, and she goes into labor at eight months. We still haven't made a decision.. it came so quick. And we'd been praying so hard... we didn't want to make the wrong decision. Two brand new lives, and they don't even know their very future is still undecided.. So scared..

I got to see them born, got to video tape and everything. Came out of Labor and Delivery with tears rolling down. What a gift.. How something so small could grow into this small child, these small children.. How am I worthy of anything, let alone being the one to give them a third of what they needed to be alive. Of all the things that I've done in my life, nothing seemed to match this moment. Yet my feelings to want to be proud were thrown back and forth with the reminder that we hadn't made a decision.. Seeing them made me want to forget what our problems were and do it. Cause somehow.. someway I just knew it would work out. But I'd been there before, thinking THIS time would be better, THIS time would be different, THIS time for whatever reason.. had more hope than the last. And I couldn't take that chance on these girls... my daughters....... When their mother came out of sedation, we talked and just spent some time with our new daughters. Our family came up, took pictures, visited with us, played with them, and eventually retired back home, where we were left to our thoughts.. Our lonely and baffled thoughts about how we could be trusted with such a huge choice for the well-being of these two precious girls. We called Charlotte to let her know we wanted to talk with the couple again. Three times we met, each time praying before and after about the future of these girls. We knew it had to be stressful for them, but these girls' lives were at stake, and we needed to be ready for any decision. The second night, we still didn't have a decision, and we had ran out of time at the hospital. Most L-D patients leave on the third day. So we stayed up all night with McKenzie and Madison.. all night.. looking into their half-open eyes, holding their miniature hands, watching them sleep.. we knew what we had to do.. We could not take a chance on their lives with our unstabilized, unfaithful, anger and potentially violent relationship. They needed a home. A real one. One that they'd have a real chance at success, and a real chance at knowing who God was. A home where their primary goal was founding a relationship with Jesus Christ in their hearts. A relationship that will eventually lead them to heaven, where we'll all be one day. The risk of losing that was too great..

8:00am sharp we call Charlotte and tell her what we've decided, knowing that we only have till noon checkout to spend with them. Our parents are the next to call. 10:00am.. a God-send.. the doctor comes in to talk with us, and decides that she needs to spend one more day there. We needed this day Lord, thank you! Taken back, and in awe of what just happened, we make the call to Charlotte and pitch camp one last night. It's been a year since then, and I still have that night etched in my memory like it was last night. These girls have about 5 or 6 sets of families that have a direct connection with them, love them with all they have, and pray for them every single night. When we made the decision to place them in the care of these parents, God moved in our way. And He took control of everything, from the prayers that were said, to the slideshow presentation I made. God has His hand on these girls' lives without a doubt. And everytime I see them, I think.. where would we be...without you..

To view Katie's Poem click here

To view this slideshow, you will need: