Joel and Holly met their Senior year of high school. After dating for 4 years, they were married in 1997. They always knew they wanted to have children someday, but wanted to wait for a couple of years before trying to become pregnant. As their 2 year anniversary was approaching, they decided it was time to start having children. After many disappointing months of not becoming pregnant, they began to seek medical advice as to why they were not achieving a pregnancy. It was soon discovered that without assisted reproductive therapy they would not likely become pregnant on their own. They tried infertility treatments for a couple of years, without success. They then decided it was time to move on to a different route for building their family.
In February of 2003 they officially decided to begin the adoption process. They were quickly matched with a wonderful birth mother who was pregnant with TWINS! Jacob and Lane were born in November of that same year. When the boys were about 9 months old they began talking about having another child. On the same day, but at different times, Holly and Joel both heard a newscast about President George W. Bush supporting something called Embryo Adoption. On that day they both knew that embryo adoption was how they would have their next child, but they would not begin that process until the twins were two years old. When the boys turned two, Holly began researching Embryo Adoption. A few short weeks later they applied to an embryo adoption a clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee. By September of 2006 they had a match with a wonderful donating family and the transfer occurred. A little girl, Karissa, was born into their family in June of 2007.
Following the birth of their daughter, Holly always felt they needed one more girl to complete their family. Joel, however, didn’t desire any more children. Over the course of the next several years, Joel began to have a heart for orphans. They both began to pray and seek God’s will about adding another child to their family. After getting settled in a new state, they began to explore the possibility of adopting a little girl through domestic adoption. They completed a home study and submitted their profile for several different adoption situations. After several months they became increasingly aware of orphans around the world. They signed up with a website that lists special needs orphans and sends out e-mails of children in need of a loving family. One day Holly received an e-mail with the profile of a little girl with severe scoliosis. Since Holly also has scoliosis, this e-mail caught her attention. After sharing the e-mail with Joel, they began to pray and wonder if this was their little girl. After several weeks of discussing and praying about this particular girl, they decided to take a leap of faith and pursue her through adoption.
5/8/13—-DOSSIER SUBMITTED
Follow the family’s adoption journey on their blog at bulgariaorbust.wordpress.com