Brandon and Rachael's Story

We would love to have started building our family soon after marriage, but we knew that it would be difficult to accomplish this dream.  I (Rachael) have been diagnosed with 'Premature Ovarian Failure' which is basically early menopause. I expected from a young age that I would have infertility issues because the women in my family have had difficulty with fertility. When Brandon and I were dating and we started talking about marriage, I nervously told him that we probably wouldn't be able to have kids on our own.  He quickly, and excitedly replied that it was no big deal, and that he thinks adoption is an amazing way to build a family! I was floored (to say the least), he not only had no problem with it, but was (and has always been) so excited, calming and reassuring that our infertility and adoption process has been a positive and exciting one for us!  Our family and extended family has been so blessed by the miracle of adoption already, we have 8 first cousins and 5 nieces/nephews that have joined our family through the blessing of adoption.

We found out that we were chosen by this amazing non-profit organization to be one of the three couples they were going to sponsor in a fundraiser 5K. It was so exciting and we were overwhelmed with the amount of support and love we felt on the day of the race.

On April 10th, I was at work one day when I got a phone call from our case worker telling me that she was about to rock our world, that we had a big decision to make, and we had to make it quickly.  She told us that there was a baby girl born April 4th in Michigan, the birth mother picked us and needed to place quickly ... so, if we interested we'd have to drop everything, hop on a plane to Michigan. So, with our bags backed and hearts full of faith we hopped on a plane the next morning not knowing if we would get this baby, no pictures, not a lot of other info, but we were on our way!  

When she arrived and was placed into our arms we were in heaven, literally in heaven; we felt angels round about us!  Heaven!!

Special thanks to: Pound the Pavement for Parenthood, the many people who came to support us on race day, the many people who registered but couldn't make it, and the many people who gave donations! Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude!

Austin and Amanda's Story

Austin and I were married in 2007 and we struggled to have children for 5 years.  We went to numerous doctors and went through fertility treatment after treatment to become pregnant.  In December 2010, after several failed artificial insemination attempts, Austin and I found out that our best chance for achieving pregnancy was through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). It was not the answer to our infertility that we had hoped to hear, but it allowed us to grow closer as we faced this challenge together.  Austin's grandma contacted us with a newspaper article about a couple who had held fundraisers to pay for their own IVF procedure.  We contacted this couple, Allen and Jill Witt, asking for advice on how to get a fundraiser started. Jill informed us that she had started an organization called Pound the Pavement for Parenthood and this organization wanted to sponsor us for an upcoming 5K race.  We couldn't have been more surprised and thrilled!  Jill, her team, our families and friends helped us successfully raise the funds for our IVF.  They have helped us more than we can describe, and not just through financial support.  It's been a great help to Austin and me to read about Jill's own experience with IVF on her blog.

On September 1, 2012, our twins, Sarah and Coulson, were born!  We will be forever grateful for the help  of Pound the Pavement for Parenthood for helping us begin our family!" - Amanda