A Blog About Our Newest Arrival That Came . . .

So much has happened since my last post - I will see if I can get it all into words...

In May we were finishing up our adoption process, and were getting our profile (the "book" the birth mothers see that tells about our family, what they use to pick us!) ready to put up... I was SO excited, and could not wait to get it put up - but I was so busy that it kept getting put off... I was trying to find us a rental house in Auburn, Ben was about to turn 30 and I wanted to make it special, etc... Several of the houses I found would fall through at the last minute, and I would have to start over - which was making me crazy, but little did I know that these little "distractions" were straight from the Lord's hands... I was getting so sad and frustrated at all I had on my plate, when I all I wanted to do was meet this birth mom and little one that I had longed for...

Then on a Thursday at the end of May I started to think that I might be late... but let me be clear - I DID NOT think I was pregnant, just wondered if I was late. After stopping fertility treatment in January, I just gave up keeping track of the days and all because it was just too painful - I didn't want to know... So, I didn't really know for sure - but just to save myself the pain of the "what if's" I decided I would stop and get a pregnancy test at Publix just to prove what I already knew to be true - there was no way I could be pregnant. I have taken hundreds of pregnancy tests in my over 3 years of trying, and have seen hundreds of negatives - so I had gotten used to this. When I was going through fertility treatment I had a little ritual when taking a test. I would take it, set it down - then go into my closet alone to pray and beg God for good news, and ask Him to prepare my heart for the worst. Since stopping fertility I had all but given up on being pregnant - so this time I just took it and walked away, knowing what the result would be and trying to spare myself the pain.

Several minutes later I walked back by it, and what I saw took my breath away - it was positive!! It wasn't the clearest positive result, but it was definitely not the negative I was so used to seeing. The tears began, and I still couldn't breathe. I grabbed my phone and called Ben at work (knowing there was no way I could wait until he got home to tell him in a "fun" way!) and tried to compose myself so I could relay the news...

Ben: Hello?
Me: I took a test! And its positive!
Ben: What?
Me: I took a test!
Ben: Who took a test?
Me: I TOOK A TEST!! Its positive!
Ben: Silence. Then laughter.

It was the most amazing feeling in the entire world. A feeling I had begged the Lord for, yet thought I would never feel again. In that moment, I didn't even care what was to come - I was just so thankful for that feeling.

I went to the doctor the next morning for bloodwork and to confirm, and then went about telling everyone our good news - we are not the kind of people that can wait 12 weeks - especially this time! I was screaming it from the roof tops... I even drove to Lake Oconee to be with my family and tell my brother in person that weekend. And the sweetest moment was telling Campbell... no one was more excited than her!

Then Tuesday morning my doctor called (I thought to give me my lab results, say congrats, etc) and instead I heard hesitation in his voice. "I have bad news Katie...." I will never forget the way I felt. I am still crying even typing the words. NO! How could we finally get the desire of our hearts and have it taken away so soon?? I was so angry... I collapsed on my kitchen floor in tears. "Your HCG level is less than 1 Katie - it means you have miscarried." I was numb. Campbell of course rushed over to check on me, and I had to do one of the hardest things I have ever done... explain this to her. The next hardest was telling my sweet husband...

The next week was so hard. I didn't want to get out of bed. I was just struggling with what the Lord was doing... but throughout that week I had no bleeding, and as time when on I started to get sick. I have several "medical" friends who questioned my results all along - they were convinced I needed more bloodwork. I also had sweet friends that had way more faith than me - and prayed that God would save our baby. One of my best friend's dad is an OB and he suggested I go back in for more bloodwork. I reluctantly (not wanting to feel the pain all over again) made another appointment and went in. The nurse said she would call me that afternoon. Campbell was at VBS that day, and all I could do was blare praise music in my car and at home as I went about my day - I just wanted to be near the Lord and be prepared for what was to come... Around 3 I still hadn't heard from her, so I called the receptionist and the nurse answered instead "I was just about to call you...." "And say what?" I asked, scared to even ask the question... "Katie, I don't know what is going on, but you better get up here now for an ultrasound - you are definitely still pregnant!" Oh, the joy and relief.... And to this day we still don't know what happened in that lab - but we do know that it was a miracle straight from the Lord - and the doctors and nurses in that office know it too! And I think it makes the story sweeter... because no fertility treatment can take credit, and no - it is NOT because we had started the adoption process or were no longer "stressed" - it the Lord's glory to claim... and His alone!

Hearing that little heartbeat with Ben and Campbell by my side was the most amazing thing... what a roller coaster it has been, but the Lord knew what He was doing each and every moment... We let Campbell call my mom from the doctors office and she yelled "Honey! The doctors were wrong! Our baby isn't in heaven or sick - she is still in mommys tummy!" Sweetest words I have ever heard....

So, long story short.... we found a great rental house, and have now been living in Auburn for 2 weeks. Ben turned 30, and we were able to celebrate with family and friends... and no, we never got our profile finished - which saved us the $500 it would have cost to put it up! And yes, I experienced some of the hardest hurt, and greatest joy of my life - all in a few weeks time. I am now 14 weeks pregnant and oh so sick - but oh so thankful... And we will finish that profile one day... one day.

I think of one the reasons I struggled with/delayed writing this for so long, is that my heart is so heavy for those people that I care so much about (and even those I don't know) who are longing for a baby of their own... the pain is so fresh in my heart of how it felt every time I got those phone calls, read those emails, or blog posts. And as happy as I was for those momma's, it stung so bad... and I just didn't want anyone else to feel that way. Please know that I am praying for each of you - and that I know the Lord is building such a story in your lives that only He can... even if it's a roller coaster!


Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,

The Lord has done great things for us;
we are glad!

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like streams in the Negeb!
Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!

Psalm 126

ALL THESE THINGS - A Lifeline Women's Event

"We set our hope on you, for you have done all these things..." Jeremiah 14:22

Testimonies of Hope and music with Kala Waldron

Thursday, May 5th
7:00 - 8:30 pm
Mountain Brook Community Church
Birmingham

...A Heart for Adoption
...Care for a Birthmother during an unplanned pregnancy
...Reaching out to the Fatherless
...Love and Security for a child in Foster Care

Coffee and Dessert will be served
Tickets are $25 in advance
RSVP to Krisha at krisha.yanko@lifelineadoption.org
or call 205.972.8479

*I am so excited about this event - it is a fundraiser for Lifeline Childrens Services, the adoption agency we are using! I cannot say enough about Lifeline, and how it has been such a blessing to us... Kala Waldron that is doing the music for this event, goes to my church and she is wonderful! It will be a great night of encouragement and a way to help Lifeline... I would love for you to join me! Let me know if you are interested!

We are hoping to get the Adoption tshirts ordered by the beginning of the week... its taken lots of tweaking to get them just right, but I think they will be great!

They will be in mens, womens, youth and toddler sizes... so if you havent placed and order and are interested, let me know!

Thank you for supporting us and encouraging us in this project!

We are so excited to have the design ready for our T-shirt fundraiser! We didn't really plan on doing a fundraiser, but several people have wanted to be involved and help, and this is the best way I know... the t-shirts will raise a little money, but more importantly they will be a GREAT encouragement to us. They should be around $20 and might be on a slightly different color grey shirt than the one pictured...

This process is very time intensive, paperwork intensive, $ intensive and can sometimes be overwhelming... after trying over 3 years to get pregnant, and not knowing how long the adoption will take - seeing the people we love wearing this t-shirt will help us to trust God and wait for, as Campbell says "the perfect baby for us!" We hope the shirt will also help raise awareness/support for adoption as a whole - something so close to the heart of our God.

Thank you for supporting us, loving us and encouraging us through this exciting (yet scary!) process! Please continue to pray for us as we have our 2nd home study this Friday, and will hopefully finish up the others in April as well as our adoption training. We are hoping to have our profile up at the beginning of May! Pray that the Lord would prepare our hearts for what is to come...

Here it is - hope you like it as much as we do!


Red and yellow, black and white - they are precious in His sight!
I have sung Jesus loves the little children to Cambpell since she was a baby... not just because I love the song, but because I love the message and I knew/hoped she might have a very colorful family one day...

Shoot me an email if you are interested in a shirt at katiebcompton@gmail.com... include mens/womens/childrens, size and # of shirts.

Can't wait to see this shirt on Cambpell - and you! :)

This is a MUST SEE... I love Third Day, and I love this song of theirs that sings of all of our (believers) adoption in Christ! We are ALL adopted... And I love seeing their actual families at the end of the video. This is not just another Christian band singing about adoption - they are living it out!

To hear the song make sure you pause the music on our blog under the playlist to the right...

Our fingerprints came back in record time!

Ben actually just recently got back from a two week medical mission trip to Kenya, Africa and we are so glad he is home! I will have to let him do a post about his trip - he has great pictures and stories as always. We are so thankful the Lord opened the door for him to be able to go again (it was his third trip) - the only thing that would have made it better was if he could have brought a baby home with him! :)

We turned our fingerprints and paperwork in right before he left, and within a little over a week (on Valentines Day!) I found out we had been approved! We are so thankful for this - we had heard horror stories of it taking FOREVER for some people to be approved, so this was a blessing. Our social worker sent me an email in disbelief that it happened so fast - and said "that must mean God has great things in store for the Comptons!" - just the encouragement I needed.

We also had our first Home Study today, and it went really well. This process has been slower than I thought, but I cannot say how thankful I am for our specific social worker. I feel the Lord handpicked her for us! She is really laid back and so understanding. She has been doing domestic adoptions for over 20 years, so hopefully we can soak up a lot of her knowledge! We will have a few more Home Studies, and a training class at the end of April. Hopefully after that we will be able to get our profile up, and see what God does from there! We could get a phone call just days before our babies birth, or we could have time to meet with the birth mom and get to know her before the birth. We could have a girl baby, or a boy baby - a sick baby or a healthy baby. We could have a black baby, a white baby or something in between. :) Its so exciting to think that the Lord already knows JUST what this baby will look like - even though we have NO CLUE! But it will be the perfect baby for us... a baby worth waiting these 3 (plus) years for!

I am hoping to do a little tshirt fundraiser for the adoption really soon - Ben and I have been working on the design... We are not wanting to ask people to financially help with the adoption (although many of you have been sweet to offer and any little bit would help!) but it would be so encouraging to us as we wait to see the people we love wearing a tshirt to remind us of the sweet baby that is on the way... more to come soon!

Anyone in the market for a cute 3 bedroom 2 bath home in Birmingham? :)

Yes, our house is officially on the market... which is kinda sad. I know the Lord has us in Auburn, but leaving this great place - great friends, great church - its going to be rough. What will be even more rough is moving to Auburn and still owning this house!
Praying God will bring the right buyer - SOON! We will be renting for a while in Auburn while we build a house. We are in the process of buying a lot we love, and Bens dad is an architect and builder, so we are thankful to have the opportunity!

Lots going on around here lately... an adoption, moving, building a house, starting new job... lots of excitement, but lots of stress!

About thirty minutes after my post yesterday, I got the long awaited (as in, waited for 6 days - ha!) phone call from our social worker!!

It was so great to hear her voice - it brought tears to my eyes and made it finally feel real. This is HAPPENING! Monday we will have our orientation interview, and then get our fingerprints taken care of...

There are multiple adoption blogs I read that so encourage me - and I was reading one today of a family that is adopting a little girl from Ethiopia. Her friends had a shower for her, and this is what the invitation said...

I didnt give you the gift of life,
But in my heart I know.
The love I feel is deep and real,
As if it had been so.
For us to have each other,
Is like a dream come true!
No, I didnt give you the gift of life,
Life gave me the gift of you!

I just sat there and cried... what a joy, what a blessing this mom is about to experience!
Thank you Lord, that You choose to let us be a part of your plan for the orphan...

to having a baby in my arms!!!

We finally turned in our adoption paperwork this past Thursday, January 20th!

We are so very excited... but sadly, I am already getting impatient! We were told we would hear from our social worker and have an orientation interview this week, and I havent heard from them yet - and its killing me! Guess this too will be a good lesson in patience and waiting on the Lord - much like the last 3 years...

Its amazing that as soon as this summer we could finally have a sibling for Campbell... I just cant wait! If you will, join us in praying for the birth mom - that she will take care of herself during her pregnancy, and that the Lord will use our relationship to draw her to Himself if she does not know Him. Also, if you would pray for the Lord to prepare our hearts for what is to come... we were pretty open to anything in terms of race, sex, medical history - so I am still having moments of fear where I think "can I really do this?!?" The answer is no, I cant. But He can. And He will enable us to do it - because He has called us to it, and He will not leave us there...

I just realized its been almost 3 months since I last posted... that is beyond sad. I'm sure no one even reads this blog anymore, if they ever did! Things have been a little hectic around here, and I will do my best to catch up.

FERTILITY: Right before Thanksgiving, I had endometreosis surgery where they actually found several problems and were able to correct them. Praise God! Surgery wasnt fun, but I am glad I did it - and we recently did our 5th IUI with high hopes after the surgery... please pray. We are finishing up on this long "fertility road", and might be willing to do one more procedure, but will then be done. We have also started/almost finished our adoption paperwork - and I am SO EXCITED about it!

JOB: We are moving to Auburn! Ben took a job in Auburn several weeks ago - he will be working with the hospitalist group there, and we are really thankful for such a great job opportunity. He will be working with a man that has mentored him (he used to live here) and it will be a huge blessing. We are hoping to put our house on the market this month, and will start looking at lots to build in Auburn - hopefully soon. (Bens dad is a homebuilder in Auburn) It is bittersweet - leaving Birmingham is going to be so very hard... (I have already been crying thinking about it)

HOLIDAYS: We spent Thanksgiving in Auburn with my family, since Brian (my brother) and Savannah were going to her family for Christmas. Ben actually worked Christmas, so we spent Christmas at our house for the first time - and it was wonderful. Ben's parents came up Christmas Eve and spent the day with us, then my parents came up that night and we all went to our church together and had dinner at our favorite mexican place afterwards. The meriachi band even sang jingle bells and feliz navidad! That might become a tradition :) My parents spent the night and we opened presents Christmas morning before Ben went to work. I cooked an early Christmas dinner for when Ben got home, and before my parents had to leave. We even got to spend a night in Atlanta for our anniversary! (Happy 7 years Ben!) While there though, Bens dad called him with chest pains, and Ben told him to go to the ER - we learned shortly after that he had a heart attack, and we left and headed straight to the hospital. He is doing better now, but is on a ton of medicine and is being watched closely since there are still more blockages that couldnt be corrected. We then spent New Years at the lake with my family, celebrating our Christmas with them a little late. It was a wonderful, very busy few weeks!

Campbell is about to turn four, which blows my mind... she is so fun at this age, and really acting more "grown up". She is still really wanting a baby sister or brother - as bad as mommy and daddy are! - and prays that "God, please promise to give us a baby... its taking so long! Only you know, and it might be a baby in mommys tummy, or an orphan baby!" Its really sweet, but hard at the same time. Its one thing to want something badly yourself, but to see it affect your child is much harder.

Maybe my New Years resolution should be to blog more... but I hate making resolutions and then not keeping them :) I will say, I need to at least TRY harder! Will try to get some pictures up soon...

Happy New Year everyone - and WAR EAGLE!