Hagan Adoption Fundraiser

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John Lennon once wrote, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.”
When my husband and I met in 2008, it was like time had stopped. It was something you see in a Romantic Comedy. We had a whirl wind romance. We moved in after dating for two months, Trenton proposed after four months, and we were married in front of all of our friends and family after six months. As soon as our marriage began we knew we wanted to start our family immediately.
Almost nine years later, and we still are best friends. After we got married- time had a way of almost coming to a complete stop. In the last 9 years we have had 12 miscarriages. One was a set of twins. I lost them on Thanksgiving 2011.
August 2015 my husband and I went on a vacation to Myrtle Beach. We get home and I start hemorrhaging. I'll never forget. I was at a restaurant and I was with my friend Lexi, and I stood up and Lexi said I looked like a ghost. And then we both looked down and I was gushing blood. I was rushed to the hospital and I was told I was 6 weeks pregnant and I didn't even know. I had had another miscarriage.
Trenton and I had a long talk the next few days. We decided it was time to stop trying. That was the most blood I had ever lost. We decided to do Foster to Adopt. Over the next year we worked on getting our home study approved.
In August 2016 I received a message that would change our lives forever. A woman had been following our story of being approved for Foster to Adopt on Facebook. I'm a writer and she had been following our story on Facebook for weeks. She went on to tell me she had a baby in the NICU and he was about to be released in 5 days. She said she would be honored if we adopted him. I called my husband and told him we had a baby at the hospital ready to come home. He started crying and he didn't understand. He thought I was like one of those weird women who was pregnant and didn't know. He's crying tears of joy. We both left work immediately to go to the hospital to meet our baby. Our baby. We knew he was ours the moment we had met him. He was so tiny, born at 3 lbs, 6 oz- Lucas Aristotle was a fighter. Despite being born 5 weeks premature, and having to have a feeding tube, Lucas Aristotle was about to be released from the hospital.
The feeding tube had been removed, and he was up to 5lbs. when we met Lucas Aristotle we knew he was a fighter like us. He had all the decks in the world stacked against him, but he came out swinging. And that day in the hospital, I made a promise to Lucas Aristotle that I would fight for him for the rest of my life. I made a promise to him that he didn’t have to fight anymore, that my husband and I would do all of his fighting for him.
5 days. 5 days and our lives changed forever.
And here we are Nine months later. And we have the happiest and most loved baby in the entire world. Every morning I wake him up and sing, “Good Morning! Good Morning! It’s great to stay up late, Good Morning! Good Morning! To You!” And he just starts giggling and laughing! 9 months. The thing no one ever tells you about having kids is- time speeds up. All those years Trenton and I were together we felt like our lives were in limbo. That we couldn’t move on to the next phase of our life.
Here we are and the adoption is still not finalized. Even independent adoptions are extremely expensive! As a new Mom I can’t begin to explain the anxiety we face not having everything set in stone. We are still a few thousand short of hitting our goal.
At the yard sale we will be selling puzzle pieces for 5 dollars where you can write your name on the back. This will be hung in Ari's room. It will be a momentum that we can keep forever that is symbolic of the support that our Community gave to us to help our dreams come true! I am also including our paypal Fundraising link In the event that you would like to attend, but can't! Thank you so much for your love and support!