This is our story.

TRIGGER WARNING: While our story is full of blessings, we have also experienced loss. Miscarriages mentioned.

We (Derrick & Abby) were married in May 2013 and found out we were pregnant with our first child in August. Unfortunately, we lost the baby shortly after learning we were pregnant. We were blessed to be expecting very soon after, and our oldest son, Liam, was born in June 2014. Liam was an easy baby, content to watch the world around him, and, while it was sooner than we'd planned, we were excited to find out we were expecting another child in March 2015. Again, we lost the baby shortly after finding out, and we decided not to try for another until we had time to heal. November was the month we decided we would discuss trying for another child again, but until then the subject would not come up.

In September 2015, we received a phone call from a close loved one that was incredibly upset she was pregnant; it was an accident, and she was considering terminating the pregnancy. We offered to adopt the baby if she decided to go through with the pregnancy, but we didn't hear back for awhile. In November, we received another phone call asking if we were serious about adoption, and we were ecstatic! Fundraising began, which is when we started The Jeremiah Plan, and our youngest son, Ephraim, was born in April 2016. We had two beautiful baby boys under two, and we were thrilled to take Ephraim home when he was three weeks old.

After settling in at home, we quickly realized that something was wrong. Ephraim cried often, struggled with eating, and barely slept. When he was six weeks old, he was admitted to the hospital, labeled "failure to thrive". A week later, we found out he needed emergency surgery to remove a blockage in his urethra. Ephraim's bladder was the size of his entire abdomen, and his kidneys were swollen due to the extra fluid his body was unable to expel. The surgery was successful, but our tiny baby boy was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. We struggled to understand why this was happening. Why did God bless us with a child, after we had struggled with loss, only to make him sick?

By the time Ephraim was six months old, we had settled into a new normal, one with doctor visits and medications and a whole new set of priorities. Around this time, Liam started to slip away. He talked to us less, had little interest in playing, and was throwing violent tantrums more often. It took nine months to get him an appointment with the specialists in Iowa City to finally get his Autism diagnosis. We were thrown into a world of therapies, IEPs, and diagnoses we had never heard of. Again, we settled into a new normal. In June 2018, as we celebrated Liam's fourth birthday with family, we experienced our third miscarriage. It was a long time before we healed from that hurt, and we decided we didn't want to have any more children for fear we would lose another.

In 2019, after some serious discussions and, let's be honest, a good dose of anxiousness, we changed our minds, and in 2020 we had a beautiful baby girl, Adlai, which means "God is just." So far, she is a healthy, sassy baby girl who proves that sleep is not necessary for survival. She is a wonderful addition to the family, and our boys love her very very much.

Jeremiah 29:11 says “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” This verse brought us comfort when we wondered why God’s plan didn’t match up with our own, and it serves as a reminder that, while we do not always understand what God has planned for us, the point is that He has a plan! While we learned how to meet our children's needs, we also learned to lean on our trust in God’s plan when things get hard.