Meet the Shambley's Part 1

My name is Susan and I am a 30 year old christian stay at home mom of 4 children. Thats 2 adopted and 2 biological! I have a wonderful husband named Scott. My husband and I have been married for 10 years. In those 10 years we have been through alot... When we married I thought we would have 3 children all close together and I would be a stay at home mommy and we would live happily ever after. I was WRONG. God had much bigger and better plans for us. (dosent he always) After finding out only 3 months into our marriage I would not be able to have children without the help of fertility treatments, to say the least I was dissapointed. I have always wanted lots of children and knew that my purpose in life was to raise a christain family...so now what? My doctor sugested that we start with a common fertility drug called clomid. We started the treatments and each month the doctor would increase the dossage. Month after month no pregnancy. I prayed...Lord I promise to raise a baby for your glory and do my very best to be a good mom. Please Lord give us a baby. It was so hard to understand why people who didnt even want children could have them but my husband and I who longed for a child could not get pregnant. After 6 months of treatments we decided to begin the next step of treatment which would equal shots/injections for each monthly cycle. I was not looking forward to that, I mean who would be? My husband and I wanted a baby more than anything so I was willing to try anything. So, around the time I should start these injections I became REALLY sick. I thought I may have the flu and I was right. I went to my regular doctor and was dignosed with the flu, given antibotics and sent home. 14 days later I was still very sick so I called the doctor back to let them know I was not getting better and they ask me if I could be pregnant. I didnt like saying outloud that I was not. I was upset that they ask because it was so dissapointing each month when I would take pregnacy test and get a negative result. So I told them no I was not pregnant and explained that I had been on fertility treatments and that I had just been blood tested for pregnancy at the doctor 3 weeks ago and that there was no way I could be pregnat. WRONG again... I was indeed 8 weeks pregnant. How you ask? A Miracle! God had finally given us a baby of our own. I had the perfect pregnancy , perfect delivery and a perfect healthy baby girl. God had answered our prayers! I was finally a mom. I loved being a mom so much that 18 months later all I could think of was getting pregnant again. We went back on the same fertility treatments for 8 months only to have them fail each time. I just didn't get it, I got pregnant the first time why not this time? I begin to pray and seek God about future children. I prayed and ask Him to give me more children of our own. At that time He didnt. One Sunday at church while our pastor preached, God was hard at work on my heart and I humbled myself at the altar and THANKED him for our daughter Christa. I realized at that moment that although I was waiting for another child, that there were children also waiting for me. I ask God that night to send us another child even if that meant not biologically. We started to look into straight out adoption but it was to expensive. Then we researched foster parenting. I just didnt think I could handle the emotional ups and downs of fostering but....again I was WRONG. After an 8 week class... we began fostering in 2004. We fostered for 3 1/2 years and took in 27 children. Some of those children only stayed a night or two some a year and some stayed forever. We accepted all ages birth to 18. See I always knew my purpose was to stay home and raise a family. I just didnt know that meant hurting children, medically fragile children, runaways, and meth babies. Each child God sent us was for a reason. Alot of Good things came out of fostering, our daughter Chelsea (now 16) came to us when she was eleven. She had been very neglected by her drug addicted mother. Chelsea was quiet, shy, hurt, scared and attention deprived. She was also sweet, kind, full of love and needed someone to love her back though actions not words. She couldnt tell the difference between the truth and a lie. She had been lied to so much by her birth family and even taught to lie to cover up their illegal actions that she had a hard time telling the truth. After MUCH counseling,consistent support from us, and termination of her mothers parental rights she began to live in the present instead of the past. This was a big accomplishment for her and just after her 12th birthday... we adopted her into our family. Did I ever think I would adopt a 12 year old??? NO. Its was not MY plan but God's. See he knew long before I ever gave gave birth to Christa (our bio daughter) that he had a Big sister waiting for her. Chelsea continues to be a beautiful addition to our family. So folks that is just two of our 2+2=4. Due to the length of this post I will need to continue our story 2moro!