We began dealing with the struggle of infertility pretty early in our marriage.  It was a really difficult time.  We wanted to be parents so desperately.  We decided to explore the path of adoption in 2014.  We found Mark Iverson on-line and began our journey to find our baby.  We had no idea how any of it worked.  Mark and his staff were extremely supportive and explained everything from completing our home study to creating our adoption profile.  We always felt like we were in good hands.  Adoption isn’t easy and as the years went by our hope dwindled.  We would get good news that a birth mom was interested, but none of them worked out for us.  We shed many tears.  I remember one particular time when we had recently faced another disappointment, Christine from Mark’s office reached out to us with a message to not give up hope and that she felt our time was coming soon.  That meant a lot and was so encouraging for us. 

May 8, 2018 started out like any other day, but turned out to be the best day of our lives.  We received a phone call mid-morning, out of the blue, that there was a baby boy waiting for us at the hospital.  It was our baby!  Christine met us both at the hospital.  I can’t even begin to describe the emotion I felt the moment I laid eyes on the most beautiful baby boy.  We were overwhelmed with happiness.  All of those years of pain and waiting and hoping and praying were released in tears of pure joy.  We were in love at first sight. 

     The next six weeks until our adoption day were a whirlwind as we navigated our way as new parents.  Mark Iverson and his team were absolutely amazing helping us through the actual adoption of our son.  We didn’t have to worry about any of it.  They even completely handled a hiccup in our case as to not stress us out unnecessarily.  This let us completely focus on our baby.  The whole process was seamless.  The second best day of our lives came on June 22, 2018.  Our adoption day!  Mark was awesome!!! He did such a great job involving our whole family in the process. It was such an amazing and emotional day.  It was official!  Gavin Lee Bates was our son legally and forever.  We can’t thank Mark and his team enough for everything.  We finally found our missing piece!