First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes…the heartache of not being able finishing that sentence is something most couples will never realize. But when infertility becomes part of your life story, you are faced with the choice of letting it knock you down or embracing a different journey to parenthood. When James and Holly Woolf found out their dream of naturally conceiving a child was unlikely, the couple decided to take their destiny into their own hands. The beginning of this story though, starts long before parenthood was even on the table. James and Holly met through a mutual friend while they were in high school.
“I always thought James was cute and I formed a little crush on him the very first time I saw him,” said Holly. “But he was dating a good friend, so nothing ever happened.”
Both went on to attend college at Boise State University. They saw each other around campus, but never moved to anything past friendship.
But all of that was about to change. By the summer of 2006, both had moved back to Idaho Falls when they spontaneously ran into each at a local grill.
“After confessing that I had found him extremely attractive for many years, he asked for my phone number,” said Holly. “I was smitten that night.”
James and Holly spent their first date at the drive-in.
“We talked through the entire movie. I laughed at his corny jokes and he seemed too nervous to look me in the eye,” said Holly. “But from that time on, we spent every available moment together. We fell in love on our very first date.”
In a moment of serendipitous perfection, two people were brought together in a move that forever changed their history. “I proposed on Christmas of 2007 at our house,” said James. “My mom and I handmade an ornament with the ring and after she saw it, I proposed.”
So in September of 2008, the couple headed to Las Vegas for their dream wedding.
“Our wedding was very casual, which was perfect for us,” said James. “Holly wore a white sundress and I wore flip-flops with plaid shorts. My little brothers were my best men and they wore tuxedo shirts.”
“We had a blast. We were surrounded by our close friends and family,” added Holly. “The resort decided to throw us a party without telling anyone ahead of time. They served the most hilarious food items. We had nachos, pretzels, made-to-order quesadillas, hot dogs and fresh popcorn. We still hear from our friends that our wedding and reception was they best one they have ever attended.”
The couple spent the next year enjoying life as newlyweds. James started working as a Health Physicist Technician, which means he travels to nuclear commercial outages around the country. Holly joined the staff at Foothills Dental as a dental assistant and while they weren’t preventing pregnancy, they weren’t actively trying for a baby at that point
“I was a little surprised I didn’t get pregnant,” said Holly. “But after that first year, we decided it was definitely time to have a baby.”
That’s when the three year roller coaster ride began. Month after month with no positive pregnancy test can be trying on a marriage.
“We decided to concentrate on the strong point in our marriage and there are a lot,” said James. “We communicate very well with each other and we both want the same things out of life. We have such an unconditional love for one another so we didn’t want to give up starting a family.”
While the couple’s love for each other kept them going, they started digging into their medical history to find out why they weren’t conceiving.
“We did everything. We visited fertility doctors in Idaho Falls and consulted with doctors in Boise and I started taking different medicine,” said Holly. “I went through a medial procedure with Dr. Leavitt and James went through all the tests as well.”
All of this went on for three years with still no baby.
“I was so full of medicine that it started to effect my emotions,” said Holly. “I felt like I was going crazy and was complete basket case all the time.”
The end result of all of this was that both had fertility issues for different reasons and the chances of a biological baby were slim to none.
“It was devastating,” said James. “We knew we wanted to have children but we weren’t sure how that was going to happen.”
Holly had brought up the subject of adoption previously but James was more reserved about it in the beginning.
“You don’t want to have to put yourself out there in that way,” said James. “But after spending some time thinking about it, our decision to adopt sparked the parenthood flame that I had felt previously to our infertility issues.”
The moment that they decided to adopt will be forever sealed as a flashbulb memory in Holly’s mind.
“I was driving back to work after lunch and this crazy, weird feeling set in,” said Holly. “It was extremely calm and reassuring and I just KNEW this is what we have to do and that adoption was the way we were supposed to be parents. I called James on the phone and he immediately agreed. It was like we both had the same feeling.”
Part of the reason the couple knew that they could make adoption work was because of a very special girl named Eli.
“Eli’s mom, Lupita, and I work together and I started watching her one to two days a week when she was just 6 weeks old,” said Holly. “Through babysitting, James and I fell head over heels in love with this little girl.”
“When Holly called me that day to tell me she wanted to seriously pursue adoption, I told her that I knew because of the way I love Eli that I could love a baby that didn’t come from me,” said James. “My relationship with that little girl was complete confirmation that adoption was the right path for us.”
James calls Eli his angel because is the one who opened his heart to loving a child that isn’t his own unconditionally.
From that point on, the couple knew what they wanted to do but didn’t know exactly how to get it all started. As you can imagine, it’s a very overwhelming process, especially if you have no experience.
“Dorci, a lady I worked with, put me in touch with her daughter-in-law, Erin, because she and her husband have adopted two children,” said Holly. “Erin and I immediately began an email and texting relationship where she told me everything she could about adoption.”
She and Holly have since become good friends and she continues to help point the couple in the right direction.
James and Holly have decided on a domestic adoption of a newborn. They have no preference when it comes to gender or nationality.
“We know we will love any baby,” said Holly. “We know that our families will love any baby so race is not important to us.”
James’ mom Carol Deane completely agrees.
“I am excited about the prospect of having a new addition to our families. We have so much love to give; James, Holly, both sets of grandparents, all of us!” said Carol. “I believe adoption is a blessing for the baby, the birth mom and adoptive parents. I have seen these two in action and I can’t imagine better parents.”
The couple is hoping to find their baby through word of mouth.
“Everyone we know, our friends, our family, the dentists at Foothills, have been so incredibly supportive of our intent to adopt,” said Holly. “We had 50 pass along cards that people grabbed up within one day to hand out on our behalf. We just got 250 more.”
James and Holly are open to discussing any setup with a perspective birth mother.
“The adoption process has been a very humbling one. I have so much respect and compassion for any potential birth mom,” said Holly. “I want us to discuss everything so we can all be happy. I would love for it to work out so that James and I could go to doctor’s appointments and baby shopping with this special woman. But whatever she is comfortable with, we will comply with.” When it comes to financing the adoption, both James and Holly have been working hard to save up the necessary money. Their plans are to pay for it completely upfront without borrowing any money.
“James is on the road for months at a time,” said Holly. “He’s working to become a senior tech so he can get a permanent assignment and be home with the baby and I. But until then, the long hours he puts in shows his commitment to taking care of a baby that he hasn’t met yet. He’s so hard-working. It’s one of my favorite things about him.”
Along with dental assisting, Holly has also started her own business, Rehabbed Rubbish, to contribute to the adoption fund.
“I refurbish old furniture,” said Holly. “I take old interesting pieces and transform them into awesome vintage looking pieces.”
Until the couple finds their baby, they are going to continue on the journey. They are incredibly grateful for the support they have received from everyone who wants to connect them with a birth mother.