Our Story

If you’ve known us for any amount of time, you may have wondered at some point, “What’s up with those Fanning people?  They’ve been married awhile and are semi-old…why don’t they have any kids?”  Well, here’s our story.  Thank you in advance for taking the time to read it.

I’ll never forget the summer of 2002.  In the midst of working at a Young Life camp in Michigan for a month, we received a letter from our doctor back home.  A letter that brought devastating news to a young, newly married couple with nothing but hope and expectation of our future family.  Standing on a hill overlooking the camp, watching hundreds of kids running around having the “best week of their life”, we opened that letter that told us there was no way we would ever have children of our own.  We were devastated.

I’ve learned that no one really understands infertility unless you’ve gone through it yourself.  No one knows the sting of seeing a pregnant woman standing in front of you in line at the grocery store, the tears you fight when you’re surrounded by friends discussing diapers and breastfeeding and potty training, unless you’ve been there.  It feels like you are forever standing still and the entire world is passing you by. It was hard.

But once we got through the initial shock and the mourning of a dream, life went on.  We trusted that God had a plan for us, and we decided to be content with whatever that plan may be.  It got easier as time went by, and soon we were able to celebrate with friends and family having babies all around us with genuine joy.  God had given us many “kids” through Young Life and Wyldlife, and we had awesome nieces and nephews that we adored.  We were able to see our season of childlessness as a gift.  If that was God’s plan, we would live it out with joy and count our many blessings, knowing that if He ever wanted us to step into adoption he would make it clear, and it would be in His perfect timing.  Well, after 11 years of trusting in God and waiting with hope…that time has come.

In early May, Fans and I were hiking at Devil’s Lake when he stopped and showed me a picture on his cell phone.  It was of an adorable little boy.  Fans said, “So there’s this boy.  He’s 10 years old.  He needs a family.  What do you think?”  I was stunned for a moment and couldn’t speak.  I also couldn’t take my eyes off of the picture.  The screen would darken and I would tap it again to bring it back up.  I was smitten.  After so many years of waiting, I thought, “Wait, is this really happening?  Could this be him, God?  Could this really be our son?”  It was sort of crazy but sort of awesome at the same time.  That little boy never left my mind or heart after that day.

The reason Fans had a picture of that boy on his phone was because some friends of ours had hosted him for a few weeks through an orphan care program at Oakwood Church.  They fell in love with him and after he had to return to Latvia, they made it their mission to find him a family.  We never met him when he was here in the states for his short visit, but we will forever be grateful to the Olshanski's for leading us to our son.  

Long story short, after much prayer and through circumstances that have been clearly orchestrated by God, we are in the process of adopting that little boy.  He is now 11 years old and he is from Latvia.  His name and picture must stay off of the internet for now, so we will just call him D.  He has spent his childhood living in an orphanage and we can’t wait to be able to give him a home and a family and call him our son.  Just typing that sentence makes me smile.  I know what you’re thinking…”Where the heck is Latvia?”  Good question.  It’s a small European country (about half the size of Wisconsin) that is south of Estonia and Finland, and southeast of Sweden.

We are hoping to travel to Latvia sometime in January.  At the time of this post, we are just waiting for an official match and to get our court dates.  Once we have those, we can book our flights and get an apartment.  The Latvian adoption process requires us to live in Latvia for three weeks with D before bringing him home.  They call it the "bonding process", I call it a little bit awkward.  Can you imagine meeting these two strangers from America who now claim to be your mom and dad and then leaving everything you know to go live in an apartment with them for three weeks?  Yes, it's magical and dreamy and we are giving him a brand new life full of hope, but it's also just dang strange!  We are praying that he is open to starting a new adventure with us, and that everything goes smoothly.

Although he will come back to Wisconsin with us after the first trip, we still have to travel back to Latvia two more times over the next 6 months.  The second trip will involve only me or Fans going for a few court dates, and the third trip will be all three of us headed back for the final court dates that will make him officially ours.  

In the mean time, we are continuing to get ready as best we can (are you ever really ready to have a child, let alone an 11 year old orphan that doesn't speak English?).   Although we would have hoped to have D home for Christmas, we continue to wait patiently and try to soak up our final month as a childless couple.  

If you're worried about how our "first child" will handle the transition, Wrigley has taken to sleeping on the bed set up in D's new bedroom.  We know D likes dogs, so we are hoping they will be buddies.  Wrigs will just be excited to have another human to spoon with.