Mara was a Finance Specialist by choice and a mother by almost accidental design. She had been diagnosed with unexplained infertility a year into marriage and before she and her husband Dan had even had time to make a decision about going down the long, heart wrenching and expensive fertility road, she called an adoption agency on a whim. She never expected the process to go smoothly but was pleasantly surprised how easily they were accepted as perspective adoptive parents. There were of course the home studies and the perspective parent classes, but all in all it was a bearable process.


Their first "almost adoption" was traumatic for them both, but was never truly meant to be. The father of the almost adopted child was never really on board, he had his doubts and reservations even when the child's mother was just talking about working with the adoption agency. The fact that Mara and Dan knew this to begin with should have helped them brace for that eventuality but still, it hurt. For Mara, losing a child to a failed adoption felt like a miscarriage for the infertile.

Despite this initial setback and heartbreak, they went forward with the adoption of their son Karter the next year even though there were also some concerns as to his birth fathers willingness to sign over his parental rights. The first year after his birth, Mara and Dan waited on pins an needles to see if the finalization of Karters adoption would go through. To lose a child after getting to know and love him would unbearable. Mara felt it would be easier to have her heart ripped out than to survive loosing Karter.