Hi! We are Jesse and Brittany Johnson! We have been married seven years and live in a small town called Elizabethton in Northeast Tennessee. In our free time, we love to work on our fixer upper, play with our pup, Captain, play church league softball and hang out with our friends.
We were married in March 2013 and shortly after, we ditched the birth control. We both knew we wanted big a big family and that we wanted it to be full of biological and adopted children. We just assumed that we would start with the biological, but before we knew it, we had been married five years without any children. At this point, we thought maybe something wasn’t working right… so we decided to go get some answers. After months and months of testing, surgeries, and fertility medications, we were diagnosed with dual factor infertility. Without major medical intervention, natural conception just wasn’t going to happen for us. The news came as a heart crusher and turned our ideal future upside down. We were told that in order to conceive, invitro fertilization (IVF) would be our best bet. At the beginning, I (Brittany) was determined to do IVF. I knew it was expensive, so I started looking at companies that covered IVF on their insurance. Enter: Starbucks. Even though I had a full-time job as a 3rd grade teacher, I applied to three different Starbucks’ in our area. God shut those doors immediately. After the Starbucks door was shut, we weren’t sure what to do. We knew that we couldn’t afford IVF. One treatment would run us about $15,000 and there was no guarantee that it would even be successful. That’s when I started looking up the hashtag #adoption. Slowly, Brittany started feeling the Lord press upon her heart the reality of what adoption could look like in her life. It took Jesse a little longer, but he eventually came around. As we researched about adoption, we realized that it was even MORE expensive than IVF. If we couldn’t afford $15,000 how on earth would we be able to afford $50,000? Unsure and kind of in a standstill, we came across an infertility conference that was being held in Atlanta. Brittany entered a contest to win a trip to the conference and ended up not winning. However, the conference leader had reached out and offered us tickets and a free stay at a hotel as long as we were able to get to Atlanta on our own! We went and that is where God completely transformed our minds and hearts on adoption.
We came away from that conference knowing what the Lord wanted us to do. We knew that we were to build our family through adoption. We didn’t know how we were going to pay for it, but we knew He would provide. We announced our plans to adopt in August and it was incredible to see what happened. Through crowdfunding, a few fundraisers, and grants we have been able to raise nearly 80% of the money we need.
On Valentine’s Day, we were matched with a baby boy due in May. The total cost of the adoption is $45,000. We have just a little over $10,000 left to raise which is incredible in and among itself. We are so blown away by the Lord’s faithfulness through this whole process and can’t wait to see what else He has in store!
Amazing progress on a huge bill..such a familiar story and a great chance to show your support by sporting one of these amazing bows. Click on the photo below to shop!
