Stretch-mark My Heart: Building Our Family through Adoption One Child (or Two) at a Time

Book excerpt: Beginning with infertility and one couple’s struggle with building their family, Stretch-mark My Heart dives headlong into the fragmented world of the US foster care system. Following the adoption journey of Matt and Niki Tschirgi (pronounced Sure-Gee), this book lays the groundwork from start to finish regarding what it takes to have a child permanently placed in your home for adoption. Through fostering, private adoption, open adoption, and foster-to-adopt, Niki recounts the lonely and grievous road of infertility, her and her husband’s decision-making process to choose adoption, the hard work and perseverance to get licensed to be foster parents, and the finalization of six adoptions. Discover how the Tschirgis became a blended family over the course of six years and doubled their family size while moving from Washington to Texas. Stretch-mark My Heart will immerse you in the complicated process of accepting and loving into your home children who were born out of trauma, abuse, and neglect. See how each child was uniquely meant to be a part of this family. Travel along this bumpy yet inspiring road and explore many facets of adoption, including sibling-group, multiracial, infant, and older-child adoption. Although heartbreak, trials, and the unknown are present throughout this book, triumph, miracles, unconditional love, and belonging overshadow the pain and loss of infertility, as well as the brokenness inherent in being a child in foster care. Stretch-mark My Heart will help you understand the intricate and detailed plan that God had for a family to be built together by the power of choice… the choice of adoption.