Megan Simmons wanted to share her joy of becoming an expectant mother through adoption. Logan Kilgore was taking pictures for some friends to help document their journey to becoming parents.

Neither knew how far-reaching an impact both the images and the story of Megan and her husband Ray’s path to becoming adoptive parents would have across the globe through social media.

“Before we started the process of adoption, our pastor said to us, ‘I know that God is working in your lives, and I want you to be open to the Holy Spirit because he is going to open something up that you have never experienced,’” Megan said. “I know God has a plan for each of our lives, I had no idea he would use an ordinary person in this way.”

Pictures from a photo shoot by Logan of Megan and Ray announcing their decision to adopt were posted on Logan’s Facebook account, and the images captured the attention of social media. Logan posted the photos on March 28, and as of Wednesday afternoon the album had more than 46,000 likes. A Facebook page Megan created to tell the couple’s story has more than 12,000 likes, and those numbers are continuing to grow.

On Sunday, a posting about the pictures and the couple’s story appeared on the Facebook page of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Megan said she has also been contacted by a national magazine interested in doing a story as well. Interest in the faithful couple trying to start a family continues to grow.

Trying to start a family

Megan, a middle school language arts teacher, said she and her husband “had a calling” to start a family in April 2014. It was around that time that the couple, who both grew up in Chatsworth, moved to Dalton, Georgia.

But Megan’s body wouldn’t allow the pregnancy they both so desired to happen due to fertility issues. Both Megan and Ray, who works for Mohawk at both its Dalton and Calhoun facilities in planning, are athletic and frequently work out, and Megan said she wondered why her body wasn’t accepting a pregnancy.

“It is kind of shameful and you feel like your body is failing you,” Megan said.

“We prayed that God would fulfill us the desires of our heart, and that is what has gotten us through this entire process — prayer and the faith that God was using this for something. We have questioned what have we done wrong, but I know we never lost our faith.”

Failing to conceive naturally even with the help of fertility treatments, the couple tried four separate intrauterine insemination (IUI) procedures.

“I swear over the course of the last two years, I have went through 100 early pregnancy tests,” Megan laughs now, but each negative test was a little harder to take.

Then, doctors diagnosed Megan with endometriosis, a condition caused by tissue growing on the outside of her uterus. After having corrective surgery, the couple tried three more IUI procedures and racked up more than $8,000 in medical bills, not including the surgery.  

“At that point, I was so tired and couldn’t really come to terms with in vitro fertilization,” Megan said. “People don’t understand unless you have walked through their shoes. They want to support and help, but they don’t know how it is to go each month and wonder why. Every month, you are mourning the loss of a child you have never met. You are longing for this child. I have had dreams of this child, very vivid, surreal dreams.”

“We finally prayed to God and said, ‘If this is not your will, take it from us,’” she said. “That never happened to us. That desire to have a child never went away.”

Sharing her story

Megan began keeping a private blog for family and select friends, partly as a way to update and partly as a therapeutic release. She said she needed to share to keep from silently carrying the burden the way she had early on in her attempts to have a child.

“When I started it, it was my husband, myself and two friends who had access to it,” Megan said. “I wrote the blog to the baby with the intent of sharing it with this baby. I basically wanted to say that what we went through wasn’t a mistake or an accident. The message to the baby was that we have longed and waited for you and I want the baby to know.”

“I was wary of sharing (my story) because it is opening your heart and making yourself vulnerable,” Megan said. “God used us in some way, but if we aren’t willing to share, nobody knows what I am going through and how it might help others. We all have struggles in life and it is so hard to be vulnerable, and when you do, the support you receive blows you away.”

Taking a new step

After the failed attempts at conceiving through the IUI procedures, the couple decided to explore adoption. They contacted Bethany Christian Services, an adoption agency in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

As part of its application process, Bethany requires the family looking to adopt to tell its story of its road to adoption. Megan told hers in a video, and even after all of the preparation and the forms and the discussions, when it came time for the appointment to meet with an adoption counselor, doubts began to creep in again.

“We had an appointment scheduled with the adoption agency, and I was so hesitant to go,” Megan said. “If something happened and we weren’t approved to be an adoptive family, then we knew that was God’s way of closing a chapter in our lives and it would be very sad. We left there, and my husband is the type who is going to ponder every decision — he’s a thinker and needs time to process things. But we left there, and we immediately looked at each other and said, ‘This is it.’ The peace that came over both of us, I can’t even put it into words to have that burden lifted.”

Now, as the couple awaits a match from the adoption agency, Megan says she knows the entire journey has been worth it and part of a bigger plan.

“Adoption is not our second choice, but this whole journey has been God preparing us for adoption,” she said. “Whatever form, whatever way this child will come into our lives and we will be so grateful. I serve a great God and I could be pregnant tomorrow and end up with five babies. But I know there is a baby out there that needs us and we need that baby.”

Documenting the new path

Users of social media, or even if you have a relative who may have given birth in recent years, know the pictures that many people post to their sites and accounts and to the walls of their living rooms documenting their steps through pregnancy. Pictures of women’s bellies with a happy face when a pregnancy is announced, and others of the wife standing in front of her husband with both touching a growing belly, have become ways for couples to announce and share their growing families with others.

For Megan and Ray, there would be no photos exactly like that, but Megan said she didn’t want to miss out on that part of her journey. Logan works at Mohawk with Ray, and Megan also has been working in photography in her spare hours and on weekends. She had already been documenting many of the steps along their way.

“I feel very, very lucky to be chosen to help tell their story,” Logan said. “Each time, they got a failed result, I would be somewhere with a camera to catch it, hoping that this would be the time that we got to see pure joy on both of their faces. It has been an emotional journey for me as well.”

The photo shoot included some of the traditional poses, with the couple holding a sign announcing they were going to be new parents. Another featured the traditional pose of the pregnant woman with both hands of the couple on the stomach, but instead of a growing belly, they used a globe, with Megan’s hands in the shape of a heart around a portion of North America since the couple plans to adopt an American baby.

They also had photos of traditional family items in a setting with a bunny rabbit and luggage to symbolize the arrival of their new child.

Perhaps the most touching for those familiar with adoption was Megan and Ray holding Scrabble pieces spelling out the word “ADOPTION” with their wedding rings in the places of the Os.

After the shoot, Logan posted a small group of the photos to Megan’s Facebook page and the number of people liking and sharing continued to grow and grow and grow.

“It was amazing how quickly it took off,” Logan said. “We had shares as far as Spain. We never, ever expected it to go viral. She just didn’t want to miss anything and this was her own version of maternity photos. It just kind of grew and kept going from there.”

Megan said she was overwhelmed with the response. After so many likes and shares, she decided to go another step and share the video and start a dedicated Facebook page for updating all of the people who have contacted her.

“We are very overwhelmed but so thankful for all of the people who helped share our story,” Megan said. “It seems so ordinary to me, but whenever we got so many views on the pictures and shares and these friend requests on this it made me realize this touched people in a certain way.

“I don’t think we are unique, but I think it is so relatable to so many people. The warmth and encouragement that flooded my Facebook page, it has been so fulfilling. This was our purpose for walking this journey.”

Whitfield writes for the Dalton, Georgia Daily Citizen.