When the Journey Feels Too Hard: A Story of Perseverance in Adoption
Before David and Ashley began working with me at Christian Adoption Consultants, they had already been pursuing adoption for over a year with two adoption attorneys. During that time they experienced both a failed adoption and an adoption scam. By the time they reached out to Christian Adoption Consultants, they were understandably discouraged and exhausted. The adoption journey had taken a toll, and they were carrying the weight of a lot of disappointment.
Ashley and I had countless conversations about trusting God’s timing, even when it doesn’t make sense. I watched as they continued to persevere through the adoption process, presenting their profile again and again and praying through every situation. It wasn’t easy. There were tears. There were moments of doubt and questions like, “God, what are you doing here? Have you forgotten about us?”
But through it all, they continued placing their hope in the One who was writing their story.
If you’re feeling weary or discouraged in your own adoption journey, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read Ashley’s words. My prayer is that their story reminds you that even when the road feels long and uncertain, God is still working.
Adoption has always been something that my husband and I knew would be a part of our family's story, even from when we were dating. I had worked as an adoption social worker and saw firsthand the beauty and the struggles with adoption. We knew that conceiving a biological child would be difficult but we felt that we needed to try. We tried unsuccessfully to conceive for six months and then after learning that extensive fertility treatments would be necessary, we took this as God leading us to pursue adoption. In January 2014, we began the adoption process and welcomed our son Matthew with the help of Christian Adoption Consultants in May 2014.
In August 2018, we started the adoption process again , thinking that it would be a similar timeline to our first adoption. It was anything but that but God knew what He was doing. We reached out to Kelly at CAC in August 2019 after experiencing an adoption scam and a failed match. By the time our profile book was ready and we had presented to a few situations, we learned that our home study update would essentially have to be a new home study. We got that finished only for COVID to hit and things slowed down a lot. Over the next year, I think we presented 20 times and each no was harder to hear. We updated our profile book, expanded preferences, you name it- but nothing was happening. We were beginning to wonder if this ever was going to happen or if we had heard God wrong. Kelly was there every step of the way, encouraging us and praying for us.
We had presented to yet another situation and it was another no. We were scraping the bottom of the barrel for hope and we were weary. In the early Spring, we received a phone call from an attorney about an expectant mom due in 4 weeks. We had to make our decision to present fairly quickly. 4 hours later, we got the call saying that we had been matched. We were cautiously excited. The next week, the attorney's office called and said that a C-section had been scheduled for 2 weeks later. Four hours later, we got a message from the birth family saying that the baby was coming that night! A short time later, we saw a picture of a beautiful baby girl.
We scrambled to get packed and we drove 6 hours to the hospital and visited with our daughter's birth family on my husband's birthday! . God had truly gone before us because the pediatrician was our former missions pastor's wife! Alora needed to be transferred to a bigger hospital and the pediatrician chose the one in a city where we had previously lived. God knew that we would need the love and support of our friends there because the next week was the hardest of our lives. It looked like things were unraveling as quickly as they had come together but God was so faithful. A week later, we left the hospital with our daughter, Alora Kay! Alora means "my dream" and "Lord is my light." Kay means "rejoice.” Her middle name is my middle name, my mother's middle name and just happened to be her biological grandmother's first name!
Kelly was such an encouragement to us, even when nothing made sense. She kept reminding us that God wouldn't allow us to miss our baby. We also knew to trust in God's timing but to also trust in His delays- His timing is perfect. I laughed and said that I was going to be 40 with a newborn and sure enough, Alora arrived and I turned 40 a few weeks later! Looking back, we can see how God was orchestrating every "no" into the best yes.
***If you are interested in learning more about adoption and the services we provide at Christian Adoption Consultants, I would love to chat! Email me, Kelly Todd, at kelly@christianadoptionconsultants.com to request a FREE information packet!***