As long as I can remember the Lord placed the desire in my heart to become a mother. Growing up, I struggled with some health issues. In light of this, I was recommended to see a fertility specialist. After having a few tests done, they revealed I was not eligible for fertility treatment and I would be unable to get pregnant on my own. Despite our struggles with infertility, being parents had always been something my husband and I both wanted. We wanted to be able to give a child a loving home. We felt like God was using everything in our lives that we had been through to lead us to this amazing journey of adoption. After soul-searching and praying, we realized that our goal was not to experience pregnancy, but to become parents and add a child to our family. After reaching out to a few different people that had successful adoptions and hearing their stories, we knew God was solidifying our decision to pursue adoption.
We hired Christian Adoption Consultants after receiving a recommendation from a friend that also used CAC during their adoption journey. We were assigned to our consultant, KELLY TODD. Right from our initial phone call I knew we were in great hands. Never before have I spoken to a stranger over the phone and poured my heart and soul out over the question, "What led you to adoption?" She listened and by the end of this initial phone call we were both in tears and knew that God had placed us with each other for a reason. Kelly was with us the remainder of our process!
We started our adoption journey by hiring a home study agency, recommended to us by CAC. We completed state clearances, physicals, autobiographies, questionnaires, financial paperwork, home visits, etc. Once we were approved we moved into the next phase-the adoption profile book. Our profile was completed by their on-staff graphic designer who specializes in creating adoption profile books. After our home study was complete and while our profile book was being created we began applying for adoption grants, recommended to us by CAC. They had an entire list in our Adoptive Parent Guide Book, so we just went through them one by one to see which ones we qualified for and applied.
After our book was completed, we took advantage of the multi-agency approach and began applying with agencies. When agencies start sending us possible adoption cases, Kelly would give us her professional input on the risk involved and her thoughts on the situation. If we decided to move forward with presenting, we wrote a letter and Kelly would look over it and give feedback. She was our advocate throughout the entire process.
The waiting in the adoption process is difficult. It's something that you are told will be a struggle, but it's something that you truly don’t understand until you are in it. You can do all the research and complete all the necessary steps in moving forward with the adoption process, but the waiting is something that no one can prepare you for. It's lonely, dark, and at times discouraging.
For my family the waiting process at first didn’t seem long. We were matched with an expecting mother early in our journey. We were so excited! However, she ultimately decided to parent. It was extremely difficult to process. What made the pain seem even more intense was that I am a twin and my twin was due to deliver her baby 2 days after the expecting mother's due date. I had been dreaming about raising our kiddos together. Our caseworker with the agency told us she understood if we needed time to grieve, but we told her that we wanted to continue moving forward in the process.
As we grieved during the holidays, we were hopeful that the new year would bring us hope and joy. Our nursery room became my quiet place with the Lord in prayer. I remember praying for God to turn my hurt and sorrow into something beautiful. I remember praying for the Lord to fill this room with so much love and laughter. I prayed and prayed as potential cases came through. I reset my prayers for the new year to start praying for every single individual expecting mother that I got the pleasure of reading about. I prayed for every single woman and her situation. If we were not chosen I prayed for the child and the family that was. We knew our “nos” were someone else's “YES” and that gave us hope in this process!
God’s timing is truly remarkable! I began the summer with unexpected health issues that had led me to have unexpected surgery. I saw that I received an email from an agency sending us a possible adoption situation and they wanted us to look over everything and decide if we wanted to show our family profile to this expectant mother. I felt God telling me to apply even in the midst of my situation. Not too long after we got “the call." It was our consultant, Kelly Todd, telling us that the expecting mom had chosen us! We immediately broke down and were just in disbelief and in awe of what was happening!
The weeks leading up to our son’s birth we had the opportunity to build a relationship with our son’s birth parents. It was such a special time. The week prior to our son’s due date we flew out to Arizona in hopes of meeting up with our birth mom. The day finally came when we got the phone call from our son's birth mother that she was in labor! We were given the honor of being in the delivery room with her. She had told me leading up to delivery that she wanted to be the one to hand me my son after he was born. When she placed her son into my arms she said to him, "This is your mommy." I just felt a sense of peace as I looked into his eyes. I knew at that moment the Lord truly had a beautiful plan for my family all along.
