It's National Adoption Month! ~Sharing Our Story~

It’s national adoption month again and since adoption pretty much is on my mind day and night, Eric and I wanted to once again share our own story.  I look weekly at the photos of babies and children waiting for their forever families to find them. I’ve seen so many of these faces over the last few years go from being orphans on the other side of the world to becoming sons and daughters of friends in the US. Our son included. It was just 3 years ago that we saw his sweet face. The face of a special needs little guy in need of a family. The face of MY SON. Nothing makes me tear up faster than a happy (or sad) adoption story. God has put a burden on my heart for adoption and these children. One goal that I set at the end of last year was to support as many other adoptions as we could throughout this year. I had hoped to do at least one a month. So far, to date, we have bid in multiple online auctions, bought plenty of t-shirts, sweatshirts, a cape, and other items. In the process, we have been able to help support families 18 times so far this year.

I once read something that said if Christians stepped up as God commanded (James 1:27) then there wouldn't be an orphan crisis in the world. These children don't need the finest of things, they need families. I have a hard time sleeping at night when this is on my mind. Imagine being a child in an orphanage. Imagine crying yourself to sleep night after night. Imagine crying, but no one ever hearing or coming. Imagine going to bed hungry. Not having toys.  Imagine never really knowing the love of a mother and a father. I saw a photo that some fellow adoptive mommas have recently put as profile pictures on facebook recently and I really love it. There’s ALWAYS something that you can do to help.

It says:

ADOPT

If you can’t Adopt
FOSTER
If you can’t Foster
SPONSOR
If you can’t Sponsor
VOLUNTEER
If you can’t Volunteer
DONATE
If you can’t Donate
EDUCATE

One that I would like to also add to that list is PRAY. Pray that families, friends, colleagues, etc will step forward and stand up for the orphan crisis in the world.

 Eric & I have been together for over 15 years. We’ve been married 11 of those. We've been together since high school. After we got married, we decided to wait a couple of years before starting a family. After 2 years went by, we decided that we wanted to try to start a family. We tried to get pregnant for several years before going to a fertility specialist for some help. We tried several unsuccessful treatments before we decided that we didn't want to continue there. We have never been told that we can’t have biological children. We took a few more months off and after much prayer and discussion, made the decision to adopt. Infertility DOES NOT have to be a reason to adopt. It just so happened that infertility was something we have experienced along our path to our family. It was never a second choice. Adoption had been on my heart and mind for years, but we had worried that we would never be able to afford to adopt. It’s not cheap. But if there’s one thing I learned through our adoption process it’s that faith and God move mountains. With God, ALL things are possible. We had no a dime saved in the bank when we applied to adopt. Paycheck by paycheck, we started paying our upfront costs. We managed to save and borrow from our own funds to pay for our whole adoption. I had been researching all kinds of adoption information for the last couple of years. The more people that I got to know, the more blogs that I read, and the more people that I talked to about their adoption experiences, I felt so much more at ease that we would be able to adopt as well.  However, over the last couple of years, I have met some absolutely amazing families and new friends and I realize that adoption is absolutely NOT just for couples that have fertility issues. There are so many families made up of biological kids and adopted kids and they are beautiful, beautiful families. I love that we have made so many wonderful friendships with other adoptive families. It does sadden me though that so many couples won’t even consider adoption just because they can and do have biological children.

We made the decision in August 2010 to apply to Holt International. We prayed that if we were accepted that God was pointing us down the path that we were meant to take. We received a phone call very shortly after letting us know that we were approved. I requested the files for a little girl and a little boy just a couple of weeks after being accepted. We had to turn down both of those files, but since then, an awesome thing has happened. I am now friends with the sweet baby girl’s mom on Facebook. I now follow along with her and love seeing how she’s doing and growing. The third file I requested was our sweet boy's. I took our pediatrician a couple of weeks to review his file and get back with me about her professional opinion of his special needs. It was agony waiting. We were the only family that requested to move forward with his adoption, so we didn't have to go against any other family in front of the committee. We had an over the phone interview and after answering many questions about Landon's special needs and how we would take care of him and how we could provide care for his possible special needs. We had our over the phone interview on 11/16 (our 8 year anniversary!) and were told on 11/17 that we had a son! That moment changed our lives forever. We became parents. I went for weeks worrying and wondering, is he really ours? I even emailed and asked the girl who did our interview if he was really ours. Nothing really felt final until we received his legal paperwork, which didn't come until January because our social worker took an additional month and a half to turn in our approved home study. With the exception of the wait, the paperwork is probably the toughest part of the adoption process. That and getting things done in a timely manner (or timely in my opinion).

Fast forward now 3 years later....We are more blessed than I could have imagined. Landon is my absolute dream come true. I still look at him and cannot believe he’s actually here. I think back 3 years ago this day and hearing the words, “Congratulations! You have a son!” and remembering how I felt. I was scared, nervous, and wondered if it was really true. Now, I cannot wait to again grow our family through adoption. That will be the only way that we add to our family from now on. We have our ups and downs just like any family, but at the end of the day, He’s completely and totally meant to be ours and he’s worth it all. I would do it over and over again if I had to. God knew exactly what he was doing when he ordained this little boy as our son. I encourage you that if God is pulling at your heart about adoption, Listen. You'll be glad you did. Adoption is a blessing. I'd be happy to talk or answer any questions at all if someone is interested in adoption. It is something that God has definitely laid upon my heart and my life is completely blessed because of it.