The pieces of our adoption story started falling into place long before we officially made the decision to pursue adoption. We moved, changed jobs, received promotions, and met new people. All of these things happened because God knew where we needed to be in order to adopt. He knew the path our lives needed to take for our lifestyle, finances, and hearts to be ready.
When we look back, we clearly see all of the moments God was working in our lives in order to bring our daughter home. The Lord was preparing our way.
When we first knew having biological children wouldn’t come easy for us, adopting was in our conversations from the very beginning. Adoption was quickly put into our hearts whether or not we had biological children. After a couple surgeries, medications, and two miscarriages, we could feel God tugging at our hearts. It was time to start the adoption process.
We filled out the paperwork, started on our profile book and were home study ready by August 12, 2016.
It was on January 13th when I saw a situation that I was feeling completely drawn towards. I quickly called my husband and we decided to present. I felt so content and comfortable with this situation; it was a different type of peace than I had felt with any other situation.
It was three days later when we got the call that we were matched with our daughter’s birth mother. I will never forget how we felt that day. We had been praying for this moment for many years and we knew this is what the Lord had us waiting for.
Anytime someone ventures down a road that is unfamiliar, one is bound to be scared and have fears. Two of my biggest fears were not bonding with the baby right away and not having a connection with the birth mother. However, once we were matched, our love immediately started growing for our daughter and her birth mother.
It was amazing to me how our love started to grow for this little girl that we had never seen in an ultrasound, heard her heartbeat, or felt her move. We also instantly started praying for this beautiful woman that was giving life to our precious baby and we started to feel this connection with her just through our prayers.
We met our daughter’s birth mother, we’ll call her “S,” for the first time at dinner a few hours before she had to head to the hospital to be induced. My fear of having a connection with her was immediately put to rest. The conversation flowed so easily and we felt like old friends that just hadn’t seen each other in a long time. We were able to spend a lot of time in the hospital with S and we were able to get to know her even more.
We are so in awe of her. She is the most courageous, loving, self-less and strongest person we have ever met. We have a semi-open adoption plan so we send S pictures and letters on a consistent basis. Someday, when the time is right, we hope we are able to take our daughter to meet her birth mother.
It was about 15 minutes after our little girl was born that we were able to be with her in the nursery. From the very first look at her, we fell completely in love. Just as any parent, we immediately loved her and had this instant need to make sure she was safe and secure.
Then we were able to hold her, watch her sleep, open her eyes, watch her facial expressions and see her smile. The love and bond with her just continued to grow to a love that we couldn’t have imagined. I truly believe that the bonding happened the same exact way it would have with a biological child.
Adoption has been such a beautiful journey that will continue for the rest of our lives. As our daughter grows, we will tell her the story of how she came to be ours. The journey wasn’t easy. It was filled with loss, heartache and many tears. However, now that we have our daughter, we couldn’t imagine it any other way.
This story was originally published on Grace Filled Mess. All photos were taken by Cocobee Photography.
