Our adoption story begins like most, with a desire to grow our family. Coupled with that however, we had a strong desire to be able to display the gospel- the truth that while we were far off God brought us into His family- by specifically adopting internationally and bringing a far off orphan into a forever family. After a one year journey of paperwork, training classes, and fundraising we had to walk away from our international journey due to complications. This moment felt devastating as if our adoption journey may never come to completion. Then, there was Lutheran Family & Children’s Services. They offered us answers, guidance, and help, and with them we began our domestic infant adoption process.
We had to recalibrate our minds around this new journey. Our child would be local, there would be a birthparent involved, and we would be receiving an infant from the hospital, not a toddler from a far off orphanage. All of this was so much to process and taught us that often the adoption journey we think we will have does not turn out as pictured. But for us the reality was so much better.
After a few months of being in the waiting stage, and a few times of not being chosen for a match, we received a phone call that our book would be shown to a family who was local and had given birth to a little girl. The time between the notification that your being considered and the follow up to know if you have been chosen can be the longest part of the process. Although it typically only lasts a week, those days seem to drag on with nothing to think about except the baby.
We received our phone call on a Friday morning. She was ours. We had been chosen. I remember the phone call being a blur. We received the news within the first few sentences of conversation and my husband and I just kept staring at each other as our case worker on the other end of the line gave all kinds of important information that I was totally incapable of hearing and processing. We hung up the phone in shock and pure joy only to be jolted back to reality by the doorbell. Our nursery furniture, which we ordered just in case, was being delivered. Just in time.
We met our daughter on a Tuesday, after spending a precious few moments with her birth parents, and our lives changed forever. We became a family of three and without a second of hesitation, the full journey of our process was worth it.