Our Adoption StoryHow It All Began...
Our Struggles Building Our Family
We always knew we wanted to have children and build our family. We thought the process of having children would come easily to us, but unfortunately, it did not. We believe a child is a gift from God, so we are beyond grateful to have been blessed with our beautiful son, Emory. We knew after we had Emory that we wanted to grow our family and have more than one child. We both come from families with multiple siblings and knew that is what we wanted for our family. When we started trying again, we soon realized life does not always go as planned as we suffered from several miscarriages. After accepting the fact that we were not able to have any more children on our own, we started looking at alternative options. It was then when God led us to adoption, and it did not take long to follow his guidance.
When we started our adoption research, we reached out to a total of five to six different agencies. Angel Adoption was at the top of our list. When we had our meeting with Angel, we felt an immediate connection. We felt as though everyone was so caring and that their hearts were fully in adoption. Angel was realistic about the process, which we appreciated so much. They have a great success rate and do adoption nationwide. We just knew this was the agency for us.
As we started our adoption journey, we, like most adoptive parents, were extremely nervous. We were not very hopeful because we had tried so many times to further build our family but always failed. It seemed like it was another box to check off saying we had tried every opportunity and option out there. Having our friends and family’s support made starting this process a lot easier. We were excited about the start of our journey, although we had our guard up, ready to protect our hearts.
Our Bumpy Ride
One day we received a call from Angel informing us about a potential expectant mother who wanted to start communicating with us. We were extremely excited but still guarded our hearts. She was about four to five weeks pregnant, which made us apprehensive about her. Unfortunately, the gut feeling we had right as she decided to parent. We accepted her decision as we knew it was the right decision for her, but we still felt sad about it.
Some more time passed when we were connected with another expectant mother. She told us that before she wanted to fully commit to us, she wanted to meet with us beforehand. We were so willing to meet with her because we wanted this so badly. We ended up flying to where she lived, bringing Emory with us. When we arrived, ready to meet with her, she did not want to meet with us anymore. We were completely devastated. We made light of the situation as best as we could and tried to enjoy ourselves for the rest of the trip. She continued to talk with us while we were there, but she just did not want to meet with us. We would be lying if we said that we were not a little confused. We left that trip confused as well as devastated.
God Led Us to This Moment
As the months went on, she decided she was going to keep the baby. Again, we could not be angry with her, but we were just completely devastated and emotional. We were starting to wonder if this process was really meant for us. Just as we were doubting the process, we received a call about another expectant mother who wanted to talk with us. As emotionally drained as we were, we decided to give it a chance because we knew going into this it was going to be a process; it would not hurt to give it a try. We are so glad we did because God slipped her under our feet knowing she was the one to help further build our family as well as continue to be a part of ours.
Over the next few months, we were in constant contact with her. We would text with her about twice a week, giving her the space she needed. We would ask how she was doing, and she would give us updates when she had them. She was always honest with us about what she wanted. She, too, had a long ride with the adoption process. We were her third family because other families had backed out. She was just as nervous as we were. In that way, it seemed like a perfect match. We valued her honesty because that was all we wanted out of this process.
Meeting Our Precious Son
Leading up to her delivery, we felt lucky she was getting induced. This allowed us to become more prepared and lessened our nerves. On the day of her induction, we had dinner together and then headed to the hospital at around 6 p.m. Blake entered the world at 10:30 p.m., changing our lives forever. We immediately started crying the minute we laid eyes on him. He was just perfect. It is an experience we will never forget because we got to experience it all with his birthmother. We were allowed time with him alone, and those first moments were some of the best moments of our lives. We knew the heartache, the anxiousness, and the devastation we went through had led us to this exact moment, and we will forever be grateful for this experience.
This Process Is Meant to Be
Going through adoption was a new experience. We had to learn to have patience and trust the process. You will have times when you doubt whether this is the right path for you and if you should trust another expectant mother because you have been broken down before. We are proof that you should take advantage of those opportunities because if we had not, we would not have been led to our precious Blake. The journey may not be pretty, but the outcome will always be beautiful.