Our Adoption StoryHow It All Began...
A Unique Journey
Our path to adoption and to our daughter was a bit unique. We had our first son biologically early in our relationship, but after a potential genetic heart defect diagnosis, we chose to pursue adoption.
We initially joined with a smaller local agency, but after two and a half years of waiting, we were referred to Angel to hopefully speed up what was already a lengthy process. Right after completing our profile, we were contacted by our original agency that there had been a baby boy born and his birthmother had selected us as his adoptive parents. We knew we could not pass up this opportunity and decided to pause our time with Angel as we successfully adopted our son.
The transition from one child to two wasn’t as easy as we had anticipated, so we remained on hold with Angel for two and a half years. When we were finally ready to jump back in, we updated our profile and our home study and were ready for another long wait.
Finding a Connection
After waiting two and a half years for our son, we knew we might have an uphill battle for our second adoption. As we had learned from our first experience, there was little we could control, and we needed to be patient.
While packing up after vacationing in Florida only five months into our wait, Angel called us and let us know our profile had been selected by an expectant mother. This was already so different from our first experience; it hadn’t been years, and we were going to have the opportunity to build a relationship with the expectant mother. Our son has a closed adoption and we’ve never had contact with his birthmother, so while we were excited, we were incredibly nervous. We spent the majority of our drive home from Florida texting with the expectant mother, and our conversation felt natural and easy.
Following the expectant mother’s lead, we did not visit her prior to delivery but were open to it if she had requested it. We were able to find out her due date had been moved up quite a bit and she was expecting a baby girl. We continued to text periodically, although sometimes our schedules did not line up with both of us busy with our own children.
A Dream Come True
We knew the expectant mother was going to be induced, so we headed to the birth state a couple days early. The morning of her induction, we headed to the hospital. There was a bit of confusion as to where we were supposed to be, so we waited in the waiting room until it was time to meet our daughter. Once our daughter was born, the hospital provided us our own room, and we were finally able to meet her, our precious Adelyn. Meeting Addie was a dream come true; she was absolutely perfect.
Shortly after meeting Addie, we were able to meet her birthmother. We were both nervous to meet her as there were no words to express our gratitude and love toward her. We recognized she had just been through her own physical trauma and now the potential emotional trauma of meeting her daughter’s adoptive parents; it was overwhelming. Our time with Addie’s birthmother was short, but Addie split time between us and her birthmother while still in the hospital.
Once discharged from the hospital, we had three weeks to wait in Addie’s birth state before we were able to return home. Our attorneys had been honest with us that Addie’s birthmother was struggling to sign. She knew she needed to place and was confident with us being her daughter’s family, but actually signing was taking an emotional toll on her. We knew there was the potential she might not sign, but we remained hopeful and were relieved when our attorneys let us know she finally signed.
When we returned home with Addie, we were welcomed by so many family members and neighbors waiting for us in our yard. It was the best homecoming for the final piece of our family puzzle.
Different Journeys, Different Children
Since Addie’s adoption, we have had contact with her birthmother through email and text messaging. We’ve enjoyed having communication with her, and we are forever grateful she has allowed us to remain in her life.
After going through the adoption process twice with two very different experiences, and with a biological child with a heart defect, we realize all three of our children were meant to be ours and their journeys are uniquely their own. After all is said and done, the waiting and stress go away, and you’re left with your perfect story.