Our Adoption Story

This is the story of Nathan's adoption...there were many magnificent miracles throughout the process.

In May 2007, Tim and I decided to sign with Abba Adoption in Little Rock, AR.  It was Memorial Day weekend and the plan was to do the paperwork the following Tuesday.  Our Father had other plans though.  That weekend, we were on a scenic train ride and Tim fell off the steps and broke his ankle.   Of course, I should mention he was carrying a sleeping Nicholas so everyone does not think he is a complete klutz!  He had to have surgery and would be on crutches the entire summer so needless to say we did not feel strongly about bringing an infant into our home with only 1 parent able to care for it...I felt very strongly about this! :-)

We began to question if adoption was really God's plan for us.  Life was good, Katie had potty trained, we decided to go on a mission trip to Thailand with our church...how would an infant fit into our life?  Neither Tim nor I felt we were getting a green light to move forward.

Then I attended a women's conference where Priscilla Shirer spoke.  The big question was, "what is God asking you to do?"  and "why are you not listening?".  I came home and talked to Tim and said I think we need to go to the Lord and ask for direction.  Was he asking us to take a step of faith?  We had all of these excuses about why we should not adopt but in reality, they were all selfish reasons.

Tim and I continued to pray during the Spring of 2008 and we kept getting the same answer.  We felt God saying, "take a step and do something, I will lead you from there".  So we started interviewing agencies again.  We were wondering if Abba was the agency for our child so we talked to several different agencies and boy did some interesting things happen!

The first agency we chose to interview said they were Christian, which was one of our first requirements.  However, when we asked about their beliefs, the lady on the phone hesitated and started asking why we wanted to know this???  I was extremely confused, if your information says you are Christian, you should be able to tell me your basic beliefs!  Come to find out, they are not really a Christian agency, they adopt to any family AND we got the impression that they coerced the birthmothers into giving up their children instead of giving them their options. 

So we felt this was a pretty strong sign to move on.  Next, we spoke with an agency that operates all over the US.  We filled out our pre-application, spoke with a representative and felt strongly that this would be the agency we would use.   We waited and waited but never heard back from them.  Finally, we started talking to ABBA again.  We had a strong connection to the owner and some very dear friends had used this agency to adopt their children.  We signed the paperwork at the end of April 2008.

I forgot to mention, we did go through the international vs. domestic adoption question.  We felt like there are so many children in the United States that need homes that we were willing to take the legal risks that we perceived about domestic adoption.  You rarely hear the great stories on the nightly news!  In reality, very few domestic adoptions are overturned.  If a birthmother changes her mind, it is usually within the waiting time period before going to court.

The next question that came up was "what race?"  Amazingly, price is determined by the race of the child...this is so sad to me!  Tim and I feel that we all belong to the human race of God and we are all God's children.  Once again, our decision was made easy.  We knew that God would give us the baby he wanted for our family so we opened it up to any child.  Nathan is Caucasion & African American...he is gorgeous with his sweet curls.

Within weeks we were matched with our birthmother Jennifer.  Tim and I were so nervous...would we love this baby as much as Nicholas and Katie?  There were so many things that could go wrong.  Would Jennifer change her mind?  Was she taking care of herself and the baby?  This was a very crazy time for us.  Tim and I are both control freaks and we clearly had no control, we had to turn it over to the Lord.  Once we did, the process was so smooth (not to say that we did not have to keep re-giving control to the Lord).

We had a conference call with our birthmother to see if she really liked us, she had picked us because of our profile - a photo album.  That night, Stephen Curtis Chapman's song "The Fingerprints of God" kept playing through my mind.  I woke Tim up in the middle of the night and said "THIS IS OUR BABY!"  I felt it in my heart.

God took away our worries one by one.  My greatest fear was having a drug baby or a child with fetal alcohol syndrome.  Our birthmother did not drink or do drugs.  She had quick smoking as soon as she found out she was pregnant.  

I also did not want a relationship with our birthmother...frankly,  I was not sure I even wanted to like her.  But of course God had other plans.  He made me fall in love with her and care about her and her family.  She is an amazing woman who turned her life around after making poor choices.  She understands that our Lord forgives our sins and she chose to give life to a precious baby and to change our family forever.

When it came time to make our birth plan, Jennifer said I could be in the delivery room.  This was an amazing experience!!!  My precious baby was born on July 8, 2008.  Before he was born, Tim and I again were apprehensive about the rooming arrangements at the hospital.  We were told we would be sharing a room with Jennifer, we of course did not like this idea, we wanted our own time to bond with Nathan.  We thought this needed to be private, just with our family.  However, once again, we were not in charge!  We ended up spending about 6 hours in a tiny hospital room with Jennifer...it was really amazing to spend that time together and get to know each other even better.  Now looking back, I would not trade it for anything.

We got our own room about 9 p.m. that night and by this time, Tim and I agreed that we would let Jennifer have the baby as much as she wanted.  We realized that she needed this time with him to ensure she was confident about her decision.  During the next 24 hours, Jennifer took Nathan often and we felt at peace about this.  

Another snag before Nathan was born, was our big kids, what to do with them.  We have wonderful friends that offered to take care of them but we also felt that it was important for them to be at the hospital and participate in the birth of their baby brother.  Finally, after much discussion and many conversations with the agency, we hired a babysitter to be at the hospital with the kids.  Since we were not near our house and we have no family near, we anticipated that it would be stressful.  However, it all worked out perfectly...Nicholas and Katie fell in love right away.

Through the entire process, we kept praying that God's will be done.  Many people questioned the decisions we were making... having a mixed race baby, bonding with the birthmother, having Nicholas & Katie at the hospital, taking Nathan home from the hospital right away, what if she had changed her mind?  But we were following God's lead and doing as we felt commanded us, as a result we have sweet Nathan in our family.

This process has been the biggest faith builder for Tim and I.  This is the first time we both gave complete control to the Lord.  It was a wonderful experience and taught us so much about being followers of Christ and obeying and seeking the will of God.  It has really changed our hearts and made us submit to God.

P.S. I did not mention the financial part...shortly after signing the paperwork, we received an inheritance from my Granny Heinsohn.  It more than paid the costs of Nathan's adoption and we hope using it for Nathan honors her memory.