There’s a sign hanging on the wall in my son’s room that says, “Adoption. Because a family isn’t made from blood, it’s made from love.” He won’t understand the meaning of this quote for a couple more years, but now being on this side of an adoption story, my husband and I fully understand just how true this is.
Let me back up a little bit first, though, and give a bit of back story. As a young girl, I was told by multiple doctors that it would be very unlikely for me to get pregnant, and if I did, I likely wouldn’t be able to carry a baby to term. It was crushing to hear, and if I venture a guess, many of you reading this have heard similar words, since infertility affects 1 in 8 women. Shortly after getting married in 2014, we started trying.
After a year of trying, and nothing happening, I began “taking matters into my own hands.” I sought out surgeries that could potentially help, but I was met with insurance denials, and at the end of 2015, that road was blocked. In 2016 we began our long road of infertility treatments, appointments with endocrinologists, and reproductive medicine specialists – that lasted through the beginning of 2019. That road included 3 IUI’s, a round of IVF/IVM that led us to our first glimpse of parenthood: 4 embryos on ice and ready for transfer. After a lot of shots, pain, mood swings, hot flashes, questioning why, and wondering if this would all be worth it, I saw my first positive pregnancy test, and then my second – both times ending in dead ends and miscarriages.
If you’ve been on this road, you know it’s more of a rollercoaster; there are extremely low lows and high highs. After the first miscarriage, there was still a chance that my plan would work out. We still had two embryos on ice and another shot at being biological parents. However, after the second miscarriage, I found myself in a very dark, broken, and hopeless place. I felt like I had failed as a woman and as a wife because I couldn’t do the one thing I’m supposed to be able to do as a woman. After that second miscarriage, I didn’t have any other plans; they had all been exhausted.
After more life happened in 2019, my mental state was not improving, and I very vividly remember one afternoon opening my bathroom cabinet and seeing all of the full sharps containers, empty vials, and medicine bottles, and a sense of “done” washed over me. I knew in that moment that that chapter was done, and we truly were at the end of that road.
The part that was missing in this whole plan of mine, though, was surrender and trusting that God was in control of every aspect of this. I grew up in church, but because we couldn’t find a church to call home, we just quit going altogether. During all of the heartache and pain that we went through, I knew I needed to be in church and surrender our journey to God, but all of that took the back burner; I was still in a place of being angry with God. Why wouldn’t he just give me what I wanted? Why would he let me become pregnant twice and then take it from me twice? God had bigger plans. It just wasn’t time to see or understand them yet.
We found a church home in Summer of 2019, and our church family came alongside us and prayed for us, and for me, when I couldn’t pray for myself. They encouraged us through the last legs of our journey. As we became more involved, consistently attended church, began giving our tithe, got plugged into this family, and got back into ministry, my heart began to change. I began trusting that God had our lives and our journey all planned out. He began restoring my heart and helping me move past the anger towards him.
In the middle of any journey, infertility, fostering, adoption, or just life, it’s hard to comprehend that what you’re going through – the heartache, the pain, the loss, the complete brokenness, and feelings of hopelessness – is all part of God’s plan. It’s hard to remember that “in all things God works for the good of those that love Him” (Romans 8:28). It’s hard to remember to, “take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalms 37:4). It’s even harder to remember that He has a plan for us, and that it’s one of hope (Jeremiah 29:11). We usually stop there in that verse, but Jeremiah 29:12-13 goes on to say, “then you will call on Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen. You will seek, and you will find Me.”
Before our son was formed in his tummy mother’s womb, God had him picked just for us. But my husband and I had to move from a place of, “We can’t figure this out,” “What am I going to do next,” and “What is our next plan,” to a place of, “Okay, God, if it’s your will for us to have a child, then you’re going to have to do it.”
After the surrender of our greatest desire, we began to fully see God work out his plan. It required many yeses from us along the way. But through those yeses it brought us into foster care and to our first “babies for a season.” Through that, God taught us how to work together as a team to keep tiny humans alive, that my heart could love babies that I didn’t birth, and that I kinda liked being a boy mom (I always knew I wanted a girl).
To bring this full circle, just two hours after saying yes once more and agreeing to host a foster son for Christmas, we received the call from our adoption agency that there was a baby at the hospital who would be ours the next day if we said yes. After 7 years of waiting, just shy of 20 months on our adoption agency’s waiting list for a match, and just a few days before Christmas in 2021, we finally got to say the easiest, “Yes!” we ever said.
Through the period of yeses, God protected our little boy in his mother’s womb – despite her not having any prenatal care – and he preserved him just for us, all healthy 8 pounds and 14 ounces of him. Through those yeses, he moved me to a new employer, who after only three weeks of me working there, was fully supportive of me being off to meet our son and allowed me to work from home to care for him until he was 2 months old. Through those yeses our village was formed, our faith was renewed, and our trust in God was strengthened.
If you’re going through a similar journey on your road to adoption, and you’ve found yourself in a place of brokenness, of hopelessness, of pain and heartache, I know that the last thing you want anyone to tell you is that God will work it all out in His timing. That’s easy to say when you’re on the other side of a season like that; hindsight is 20/20. But just know that, even if it feels like He isn’t working in your situation and on your behalf, He is. Keep saying yes to Him, keep clinging to His promises and crying out to Him, and He will give you the desires of your heart. He will heal all that is broken, and He will restore your joy. And in the end, it will not matter if the little boy or little girl that calls you Mama or Daddy is blood; your heart will explode with love for that tiny human every single time you hear it come from their lips. Is the road to adoption easy? Definitely not. But is it worth it. Absolutely. Hang on, stay firm in your faith, and watch God work.
Written by: Staci Reid.
