The Seven Year Pregnancy - Our Adoption Story

The Seven Year Pregnancy Called Adoption

A True “Labor” of Love

From the moment we decided we wanted to create our family through adoption to the day we delicately placed our son in the car seat for the three hour trip home from the hospital spanned seven years. What we learned through this life experience: Perseverance, diligence, letting go of old dreams and creating new dreams, patience, living through heartache, changing direction on life’s path, trusting in the Lord and His time table, unconditional love, and immeasurable love for a birth mother and her family.

Our adoption experience is a living testimony to us that miracles do still happen on the earth today and that we do choose our families before we are born. Some children join families in a direct way, others in an indirect way through the miracle we call adoption. Either way, we end up in the family we were destined to be a part of. There is no doubt in our minds that the little boy that is our son was meant to be a part of our family.

Our open adoption experience is also a living testimony that angels do walk the earth. Our son’s birthmother, although young, was very wise beyond her years. She is our angel, our hero, and the young lady who crowned us with the title of mother and father; something we had been longing for since the day we were married. In late May of 2006 we received "The Call" from LDS Family Services that a birthmother actually showed interest in our profile! It had been three years since our paperwork had been completed. A few weeks later we met face-to-face with our son’s birthmother and her family, whom we now call “our family”, for the first time. We felt very comfortable with them and enjoyed a three hour dinner together getting to know one another.

A week later, on a typical Saturday evening in late June, we received a non-typical email with the most beautiful ultrasound picture. The email read:

“Dear Mom and Dad,

Can’t wait to meet you.

Your new baby"

One look at that picture and we were smitten. We were chosen to be this little boy’s parents! The little baby in the ultrasound shared a similar profile as my husband and so we knew our son had found his way home! In future emails from the birth mother, I was offered the sacred opportunity to be in the delivery room to witness his miraculous birth, which I accepted without hesitation. Moments after his delivery, her concern was for me, “Has Christy held him yet? I want her to be the first one to hold him.” and not about herself and her recovery. Although young, she was wise beyond her years. She also gave us the opportunity to give him the only name he would ever be given. "He is your son, this privilege is yours."

To some couples experiencing the adoption process, the 72 hour waiting period our state requires before the birth mother can relinquish her rights can be pure torture. Will she change her mind? Is this truly going to happen? For us, it was peace. We spent some of that time in the hospital, holding our son, caring for his needs, and visiting with the birth family that we felt so comfortable with. We felt like we were catching up with extended family, not sitting with strangers we had known for less than ninety days. When the time came for her to be discharged from the hospital, many tears were shed; tears of joy, tears of pain, tears of separation, and tears of hope. Everyone knew that the right decisions had been made, as difficult as they were. We wanted her to know that this was not a forever “good-bye”, but a “see you later” we’ll be in touch often.

About one month after we had been home with our son, I was enjoying a “back roads” drive to admire the fall foliage in our area. I could not believe the vibrant colors and how blue the sky looked against those autumn colors. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized that for the last few years my life had felt like it had been lived in black and white. Without a child in my arms, it felt as if my life had no color. Those years of waiting to love a baby of my own held some of the darkest moments I had ever lived through.

The glorious six month mark quickly came upon us and we were able to finalize Tyler's adoption and walk through the Chicago temple doors together as a "family" as made legal by the courts and walk out a "forever family" being sealed together through the sacred ordinances of the temple in the Lord's house. Almost three years later and I still cannot hear nor sing the children's Primary song, "I Love to See the Temple" without tears welling in my eyes.

Another month passed as I anxiously awaited my first “official” Mother's Day. My poor husband thought he was free from tears on Mother's Day now that we had adopted our son, but this time there were tears of joy, love and gratitude. There were even tears of sorrow as I thought about the pain our dear birthmother and birthmothers everywhere were experiencing. It was on this day also, that I realized the errors of my thinking while we were dealing with our seven years of “waiting” for our adoption miracle. Everything felt so black and white because all I could think of was what we couldn't create; a biological child of our own. Instead, I should have been looking ahead at the blessings that would be in store for us when we would be chosen by a birthmother to parent her child. We were not cursed with infertility; we were blessed to have been chosen by a loving Heavenly Father to become parents through adoption! The two of us were a couple that our Heavenly Father knew would have strength enough to survive the challenges of the adoption process - Adoption is not for the faint of heart! We were a couple that would have the capability to raise a child placed in our arms by another woman. Not only would we have the opportunity to raise a child, but we would get to meet, know, and completely love the true angel in the birthmother that would entrust us with the sacred duty of raising her child. How special it is to be living among angels.

As we ride the roller coaster of the adoption process again and as our “wait” seems to move forward at a turtle’s pace, we find peace in knowing that the Lord is again designing our specific family. He knows each of us individually, our needs, and He has not left us alone nor will He. Creating families is a delicate process that takes time, thought, and “waiting”. It is all done in love. Adoption is truly all about love.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” ~Jeremiah 29:11