November is National Adoption Month | a month to celebrate and learn all things adoption. It doesn’t matter your adoption route or adoption involvement … this month is for YOU!
Adoption was always something we assumed would be part of our story. As a little girl, I knew God spoke adoption into my heart; I just didn’t know when or how. Throughout the years, I felt my heart constantly pulled towards the vulnerable, the youngest, and the voiceless. I also felt a deep pull towards the women working every day to provide for these children. I served and worked alongside women and children in capacities I saw presented, not knowing what that would inevitably lead to. I was simply faithful in the moment to say “yes” to the opportunities to get plugged in and serve.
In January 2019, my husband and I started praying about pursuing adoption.
What did that even look like?
How do you get started?
What route do we take?
We spent roughly 6 months in fervent prayer, meeting with friends and agencies, and seeking what the Lord wanted us to do. After hours of research, emails and coffee dates, and so much prayer, we landed on domestic adoption – a route that would not only hopefully allow us to welcome a child into our home, but also that child’s birth mother and family. This route felt like a clear “YES” because it combined our passion for both parts of the journey of our future child’s birth – our daughter and her birth mother.
At the time, we had no idea the child God had for us.
Would they be a newborn or 2 years old?
Would they come to us in a week or a year?
Would they have our skin color or a darker, richer beautiful color?
Would they be a boy or girl?
Would they have all 10 toes or beautiful physical differences from our other children?
We had no idea … but we said yes.
Yes to the child God already knew would enter our family. And we just trusted.
8 months later, on the day the world shut down for Covid in 2020, we got the call. “There is a 1-week old baby girl. If you say yes, she’s your daughter.” And I have never yelled “YES” louder than that moment. I was reminded I should probably ask my husband before I give a full answer, so I went and called him real quick. His “YES” was somehow quicker than mine! Within hours friends were at our house with a bassinet, diapers, outfits, wipes, bottles, and everything you could need to bring home a baby. You’d think this child being #4, I would have been prepared. But if you know me at all, you also won’t be surprised I wasn’t.
After a month in an Air BnB, living off fast food in a shut down world, with a husband navigating Covid shut downs and 3 kids alone, and a NICU stay hours away from home, we were released to start life as a family of 6. And we have never looked back.
Our daughter is the absolute joy of our lives. She is wildly smart, constantly joyful, and makes everyone she meets smile with her cotton white hair and bubbly personality. She has no idea the testimony her life already is, but one day she will. One day she will understand the depth of love her birth mother had for her to choose adoption in a world where it can often be misunderstood. She will understand that adoption is a LOVING option that was chosen by a brave woman, wanting her daughter’s life to be as full as it could be. And she will understand that it doesn’t matter how each of our kids entered our family, we love them all so deeply and cannot imagine one second without them.
If you’ve considered getting involved in adoption, my challenge to you is this: just say the next “yes”. You don’t have to know if that yes is leading to a child entering your home or if that yes will always stay as a constant name on a meal train for other families. Just say the next yes to serving, getting involved, celebrating birth parents, cherishing children, and being part of a world that sees the beauty in adoption, even if it is born out of brokenness.
And if you are a pregnant woman reading this and considering adoption, I pray you feel encouraged to know that adoption is a beautiful route that can feel SO scary, but is brave and honorable. I pray you know that if you choose that route, you will be wildly celebrated by the parents you choose for your child, because you are the hero of the story.
If you fall in either category and want to know where to go next, please don’t waste one minute wondering. Reach out. I’m here 🙂
– Victoria
