Our adoption journey began last summer, July 2020. I was out for a walk in the evening, listening to worship music and praying. My prayer was that EVERYTHING I do and say would bring honor and glory to God. That everything I do would serve Him and his Kingdom! As I prayed those words, thoughts of adoption FILLED my mind, I was consumed by it. It totally caught me off guard but I told the Lord I would but I needed to know it was from Him, that it wasn’t me just being in my head….I was SO overwhelmed with His presence and Spirit I felt like I was floating and literally started weeping! I went home and told my husband Lehi what happened. He was on board right away and we started researching. We found Christian Adoption Consultants and reached out to them for information. We were totally thrown off by how expensive it is to adopt so I prayed about the expenses on another walk that week. We decided to start a Go Fund me account and I prayed about it as I was posting our Go Fund me to share with family and friends. I prayed God would provide financially because we couldn’t afford this on our own. As I shared our story online, the song I was listening to got really loud and the words were “ Now the orphans have a home”. This made me feel God’s incredible presence again. All He wanted was our commitment!

We are now 10 months into this and it has been slow moving for us. We started several fundraisers last summer and still continue to try new avenues with it. We turned in our home study almost 3 months ago and just got the approval! We had to fill out tons of paperwork, all 4 of us had to get physicals done, Lehi and I had to get fingerprinted at the jail, we had two zoom sessions with an adoptive parent counselor and then the final visit was to make sure our home is safe. We will now be able to apply to agencies and wait to be matched.

Part of the home study and working with CAC (Christian Adoption Consultants) is we have to fill out a preference sheet. It feels SO WEIRD to have to pick your preferences. I just think of it in the sense, you don’t get a preference with your biological children so why now? But The more we learn and dive into the adoption community, I think it is actually important. Interracial adoption can really affect the child if you are not prepared, if you don’t have a diverse community, and if you have the attitude of “saving” a child. I plan on doing a whole post just about this topic further down the road here. So hang in there with me!

I very naively thought this process was going to go fast for us. But I am SO grateful that is hasn’t. I am grateful because we have taken the time to dig in and learn, and to sit in some hard spaces to learn from birth mothers, adoptive parents and adult adoptees. Lehi and I truly and deeply are believing and hoping that our child’s birth mother will be very open and that we can develop and have a healthy relationship with her. We want family and friends to be understanding in the fact that we will not be sharing her story with anyone. We are not matched yet, but we have been thinking a lot about this. We will be choosing to honor her, telling her personal and rough situations is not our place to share. We also know that our child will only be able to learn about where he came from in pieces as he matures and can handle it. Imagine how small it would make you feel to find out everyone around you knew the story all along, but not you. We choose honor. We choose love. I have so much more to say but I will leave it at this today. These photos were taken by the incredibly talented Annie Wiegers Photography as a gift to us. The photos she took went into our portfolio for expectant mothers to see who we are as a family!