Our Adoption Story

When Ben and I were married, we dreamed of having 3-4 biological children. We would dream and talk about what they would be like and what they would grow up to become. It was a dream that we blindly thought was in our control. It wasn't. It was a dream that God would change the path of as time went on. Over the last couple of years, many changes have occured in our lives. Each change has taken a part in changing the direction of our dream, no matter how hard it has been to accept each one. In October of 2007, we had gone on a small trip to Wisconsin with my family. On the way home, we saw a billboard with an orphan on it and it said 'Will you be my family?' We talked for several hours on the drive home about adoption and how neat it was but again at that time, it wasn't in our dream. Kyler was 2 years old and macy was 5 months. We were enjoying them too much and we weren't thinking much beyond them. In spring of 2008 we began to anticipate, hope, and pray about adding another child into our family. God was able to foresee the future though and see that my mom would begin to lose her battle with breast cancer. She was diagnosed in May 2006 for the second time and it was coming back on her liver. God did not allow us to concieve during this time and He knew that I would not be able to handle being pregnant and watching my mom slowly become weaker. God also knew that in August 2008 my dad was going to be diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. There were many why questions asked and we still to this day cannot believe this blow that we were delivered. Again, God knew that bringing another child into our lives at this time would not be easy for me. Both my mom and dad had many doctor visits, chemo, radiation, etc, etc. The days were filled with sickness, tears, waiting, and wondering. Through all this time, I still wanted to have some glimmer of hope, some exciting news to share with someone, something to anticipate that was good and happy. I wasn't thinking about how hard I would suffer both mentally and physically in the six months following my dad's diagnosis. Even though we continued to hope for a baby, each month would pass with another disappointment. On December 11, 2008 my mom went home to Jesus after her last painful weeks. Although the nurses all said it was more painful for us than it was for her. As we attempted to regroup following this hard time, my dad slowly started to become worse. Sixty-eight days after my mom's death, my dad followed her Home. He missed her and his focus and his will to live appeared to change. Kyler and Macy were shipped off to many friend's homes during the last few weeks of their sicknesses and we were so thankful for all of their help with our children. Being five, six, seven months pregnant during this time would not have been good for me or the baby. No matter how much I wanted another child, God knew what I could handle and another baby was not in his plan at that time. After my dad's death, and a new normal was developing, the months began to tick by and still no baby was in our future. We began to question God more and wonder why this was happening. What was God's plan for us? Did He not want us to have any more children? Did He not know what our dream was?


The time around my parent's death was a living hell. It would make me sick to watch my parents slowly lose their hair, their weight, their desire. They would hide so much from me and put on a happy front to protect me. Later I found out that they knew they were dying and they hated to miss out on the lives of their grandchildren, but they also knew that it was God's will. I would sit by their bedsides and just watch them sleep and slowly slip away from consciousness. I still spend every day of my life reliving those days and missing them with all of my might. Although it was very hard, I enjoyed the time I got to spend with each of them in the their last few weeks. I was able to talk with them about how much they meant to me, but no matter how much I told them, I never felt that I could say enough. It hurt to know that any future children that we would have would never meet my parents. I think that if I was pregnant during that time, it would have been even more difficult, more sad, and the joy of delivering the child would have been muted.


There were and still are so many questions that are up in the air about our lives. Our vision on life had changed and we began to look at things from a different perspective. Our dream began to change at this time also. We began asking God for more direction in regard to expanding our family. There still was not a baby in our future and we didn't know why. We began to discuss other options and we kept coming back to the topic of adoption. With life and death fresh on our minds, we knew that victory at death would not occur if we were not adopted by Christ. God freely and easily accepted us as His own. Would we be able to adopt a child on this earth with as much willingness and love as He did for us? We began to pray daily for guidance and a clear message. We would look up adoption on the internet and we would watch videos on youtube of adoption stories. Our hearts began to open up more to the idea of adoption. We would often listen to James MacDonald on the radio while we were research adoption on the computer. We were praying that God would give us a clear message one night and while we were listening to James MacDonald he talked about the orphans in Africa and adoption. This happened on two occasions within the same week. One of the scriptures that he was studying was Isaiah 43:1-6. Verse three mentioned Ethiopia and verses five and six stated: "Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and gather you from the west....Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth." It also seemed that everytime we went to church the service was on following God's will and not questioning what He wants for us. We were often reminded of people like Moses, Jonah or Noah. They were asked by God to do things that they were not comfortable with or that people thought they were crazy for pursuing, but in the end, they followed through with what God wanted and were blessed.



Many other small occurances kept pushing us towards adoption. Ben received a newsletter at work about a child from Ethiopia, we received an adoption newsletter at our home addressed to the previous owners, and we saw a license plate with "Addis" on it, which is the capital of Ethiopia and the city that we would receive our child from. We saw many white families in the community with black children. We realized that we would not be alone as an interracial family. I even had a little black girl run up to me at the park and ask "where is my mommy?" One Sunday we were praying for yet another sign to satisfy our human heart. The minister started by sharing what was on his mind that morning. He said, that week he was going to be a Grandpa again as his son was in Ethiopia picking up their adopted child. We both had chills and we knew at that time that God was clearly speaking to us. We were called to adopt, and we were called to adopt from Ethiopia. In retrospect, it is so much more clear how God had his hand in all of the situations over the past couple years. He was slowly guiding us and preparing us for this step in our life.



It seems that the list of how God kept nudging us to adopt continued to grow. One day when I was getting into the van, the person on the radio was talking about their adoption from Ethiopia. She had adopted two little boys and she was so thankful they expanded their family. It brought tears to my eyes to hear the boys speak of God's love. Three days later, I was at the library with the kids. I was randomly pulling books out and I looked at the title of one I pulled. It was titled "We Are Adopted." I then looked down at another book on the table and it was about a family waiting for their adopted daughter to come live with them. This list could go on and on. It is just amazing how direct God was after we looked to him for direction. We felt very strongly that if we did not adopt from Ethiopia, we would be directly disobeying Him.



We sent our initial adoption application to Children's Hope International in St. Louis on May 6, 2009. We were approved and we began the grueling process of our home study, adoption classes, and gathering of forms, signatures, notarizations, etc, etc. On 8/21/09 we had our fingerprints taken in Naperville by immigration services. This was the last step of the process that we needed to do. At that time it was just a hurry up and wait process. Our background checks had to clear, the home study had to be written up, and the home study had to be approved by DCFS and immigrations. This is where we are today. Once we have the okay from immigration, we will send all of our dossier packet to the Secretary of State to get their stamp of approval and then it will also be sent to Washington DC and finally to Ethiopia. This will be when we officially become a waiting family. It is estimated that we will wait about a year from that point and then several months after that we will have the opportunity to fly to Ethiopia and meet our new child in person. We can only fathom how incredible the experience will be and we pray for patience and grace to make it through each day until then. We ask that each of you would also say a prayer for our child and for the transition into our family.