Like many couples our adoption journey started with infertility. But not the typical road of infertility; before we were married we had talked about having a few babies and then adopting a few more, God heard our plans and laughed a little I'm sure.
After getting married we knew we wanted to start a family right away. "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, go give you a future and a hope." This verse became our personal mantra that I repeated daily and sometimes hourly when we wanted our family to grow from 2 to 3 and nothing was happening.
Not being able to conceive naturally and knowing that infertility doctors and treatments were not an avenue we felt led to pursue the door to adoption was opened wide.
We explored a few different avenues before finding our adoption attorney MCB. After birth mother meetings led to no where we decided to adopt internationally while keeping our file open with MCB. We pre-applied to All God's Children International and were in the process of applying to adopt from Ethiopia when MCB called with a potential birth mother.
Miss B and Mr. C were the birth parents and after being turned from an adoption agency because their unborn child had a few unfavorable inutero diagnosis's, they found our attorney, reviewed our file and wanted to meet with us.
Matt and I anxiously met with Miss B, Mr C and Miss B's mother. And loved them! The best part was they loved us too! An adoption plan was made and Gabriel was born a little over 3 weeks later.
The first time we saw Gabriel
Our 1st family photograph
At court getting Gabriel's adoption finalized!
Our adoption story is not done yet though. Like our blog name says, this is a journey and our journey has now taken us back to Ethiopia in pursuit of our next child. We are almost through all our paperwork and ready to start homestudy meetings, then we'll file our dossier paperwork and get on the waiting list. It seems like just a few more steps but it's truly not that simple. While we don't know if our next baby will be a boy or a girl and when they will join our family, just like with Gabe, we know that God is in control and will add to our family in His time, not ours.
Thanks for reading our story... and feel free to come on back because our adventure is just beginning!
2 comments:
You guys are so awesome!!!!
I love your first family photograph...brought tears to me eyes!
God is good!!!!
So exciting to hear how God is working in your family and unfolding his great plans for you.
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