Lucy's Adoption Story (Part 1)

In honor of National Adoption Month and Lucy's one year birthday, I wanted to write out her story.

After we had been trying to get pregnant for several years, we came to a place where we needed to make some decisions on what our path to parenthood was going to look like.  Steve and I made this a matter of prayer, because we had no idea what to do.  The answer that we received was that we needed to pursue adoption.  We both felt very strongly about this answer, and so we applied to adopt.  We started our paper work in January of 2009 and we were finally approved in May.  Over the course of the next year, we had a few people contact us via e-mail.  We went in and even met one birth mother, but nothing worked out.  The interesting thing was that I had always felt very strongly that our baby was a girl.  I wasn't opposed to a boy, but I just felt that we would have a girl.  There were some points where it was very difficult to wait and watch situations not work out, but we went forward knowing there was a baby that was meant to be in our family.

In June of 2010, I came home from Girl's Camp.  Steve was still at work, so I saw he had left a note for me on the counter.  It said that I needed to call him right away.  So I called him, and he said don't freak out, but we've been contacted by a birth mother.  He told me that he had e-mailed her back already and was just waiting to see if would get a reply.  The peace that I felt about the situation was instantaneous.  I felt very good about it.  Part of me wondered if I was just on a high from Girl's Camp, but as time continued on I always felt peaceful and good about the situation.  Steve is usually cautious about getting his hopes up, but he also immediately felt very good about this situation, even without much info to go on.

Over the summer, we continued to e-mail this special birth mom.  We were able to talk on the phone with her and develop a good relationship with her.

Then finally, she asked us if we wanted to be the parents of her baby.  We of course replied that we would love to!  We were thrilled to call family members and tell them that a new baby would be joining our family in November.  All of our friends and family were thrilled for us.

In November, we got the call that our precious Lucy had been born.  It was such a surreal feeling to know that our baby was girl finally here.  We took the train to Nebraska to go pick up Lucy.  The train ride was long, but we enjoyed ourselves.  We were so strengthened by the power of prayer that we were able to be peaceful and calm (for the most part). When we arrived in Nebraska, we had to wait for a few more days until placement.  We tried to keep busy by making sure we had all our necessary baby supplies, visiting the Winter Quarters visitors center, and watching TV.  However, time seemed to crawl!

Since this is SO long, I will post Part 2 tomorrow!