Expanding Our Family-The Back Story

One of the things that drew me to Joel when we were dating was his heart for adoption. We were open to having biological children, but we both knew God had given each of us a heart for adoption and knew God wanted our little family to expand through adoption at some point in our marriage.

We went back and forth multiple times in the first few years of our marriage which path we'd follow first and ended up choosing foster care first. We were open to having our own. Joel really wanted a child that looked like him. I knew I was happy to adopt all of our children, but also open to a biological child too.

When Baby A left us, we received multiple phone calls from our agency asking us to take additional children. Every time we said no. We wanted to leave room for Baby A in our home. Our hearts needed time to heal. We observed a faulty system for months where time and time again it was so clear to us that the court order given to protect Baby A was being broken, yet no one was doing anything about it.

We figured it would take a miracle for anyone to care about this baby. A miracle for her to be returned. A miracle for her life to be protected.

Our favorite caseworker was on maternity leave until Nov and we did not want to welcome another child other than Baby A into our home without the support of a good caseworker. So, we knew we had a solid 5 months of waiting for Baby A or being open to having our own child.

I didn't want to try to get pregnant. I didn't want to get super excited to be pregnant to only learn I was not able to become pregnant. We had already had a tough year and I was not about to set myself up to be heart broken again.

We chose to not try, but be open to becoming pregnant knowing we had about a 5 month window before we'd welcome a foster baby other than Baby A. Baby A would always have a place in our home whether we became pregnant or whether we welcomed another foster baby this fall.

To make a long story short, we became pregnant right away. Holding that positive pregnancy test was bitter sweet. I was obviously excited to be pregnant, but also thought it was God's way of telling me that Baby A was never coming back. Why else would we get pregnant so quickly when we weren't even trying?

Joel was away the week I took the test, so I planned a fun surprise to tell him when he arrived home. After I told him, he sat on the couch and told me that God had really worked in his heart that week. God had made it clear to Joel that He wanted us to take in another foster baby. Joel had plans of telling me that night that "we should be foster parents again sooner".  

When I was 8 weeks pregnant and INCREDIBLY sick, I received a call from our caseworker notifying me that Baby A was removed from birth mom's home and they were on their way to bring her to our house. I literally screamed back to her "I'M PREGNANT AND SUPER SICK".  She responded, "you'll still take her right?".  My response, "well, yeah, of course, she's our daughter, but WOW....".

Baby A has been back and forth a little bit over the last month, but we're hopeful she is here to stay forever now. At the very least she'll be with us the next few months until the next court hearing.

The last 2 months have felt like a total whirlwind. I am 13 weeks pregnant and have never been so sick before in my life. I'm hoping I'm almost to the "feeling good stage".  Baby H is due early April. I've been doing my best to care for a toddler and a growing baby while accepting any offers from friends to help me!

We're excited and a little nervous for 3 kids under the age of 3, but we also recognize God is writing our story, not us. He knows that we'll fail a lot as parents, but we feel super lucky He has chosen us to raise these three precious children.