Chosen
Chosen. When asked to describe our baby girl’s adoption story, that is the one word that truly encapsulates it. We were chosen to be Addie’s parents in so many beautiful ways.
My husband and I have been married for 20 years. We entered into infertility treatments promising each other that we would not go broke nor divorce, because we knew that either could very well be a reality. After several attempts and one pregnancy that resulted in a miscarriage, we decided that we were going to stop treatment and try to be comfortable in the devastation that this was God’s plan for us.
It was the Summer of 2017, when out of the blue, my sister-in-law asked if we would consider adopting. She had become good friends with her daughter’s (my niece’s) third grade teacher and as it turns out, the teacher’s 14-year old daughter was pregnant. My sister-in-law told the teacher that should her daughter take the adoption route, she knew the perfect couple who would adopt the baby (cue us). The reason we hadn’t pursued adoption or surrogacy prior to this point was mainly because of the cost. After talking, we quickly learned that the family would only want us to pay for our legal fees. It was as if the stars aligned when we also found out that my husband’s company reimburses all costs for independent adoptions, since we wouldn’t need to go through an agency. It was meant to be!
Through the first month of the birth mom’s pregnancy, we texted daily with her mother and kept thinking this was way too good to be true. Sure enough, four weeks in, the birth mom decided she wanted to keep the baby. We stopped all communication with both the birth mom and her mother. It was devastating to be so close to the dream of becoming parents, to then have it fall through. Almost two months went by with no communication and lots of prayers on our part, until we received a call asking if we were still in. We told the family we were “still in” yesterday, today and tomorrow. That’s when they told us we had ourselves a baby girl! Over the rest of the pregnancy, they sent pictures of her progress and of the growing baby. We visited for the holidays, had a combined baby shower with both of our families, went to a 3D ultrasound and so much more. All along the way, we kept asking God why he chose us, at 46 and 47 years old, to be this baby’s family.
Our baby girl, Addison Rose, was born on January 27th, 2018. We nicknamed her “ladybug” in the NICU because she was so tiny and appeared out of nowhere, just like ladybugs do. She had to stay there for almost three weeks learning to eat and her entire stay was fully paid for, which was another miracle. We’re so blessed that her birth mom chose life and chose us to be this sweet baby girl’s parents. My Tiny Tags bar necklace reads her name, Addison Rose. My Tiny Tags pendant has 1 Samuel 1:27 on one side (“For this child I have prayed, and the Lord has granted the desires of my heart”) and Addie's birthdate, 1/27, on the other side. The coincidence of her birthdate and the numbers of the verse is not lost upon us. I wear both as a constant reminder of how we were chosen for this role, again and again.
