I always knew I wanted to adopt. Even as a little girl, I would tell my mom that one day I would adopt. I didn’t know anyone who was adopted, but I absolutely believe God put that desire to adopt on my heart at a young age!
Once Mace and I got married in 2010 we both thought that we would have biological children first and then adopt. We waited a couple of years into marriage to start trying to get pregnant, but once we started trying, things weren’t working out the way we had hoped.
After struggling with infertility for two years, the Lord placed on our hearts that it was time to start pursuing adoption. That was in the fall of 2014. We did some research and decided that we would pursue domestic infant adoption because we were new parents, and I knew that I definitely did NOT want to foster children.
Adoption but NOT Foster Care
You see, I love children and get super attached really quickly. All of my years of caring for other people’s children through working in Kids Ministry and babysitting, I knew that foster care would be just too hard. I wouldn’t ever want to give the kiddos back once they came into our home.
We attended an orientation meeting at a local foster and adoption agency, and we had our hearts firmly set on infant adoption. Until after the meeting.
A case manager at the agency asked us if we would consider becoming foster-to-adopt parents. I had heard a little bit about adopting children out of foster care through a new acquaintance I had met at our church who was a foster-to-adopt mom.
I quickly pushed back with all of my fears and concerns, but once he explained that we could choose our age range (I knew we weren’t ready for a teenager) and the number of children (and we definitely weren’t ready for more than one child), we told him we would think about it.
After a couple of long weeks researching, discussing, and lots of praying, we felt the Lord nudge us to become foster-to-adopt parents! Foster-to-adopt simply means that if a foster child placed with us needs to be adopted, we want to be chosen to adopt him/her.
We started our classes in early 2015. In that process of becoming licensed, the Lord beautifully shifted our hearts to be open to fostering children in emergency placement situations. Oftentimes, these sweet children only need a foster home for a few days or weeks until they are placed with extended family.
Up until then we had only been adoption-minded, but after that strong nudge, the Lord put on our hearts a desire to foster children, even if it was a short-term fostering situation. Remember how I was the one who said I would never even foster? I love how the Lord aligned our hearts to be more in-line with his plans for us!
Our Foster Care Journey Begins
In January 2016, we were officially licensed as foster and foster-to-adopt parents. The next day, we got our first phone call and accepted placement of a sibling group. We had been saying only one child at a time up until that point…but again, God strongly nudged us to say “yes” to both children so we did!
Fast forward to July 2016. We had fostered four children up until that point. We only had one child in our home at the time, though, because the rest of the children had left our home to live with extended relatives.
We had actually just told our agency to not place us with any more children until August when we would find out if our little tot in our home would be returning back to her biological parents’ home. We wanted to keep things as stable as possible since we weren’t sure if she would be leaving our home soon.
But God. One evening right before we were about to leave to head to our small group meeting, we got a call from the adoption case manager at our agency. That’s weird, I thought. We never get calls from the ADOPTION case manager. Up until that point we had only gotten calls from our foster care case manager.
The Phone Call that Changed Everything
I answered the phone, half-shocked that she was calling us. She told me about a three year old boy who needed an adoptive home. The judge had just ordered that he be placed with a foster-to-adopt or straight-adopt home immediately. There was a high likelihood that whoever he was placed with would be able to adopt him.
I remember standing there, stunned, barely able to move. I told her that I would need to talk to Mace, but everything inside of me was shouting YES!!!
I pulled Mace aside, and I told him about the conversation. He immediately agreed that we needed to say “YES!”
I called back the adoption case manager and told her the happy news that we wanted him to be placed with us!!
The next afternoon, July 20th, 2016, Bernard was placed with us and has been a part of our family ever since!
But because of some goofy rules, we still had to be formally selected to be his adoptive parents. I held my breath until August, when we were officially selected by a committee to be his adoptive home. We were actually going to get to adopt our little guy!!
No one would call us and tell us that the case worker was picking him up in three days.
We wouldn’t have to pack up his clothes and toys while tears streamed down our faces.
We wouldn’t have to try to explain to him why he couldn’t stay and had to go live somewhere else.
He would be our son. Always.
We were hoping to adopt him in January 2017 right at the six month mark, but unfortunately the adoption attorney didn’t have all of her paperwork completed and sent to court. (In Texas, a child typically has to stay in an adoptive home for a minimum of six months before he/she can be legally adopted.)
His Adoption Day
But on Valentine’s Day, we found out that everything was ready and we could adopt him THE NEXT DAY.
SERIOUSLY? We couldn’t believe it!
On February 15th, 2017, Bernard was officially adopted into our family, though he had been placed in our hearts nearly seven months earlier.
It’s been 3.5 years since we adopted Bernard, and it hasn’t been easy helping him navigate the trauma and all the ways it’s manifested itself in his life. But neither Mace nor I can imagine our family without our son.
He has brought so much joy and love into our home, and he is a light to everyone who knows him. He goes out of his way to greet everyone with a friendly “Hello!” or “Hi!” He is super extroverted and loves being with people every second of every day. His friendliness and ability to make others smile are two of his superpowers.
Getting to adopt a child so quickly was not at all expected by Mace or myself. If you had told me when our home opened in January that we would be adopting a child just over one year later, I wouldn’t have believed you!
Adoption is Not All Sunshine and Rainbows
But please hear me: adoption is not all sunshine and rainbows. Behind Bernard’s adoption story is tragedy and heartbreak and pain. I absolutely grieve what he experienced in his first three years of life. I’m so sad for what he endured that led him to not be able to stay with his biological family.
This quote from Jody Landers is one that sums up how I feel as his mom:
“A child born to another woman calls me mom. The depth of the tragedy and the magnitude of the privilege are not lost on me.”
His birthday. His adoption day anniversary. The anniversary of his placement into our home. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day.
All reminders of his loss.
All reminders that he has a biological family who hasn’t seen him grow up all of these years.
All reminders that the day we met him was the worst day of his life, the day he left everyone he had ever known up until that point.
Mace and I are continually learning and adjusting our parenting to be able to best help meet Bernard’s needs. We are growing, but I know we still have so much to learn as we help him process his trauma and loss.
We would do anything for him. And as he grows up, we will continue loving him and helping him and reminding him of God’s incredible love for him.
I love my son, and I’m so humbled that God has chosen me to be his mom.
Thank you so much for reading our adoption story.
Pressing on in faith,
Jennifer