Adoption Story: Seth and Vanessa

God writes the best stories. We say this around here a lot. Mostly because it's true. But often because when you're in the trenches and the chapters are still being written, it might not always seem that way and you need the reminder. Seth and Vanessa know that feeling well. The feeling of walking through hard and dark times, wondering how the story would end. Today Vanessa shares how they walked through their story and the faith that got them through.

It has taken us a long time to write this story – 8 months to be exact. Our journey to our son was not easy. We had to place our full faith and trust in God, and sometimes we questioned if He was still with us and what story He was writing for our family. Looking back, we can see that He was there all along, sometimes just in ways we didn’t expect.

We talked about adoption even before we were married. We had a nice little plan – have two children of our own, and then adopt a third. And everything was going according to plan, until it wasn’t. Not long after we decided to grow our family from one child to two, we learned that it would be difficult for us to conceive on our own. But in our hearts, we knew our daughter was not meant to be an only child. We began researching options for adoption, and found Christian Adoption Consultants and Susan. She answered all of our questions and before we knew it, we had signed with her, began the home study process, and found ourselves buried in a mountain of paperwork. We were overwhelmed. Little did we know that this would be the easy part.

Soon, we began presenting to and praying for expectant moms who were considering adoption for their unborn baby. When our son’s birth mom’s situation came to our email, we immediately felt a calling to present to her, and God worked out the details to allow us to do so. About a week later, we received the phone call we had been waiting for – we had been chosen by this expectant mom, and the baby boy was due in February! After a few days of bliss and anticipation, we received word that things may not go according to plan and were even given the option to walk away. But we couldn’t do it. We could not walk away from this expectant mom and her baby boy. And thus began the most trying few weeks of our lives.

One Wednesday night, Vanessa’s phone lit up with 3 pictures of a baby boy who had been born the night before– a big baby boy with a full head of hair! We anxiously waited to see what would happen next, as his birth mom was still unsure of her decision. We cried and prayed and begged for God to intervene for this baby and his mama – whatever that may look like. We went to church on one of those nights, and the message was all about trusting God and never doubting because he always has a plan for us. We both wept as we realized, even more, that things were not in our control, and God had a plan for our family.

It was 5 days after his birth that our son’s courageous, loving birth mom would make the heart-wrenching decision to place her son with us. Her pain and loss was also her amazing gift to us. When we first saw him, our hearts swelled with love for him and his birth mom. This child was given to us in the most loving, heart-breaking of ways. And he is now ours to love forever.

The rest of our journey was filled with twists and turns and moments that left us gasping for air. Even when we felt that our world was spinning out of control, God was there to bring us back. He showed His love in big ways, sometimes in the darkest times. 

Last week, we finalized Weston’s adoption. He is the perfect addition to our family and our daughter could not be a prouder big sister. Our faith was tested and there were times of doubt. But God knew all along how our story would end. He truly writes the best stories.