Adoption Story: Jason and Hayley

God is always in the details. For Jason and Hayley, you can trace it from the very beginning when they knew they wanted to continue to grow their family through adoption. From how they found the right steps to begin the process, supportive people around them, an expectant family that chose them, and the race to finally meet their daughter. Read as Hayley shares the beautiful details...

Adoption truly is a journey and you do not know when you start what your path will be. For some it is fairly straight and smooth; for others there are many hills, valleys, and bumps along the way. I pray that anyone who has adoption on their hearts does not shy away because of the possible heartache. We have been there and would go through it again in a heartbeat because, in the end, it led us to our daughter. 

Our journey started in the spring of 2016 when it hit me, like a ton of bricks: I just knew we were supposed to adopt. I spoke to my husband, who had always wanted three children, and we started gathering information. During this time we struggled with the thought of, why would anyone choose us to adopt their baby when we already have two wonderful children. It was shortly after that thought entered my mind that a friend of mine shared a blog on Facebook. It was about a family, with children, adopting. It was just what I needed to see. I saw that the blog was from Christian Adoption Consultants and called in. The next day I received a call from Susan. I realized after talking to her that I had read so many of her blogs. She was so kind and we decided that we wanted and needed her help. We officially signed with her on June 1, 2016. She walked us through everything. She provided us people to choose from to do our home study, answered many questions, and made our beautiful profile book. 

We completed our home study the end of August 2016 and then we were ready to choose agencies! Susan provided us with many to choose from as well as sent us many situations that she received from certain agencies that work directly with CAC. We presented pretty evenly between those and the ones we saw from the agencies we were signed with. We were matched with an expectant mom in February of 2017. It was a situation we had received from Susan. Our hearts were overjoyed! We had just lost my grandma to Alzheimer’s the day before we were chosen and I just felt like it was God giving us joy in our time of sorrow. But very unexpectedly our match failed. We had a pediatrician refer to it as a miscarriage of the heart and I thought that was a great way to put it. For five months we loved that baby, dreamed of her, planned for her, named her, and prayed for her. Then she was gone from our lives and our future. During our whole process I was the upbeat, positive one and my husband was more reserved. After our failed match, he became my rock. Despite being so heartbroken as well, he assured me that God would bring us our baby. I sent Susan many emails and she even received some emotional phone calls from me as well. She was always so supportive and assured me, as my husband did, that God would bring us our baby. 

We waited a month to present again and received a “no” because we were farther away than the birth family wanted. Then we tried to present a couple of more times but due to strange happenings, did not get to. I remember thinking that maybe this was God’s way of protecting us from the heartache that comes with the “no’s.” I had begun praying that doors would be slammed shut if it was not our baby and that was definitely what was happening. Then, after I was in bed on Sunday night, October 1, my phone rang. I sat straight up, the grogginess immediately gone, when I saw it was the agency we had been matched with previously. I picked up and the person on the other end told me that a baby had been born the day before. I knew our answer was yes before I even heard any other details. She told me a baby girl had been born and her birth mom wanted to look at profiles. She asked if we wanted to present and I said 'YES!' My husband and I were both anxious and tried to not get our hopes up. That is hard to do! I tried to sleep that night but woke up a lot and would immediately start asking God to please let this be our daughter. I was just about to get up the next morning when my phone rang. I think my heart stopped. I picked up and our agency told us that we had been chosen! I was in shock. Our daughter was here and we could come get her! It was such an amazing feeling. After we got off of the phone I called my husband who was almost to work. He too had the shock and joy that I did. My husband booked our flights for that evening. We found out that the baby was being released from the hospital while we were driving to the airport. The person at the agency, who was absolutely wonderful, said she would pick her up and meet us when we got to town. 

We arrived at the hotel a little after 1:00 am. We didn’t wait long before the person from our agency walked in with our beautiful daughter. We were immediately in love. We had read so much about how attachment can take time and we just did not need it. We were attached to her right away. Our baby girl did not need any time either; she cuddled right up to us as content as we were. The hotel left us a note on our door letting us have a much extended checkout time and we were so thankful for that. The lady from the agency had brought us a goody bag from the hospital with diapers, formula, baby wash, and even hand knitted hats. She had a car seat for us to borrow and even had her in a new outfit and a swaddle. It was all just so helpful and wonderful. We were able to wake up the next morning and just spend time holding her. We just kept staring at her and tearing up. She was ours! She is amazing and beautiful and our precious gift from God. The love was just overwhelming. Having two biological kids I will say, there was no difference in the love we felt for her. Her brothers are absolutely in love with her as well. We did a video call to tell them that they had a baby sister and I have never seen them so excited!

Baby girl’s birth mommy signed papers the next day and we got to sit and talk with her. She amazes me! She is so wonderful and we all love her. We were fortunate enough to be able to meet her parents as well, who, as a family, had chosen us to raise this precious baby girl. It was such a blessing to be able to get to know them a bit. They seemed so much like us and our family. That was one of the reasons the birth mom, let’s call her “S” picked us. “S” told us that she felt so much better about her decision after meeting us. Her parents kept saying, “This is right” when we were out to lunch with them. It was wonderful to have them all be sure about this decision. We have a semi open adoption. When we first started this process that was what we were aiming for, but now I wish there was more contact. I did get to tell “S” that if she ever wanted more contact the agency knew they could give out my number and email. I hope to hear from her someday but will respect whatever level of openness she decides on. We talk very openly about the adoption and “S” with our boys. They would love to meet her one day. Adoption is part of all of our lives now and we will always openly talk about it and our sweet girl’s amazing birth mom. 

I never dreamed that adoption would be part of my life like it is now. God laid adoption on my heart and then proceeded to put all of the right people in our path. Susan was such a blessing to us. Through her, God led us to the best person to do our home study, and now post placement visits, and to the agency where we would be united with our daughter. I am still in awe of how everything came together to make our family complete. 

God truly does write the best stories.