This sweet family of three was built by adoption. But if you had asked Colin and Kendal just a few years ago if they dreamed about their family story, they wouldn't have imagined this kind of beginning. Today Kendal shares how an unexpected and heartbreaking diagnosis led them to their daughter.
Over four years ago, we received some information that changed our world – that we have less than a 2% chance of naturally conceiving a child. As a young, married couple with hopes of a full family, an infertility diagnosis immediately caused those dreams to come crashing down. At a loss on what to do next, we remained in a mixed state of shock, depression, sadness, and overall limbo for two years. However, after encouragement and support from close friends and family, we reached out to Susan and Christian Adoption Consultants in June 2016, ready to begin our adoption journey! After learning more about adoption, working with her to get our family profile book put together, and completing our homestudy, we started receiving and presenting to situations and began the long wait.
After a tiresome day of work on a random Tuesday in late November 2017, Susan’s name popped up on Kendal’s cellphone and she gave us the news we were waiting years for – that an expectant mother chose us as the adoptive parents for her baby! Those crashed-down dreams of parenthood were alive again and coming true! And on March 9, 2018, we experienced the immense joy that can come from holding your baby in your arms; our daughter – Caitlin Rose!
While adoption wasn’t something we talked much about prior to our infertility diagnosis, it’s clear to us now that it was God’s plan all along. We had to go through all the “junk” of infertility, discouragement, and waiting in order to get to a point of surrender to God and His perfect plan. We likely never would have come to the decision to adopt if our life had gone as we had planned. But how grateful we are now! Caitlin is our perfect match and we cannot imagine our life without her.
We’ve learned many things through this process. How to be patient and wait on God. How family is much more than biology; our love for Caitlin is beyond anything that we could have imagined and how she entered our family does not change our love for her. And we’ve learned how much love you can have for your child’s birth parents. Birth moms – and birth dads – make selfless decisions to ensure that their baby has the best life possible. They sacrifice their role and trust us with the responsibility instead. Adoption is messy and hard, but it is beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment