A Story of Adoption
In the beginning of February 2013, my husband and I starting to wonder whether or not we would ever find our child, whether we would ever be picked by a birth family. We had one failed match that past September. We had other calls, none of which worked out. Then the calls stopped for almost a month. We were both starting to feel like an adoption would never happen for us. We wondered if birth families thought we were too old or that we had too many kids (we had 4 at the time). We had only been with the NDSAN for 10 months, but that seemed like forever.
Then came the day I will never forget…..February 24, 2013. That was the first time we heard about our son, Teddy. It was a Sunday night at 9:30 pm. The phone rang and I was thinking “Who would be calling us this late?” I looked at the caller ID and saw Stephanie’s name! And, as all of you who have adopted through or are trying to adopt through NDSAN know, when you see Stephanie on your caller ID your heart skips a beat! You get nervous and excited. I knew that if she was calling at this hour there had to be a baby needing a family. She told me the details about a baby boy who had been born that past Friday who needed a family quickly. But there were several unknowns. She had to know by 8am the next morning whether we wanted to submit our profile and that we would need to be open to the unknown. I told her I would talk to my husband and call her back right away. Within ten minutes, we both agreed to submit and leave it up to God; if his plan was for us to be his parents then it would work out. I called and told Stephanie to send them our profile. That night I prayed that if this was our son that God would take care of him and also the unknowns.
The next day around noon (while I was at work) Stephanie called me……..when I saw her name I didn’t know if she was calling to say they picked someone else or possibly the birth parents wanted more info or to talk with us. I answered and I think the first words out of Stephanie’s mouth were “How soon can you leave?” I was like WHAT? She then said they picked us! I couldn’t believe it and honestly cannot even remember the rest of our conversation. So many things were running through my head at that moment. I left work early and started to make phone calls. And we found out that Teddy was not on a ventilator, but had a nasal canola due to pulmonary hypertension. God had answered my prayers! We left the following day. After several hours of driving it started snowing. We drove about 8 hours in a huge snowstorm! I was worried that we would have to pull over and not make it in time. Thankfully, we made it to the hotel and were able to get a little sleep. The following morning we finished up the drive and made it to the city where our son was. We met the birth parents, papers were signed and then we were off to meet Teddy. The moment I saw him I fell in love. He was beautiful! He was on oxygen and had a feeding tube in his nose, but otherwise was doing great! He was one of the biggest babies in the NICU 🙂
That evening, my husband and I decided to grab some food and find a hotel for the night. We went to the car (which was parked on a slant) and while we were searching for restaurants our van ran out of gas! So the following morning the birth father and grandfather brought us gas and helped us push it up to a flat surface. We were a little embarrassed having to ask for their help but it gave us another opportunity to talk with them and a chance for the grandfather to meet our son. Our son stayed in the NICU for 10 days. During that time we were invited to eat at the birth parents home. They cooked us a traditional Indian meal and we were able to learn more about their culture and meet more of their family. We have an open adoption so we send updates and pictures of our son to them and they send him birthday and Christmas gifts.
I am so glad that we left things in God’s hands and that we trusted he would send us the child that was meant to be ours. Teddy recently turned four and he is doing amazing! He attended a private preschool this year where he made lots of friends and learned so many different things. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for him. We are truly blessed to have been chosen to be his family and cannot thank NDSAN enough for everything they have done and continue to do! Adoption can be an exciting, crazy, scary, stressful adventure, but in the end it’s all worth it!