Check out the video on my YouTube channel HERE!
This week, we had the pleasure of interviewing another wonderful family who adopted a child through our agency, Adoption & Beyond! Before adopting, Emily and Kellen had big dreams of adopting a child. Years later, they had 3 biological children, yet they had their hearts set on just one more. Today, we’re sharing part of their adoption experience with you! Learn more about their adoption journey here: https://www.nortonccf.org/leapoffaithe.
Steffany Aye: Why did you guys decide to adopt?
Emily: Early in our marriage, we thought that adoption might be the way we grew our family. And quite honestly, we were okay with that. As children, it was put on our hearts before we ever even met each other. So once we… shared that dream and experienced pregnancy loss, we thought that maybe that was the way we would [continue to grow]. God [later] blessed us with three biological children, two girls, and a little boy.
Kellen: [I asked Emily], “What if we aren’t done growing our family?” We weren’t getting any younger, so we did research on adoption to see if it was a path we were going to take. We don’t do anything really quick; we really like to have it all studied out. So we made some phone calls, did some research, and prayed for a while.
Steffany: Let’s talk about your adoption and how long you were waiting. What were your feelings about the birth family, and what’s your relationship like with the birth mother?
Kellen: We’ve experienced the whole gamut of the adoption process, in my opinion. We did all the research prior to finding an agency, we met with different ones, went through the home studies, and did all of the paperwork… Our profile went live in mid-September of 2019 then [later that same month], we got a call saying there was a match for us in early October. We didn’t have to wait very long to get that call.
Emily: …When you’re pregnant, you tell [your children] at a safe time, and then they get to see the growth and things like that. Adoption was far different. The adoption that Kellen talked about us matching with in early October ended up failing… that was hard, but understood. That’s a baby that, on her birthday, I still pray for. Her mom chose to parent her, and I wish them the best of luck. Hard day, but looking back, it makes sense. It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t hard.
To other people that might experience that, you have to feel it. You have to grieve it if that’s a grieving process for you and then decide to get up and get back on the track or step off… We did end up getting another match very shortly afterward.
Kellen: [We went out with the birth mother] and each of us walked away from that meal feeling like we clicked. From that point on, we established a relationship with [the birth mom], like you might establish a relationship with any sort of friend or even business partner… she was very gracious and let us be in on some of her prenatal care.
Listen to the rest of their interview on our YouTube channel here.
Take the first step by learning about adoption and all that comes with it by taking the All About Adoption 101 course: https://adoption-beyond.thrivecart.com/all-about-adoption/
This blog post is provided for educational and informational purposes only. Our services are not financial, business or legal advice. The information presented here is not a guarantee that you will obtain any results or earn any money using our content. Adoption & Beyond, Inc. owns all copyrights to the materials presented here unless otherwise noted.