Adoption has been a core desire since before we were married. From our organization working with the orphan community in Mexico combined with Micheal having been adopted himself we have always known that adoption was going to be a part of our families story.
For us, the journey of building our family through adoption has been filled with challenges, road blocks and heart breaking dead ends. Some of this is in part due to the fact that we have never really taken the easy road. We often find ourselves unintentionally on the "road less traveled" taking on difficult situations fueled only by love, passion and the burning question "if not us then who?".
After pursuing an international adoption in Mexico for nearly a decade only to find ourselves at a dead end over and over again we decided to pursue a more traditional route in domestic adoption. At the end of April 2019 we hired Fallon, our incredible CAC consultant, filled out the paperwork and went through the process of completing our home study. Everything seemed to breeze by and in August we were matched with a baby girl due October 17. We were elated. Not only were we matched with what we thought was our dream baby but the process for the first time in our lives felt like it was just simply running smoothly.
About 2 weeks before the baby was due to arrive we packed up our things and went to await her birth in San Antonio, TX. We were so excited, nervous, hope-filled, terrified and and and... However, just about a week before she was to be born something changed. The mom stopped responding to our agency all together. She didn't answer or return calls, text messages and most oddly didn't show up to receive her regular weekly support. After many attempts to make contact the week went by, the due date had come and gone and still there was only silence from the birth mother. Once again after all we had done and all we had been through we found ourselves with an all too familiar sense of disappointment and ultimately a second failed adoption. Packing up an empty carseat and flying home once again.
Micheal wrote this a few days after our return home:
"The truth is that we are broken. We have way more questions than we have answers. All we can say is BUT GOD. When we don’t understand, BUT GOD. When we are filled with sorrow and anger, BUT GOD. When we feel like maybe the God that we trust isn’t so trustworthy after all, BUT GOD. We still believe in His goodness. We still believe in His kindness. And we still believe that His plans are better than ours and when there is nowhere left to lean we lean in further to Him. I don’t get it and maybe thats ok. Because what I do know is that the fruit of faithfulness is always greater than the pain of process.”
A few more months went by and it seemed that cases were coming in slower than ever and every case that we did see had one of the only two things that we had predetermined were our absolute “no’s”. Through the pain and rawness of it all, we remained hopeful.
Fast forward to the morning of February 10th, 2020. Micheal came into our bedroom and woke me up, “did you see the email? It was an email from the agency where we had had our disrupted adoption. It read: “Have you all had a placement? If not, I do have a situation that arose last night with a hispanic baby girl born on Saturday. Please call me if you would like more information.” We called immediately. This agency had only a few hours to find a family, though she didn’t tell us at the time, we were the only family in her file that was Texas home-study approved to receive this baby. Was this our BUT GOD story? We got off the phone with the agent and called Fallon immediately. Was this a safe case to pursue? The answer was a loud YES.
This was the start of the craziest 24 - 36 hours of our lives. In less than 2 hours later and in a mad scramble to clean, shower and pack (not my typical enneagram 1 style!) we were on our way to the Sacramento airport on the first flight out to head back to San Antonio, a place we never thought we would step foot again. After a long travel day with every possible Delay due to Denver snow we finally touched down at 4:00am. By 9:00am the next morning and with adrenaline running through our veins, we were at the agency’s office signing paperwork. Then after a quick stop for coffee we were headed to the hospital. We arrived to the hospital at 11:00am, and only a few moments later we had our sweet baby girl in our arms. The nurses brought us to a room where we would talk to a few doctors and social workers and by 1:00pm we were discharged from the hospital. With our beautiful, healthy, head full of hair, itty bitty DAUGHTER. For the first time, heading to our airbnb as a family of 3.
It has now been 2 months since we held miss Everly Brave in our arms for the first time and we remain awestruck at the Lord’s faithfulness. His ability to see through the pain of our deepest human desires and disappointments to the greater good that He has had planned for us all along. Had it not been for our failed adoption back in October, we would not have been Texas home-study ready meaning the agency would not have had our information on file and according to the agency this perfect baby girl, full of promise and hope, would have ended up as just another child in the sea of faces surrendered to the foster care system.
This is our story of hope, faith and redemption. Hope that even in the midst of hard questions and uncertainty that God is still good and He holds us. Faith that what He has done for us and our baby girl that He will do again for many more. Then redemption in all the areas of our story no matter how big or small God proved once again that the fruit of faithfulness is always greater than the pain of our process.
Our lives have forever been changed.
To see more videos/ photos of the adoption visit our personal instagram pages: @Mrsjaclynmiller or @Michealgmiller under highlights