As a child, I dreamed of becoming many things: a
doctor, a ballerina, and a marine biologist, but, more than anything else in
the world, I wanted to be a mom someday. However, as a teen, I realized that
due to being born with heart defects, my dream of becoming a mom, at least
biologically, may not be possible. At the time, I did not know anyone who was
adopted, but, starting in college, I began to hear more and more about adoption
and met both children and adults who were adopted. When I got married just
after graduating, two family members and my best friend offered to be
surrogates for my husband and me when we were ready to start a family, but by
that time I knew that someday I was meant to become a mom through adoption!
My husband and I adopted our first child, Bella,
seven and-a-half years ago through A Child’s Hope. Though the whole process
took less than 6 months, it was not without its ups and downs. Just before we
matched with Bella’s birthmother, we were matched with another birthmother whom
we met but who ultimately chose to parent. It was hard to get past the pain of
this revocation, but about a month later we became parents to our beautiful
Bella, who does not look like us due to her Honduran heritage, but whose
personality is a perfect combination of my husband’s and my own.
Two and-a-half years later, we adopted our son,
Carter, again through A Child’s Hope. This time we knew we wanted a Hispanic
child so that Bella could have a sibling that shared her wonderful heritage
that we had learned so much about during the first few years of her life.
Carter was born about 6 weeks early, less than a week after we matched with his
birthmother. He had some health issues the few first years of his life but is
now an always on the go, a super-ready for Kindergarten 5-year-old.
While Bella and Carter truly made my dream of
becoming a mother come true, being one of four children, I felt that I had room
for more children in my heart and we had more room in our house. Bella, while
having a great bond with her brother, wished all the time for “a baby sister
named Maia.” So when Carter turned 3, we decided to start the adoption process
again, this time specifically with the goal of adopting a little girl. We
decided to sign with an adoption referral service this time to find a
birthmother in a different state with a shorter revocation period than NC and
ended up matching with a birthmother in NV. Like her brother, Carter, Maia Jane
could not wait to join our family and ended up being born at Thanksgiving
instead of around Christmas when her birthmother was scheduled to have a
C-section. We ended up spending about 2 weeks in NV with my mom, Bella, and
Carter, the first week of which Maia was in the NICU. Since we had gotten to
know everyone at A Child’s Hope so well, we had Bobby Mills finalize our
adoption of Maia in NC.
Not a day goes by that I do not look at my kids and think
how lucky I am to be their mother but also how it all really seems meant to be!
There is no doubt that adoption is a roller coaster, and I am not a big fan of
roller coasters, but, as I have been told about childbirth, once your child is
in your arms, the joy you experience erases from your mind any pain you
experienced.
