Sometimes God has a way of reminding us why we do the things we do and why it matters.
To those of you following our adoption story- we have an awful lot of updates. Sooo, here we go!
September 2015
Our adoption garage sale was a complete success. Thank-you. It was unbelievable. The amount of generosity we received was overwhelming, but the fun we had making memories with our friends was even better. THANK-YOU to all who donated, came, shopped, & hung out for the day. I can't get over the image of that day. A community coming together to support our dreams. Food, coffee, laughter, children playing, old friends connecting. The church. I feel forever honored to have the people in my life that I have. I will never forget this time, the people God put in our life and the way He provided. I am so thankful for our story...it provides us with countless ways to share God's love with people.
We raised just over $4,000 that day.
Right?!?!
Flashback to Summer 2015
Our plan was always to submit our application to the agency in December. BUT God had been making it abundantly clear he wanted us to do otherwise. I can think of no better way to illustrate this for all of you than to share a prayer of mine from a journal entry this past summer:
June 28, 2015 Journal Entry
It's been clear over the last two weeks, through your Spirit, that I am to ask you for a child. You prompted me during the student worship night at church, and then last week when Danielle approached us as we were leaving church and told us that You were guiding her to tell us we were going to be parents very soon.
Search me Father- for you know my heart. Take what's not of you Lord, and show me the right way to serve you. As I pray for our family, I cling to what you have for us.
Whatever, whomever, whenever.
Thank-you Abba. For your peace & promise.
I ask you for a child, Abba, I ask that Travis and I become parents, that this would increase our ministry for you. I ask that I may serve you in this way, as a mother. I acknowledge that you owe me nothing. That you are absolutely everything and more than enough. You've always blessed us. Abba, we are so willing to go anywhere- to do life however you ask.
Lastly, thank-you for this beautiful student ministry at Eagle Church that I get to be a part of. Thank-you for my wonderful girls and the life and fun and passion I have for ministry with them.
I pray that you instill a hunger in our students Abba. I pray you grab their hearts, that they fall to their knees in worship. I pray they surrender control and allow you to guide their lives.
I pray for change and commitment and that they experience a bond with each other not easily broken.
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Please note that this prayer was in June, a month before our annual summer camp trip with students. Note the last paragraph about the students I get to work with. I chose to leave this part of my journal entry in here for you to read because, with all fellow Ignite 2015 campers as my witness, GOD ANSWERED THAT PRAYER. In a way I've never seen before in my life.
We had several life-changing moments at camp. These pictures are from a service I can best describe as the Holy Spirit coming and pouring out lavishly over all of us (photo creds: Tom Marron).
I had to take a moment to touch on this powerful way God worked in our students, because I never, ever, ever want to forget what He did. The way He answered my prayer (and I suspect many others' prayers), the way He moved & changed lives in a way I have only ever read about before. Never stop talking about what God's done in your life!
As I mentioned and as you read from my journal- God was pushing us to move forward, to press on in our adoption. So, at the beginning of October we submitted our application and first payment to A Bond of Life adoption agency. We weren't 100% ready financially, but we knew without a doubt what God was asking us to do. We had about 2/3 of our adoption payments ready to go and moved forward trusting God to provide the final amount we needed. We didn't know why, but we knew this was what we were to do. We were all in. We were doing our best to live out 2 Corinthians 5:7.
October 2015- Application Submitted!
Literally THE NEXT DAY after we turned in our adoption application we received a call from the agency about a potential birth mom. I couldn't breathe. I remember thinking, this is it. This is happening. This baby needs us. We received Mama May's file before she had actually chosen us because of how complicated the situation was. Our caseworker wanted us to have time to process the situation while the birth mother was deciding on a couple. Here is what I will tell you about Mama May & her situation: it was one of the most heartbreaking stories I've ever heard about. Mama May had a really hard life. Really hard. She never really knew her parents. They were either dead or in prison. She was in foster care until her grandmother took her in. She didn't finish high school because she had a baby girl. After that she went through two abortions, suffered from severe depression and anxiety & relied on cocaine, heroin and other drugs to get by.
You guys, I can't even tell you how much my heart broke when reading her file. All I could think about was helping this woman. Helping her see life could be different. Showing her there are people that love her. Showing her Jesus loves her more than anything. I couldn't even think about the baby inside her. All I could think about was her. Did I mention the birth father was abusive and in & out of prison? We were shaken. Through this situation we realized the very real thing God was asking us to do.
When He called us to adopt, He called us to openness. To accept the birth mother that chooses us with open arms. To embrace her, support her, and love her just like Jesus would. To recognize the incredible sacrifice she is making, and to be her support system. To tell her about Jesus and the hope He brings.
Mama May forced us to "put our money where our mouth is" as they say. Her situation was a total mess. It put the calling God put on our lives a couple of years ago into reality. It became so real we could just taste it. It was emotional. It tested us. It was incredibly hard.
But we said yes. We said yes to Mama May and we said yes to one other mom after that. Neither of those situations worked out, but we really were okay with that. Full disclosure: there really wasn't a ton of processing time either. Within a couple of weeks we were presented with both of these situations and both of them fell through in that time. It was overwhelming in a sense that I had trouble handling all the thoughts & possibilities racing through my head. A baby by December? A two-month-old baby right now? A cocaine baby? A baby where the dad still wanted to be involved? There were so many questions the agency had for us that we hadn't really thought about. We really didn't care about a lot of the drama surrounding these birth mothers, in a sense that the drama did not affect our choice to accept them. We knew God would match us with the birth mom we were meant to be with. And that's exactly what happened.
November 2015
The first week of November we learned exactly why God was calling us to put our application earlier than we had intended. Yes that's correct, less than one month after submitting our application- our lives changed forever.
Mama L.
Mama L. is unbelievable. I will never stop marveling over her strength, bravery & selflessness. Her willingness to include us in her life. Her openness & desire to hear about God. It takes my breath away every day. I absolutely love her in a way I didn't even know I could. It's not really even about the baby she intends to give us. It's about her. This lady that entered into our life looking for support, looking for hope, looking for all the things God had been equipping us to provide to a birth mother. An answer to prayer in so many more ways than one.
November 2, 2015- It was and is a match made in heaven.
November 9, 2015- Journal Entry
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
John 14:12-14
Oh Jesus- what an inspiring promise. You constantly up the challenge- how much more work can be done in your name? How many lives can know you through our story? How much glory can you be given, through this child?
With all my heart, a heart that is not my own, I ask you to deliver this child to us. Complete this chapter of the story, that we may make your name KNOWN. That we may give you glory & praise in every conversation. That we may direct people to your feet. And lavishly love on them, worshiping you together.
I pray for a healthy pregnancy for Mama L, that she becomes your child. I pray that our families unite in a way only possible through you.
Thank-you for this journey.
There is no fear in love...
1 John 4:18
A week after this journal entry I got to meet Mama L in person. We went to her first doctor appointment with her new doctor together. Afterward we had lunch and sat at a Burger King for about two hours. I mostly listened to her share her story. She talked a lot about her family (she has over 15 siblings!) and growing up in the inner city all her life (she has never been outside of Indianapolis). She shared about her kids and the different birth fathers in her life. A life full of a lot of broken relationships. She told me about our birth father, about how they had an affair together. She unloaded the hurt she felt about how he treated her. Hurt that I don't think she realizes she carries, but I could hear in her voice. How he wanted her to have an abortion and keep things secret so he could quietly exit her life. But she couldn't do that. She talked about the men in her life and the way they treated her as casually as I would talk about going to the gym. Commonplace. The way life is. It is all she's ever known.
She asked me more questions about Travis and my's life. I told her about our church, our community & how God has been carrying us through the journey to build our family. We connected so well that day. God was with me and guiding me every single step of the way. I don't feel comfortable posting the selfie we took in that Burger King booth (after all, I didn't ask her permission), but if you could see it, you would see two women: both tired and weary, but a steady hope alive and well on both of their faces, and a bond between them not easily broken.
December 2015
Thump. Thump. Thumpity, thumpity. Thump.
I will never forget December 10 as long as I live. The day I heard my daughter's heartbeat.
Yes. Daughter.
I watched her yawn. I laughed when she reached out to touch her toes. I looked back at Mama L with a tear-stained face and thanked her for letting us be there. She really did glow as she said, "You're the mom. You deserve to be here."
I'll never be able to fathom the strength Mama L has and the graceful way she allows us to invade her life. Her willingness to give up her daughter to us. The love she shows for her daughter...and for us. It is incredible and what I would call a miracle. Our miracle.
I don't have any more words to say about that day. It is engraved in my heart forever. The day I saw my heart outside of my body, on an ultrasound screen, and nothing was ever the same after that.
January 2015 - Present Day
Baby girl is due April 6, but really we are expecting her in March because Mama L has never went past 37 weeks before (this is her 5th pregnancy). Mama L decided she'd like to start putting together her hospital plan, so that's where we are at currently. For those of you wondering what that entails: the hospital plan is all the details surrounding what will happen at the hospital during the delivery process.
I've had a lot of questions about this: will you get to be in the room? Will you get the baby right after delivery? Will you get to take care of her in the hospital? Will you have your own room? Will you share a room? Will she breast feed or will you give the baby a bottle? Etc, etc, etc.
The answer is, we have no idea. The hospital plan is 100% whatever Mama L wants it to be. The thing is, this is her baby. This is her life and her plan. It is our blessing to be a part of it and our hope that we get to have this beautiful baby girl, but it is her choice! There is no fail-proof way to ensure that your adoption will work out, and honestly, I don't think there should be. I want Mama L to be fully confident in her choice to give us her baby. I want her to feel loved & supported...not pressured and used. This is without a doubt, the hardest truth to swallow when entering the adoption process. But to any readers who are thinking about doing it...I would URGE YOU to embrace it. This adoption journey has taught me more about letting go of control than I ever could have learned otherwise and because of that I possess such freedom. It is glorious.
Other questions I often receive: aren't you worried she'll change her mind? What happens if she does? Will you lose a lot of money?
The simple answer is, yes. I am human and struggle with worry. Of course I do. But I rely on the confidence I have in my God and the reassurance that I am following His plan and He will come through for us. I have good days and terrible days. Days when I give in to my fear and days when I conquer it through God's grace. The truth is, I am a fractured human being. I am a woman ready to become a mother. I am weary and tired and ready for the next chapter to begin. But more than any of these things, I am a woman of faith. I am a woman that knows, trusts, and believes that in my weakness HE is made strong. For this reason, I press on.
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. -2 Corinthians 12:9-10
Maybe we will bring home baby girl in March or April, maybe we won't. Either way, we know God will provide.
On January 9, Mama L texted me and asked if she could come to church with us the next day.
Right?!
That Sunday was unbelievable. She got to experience what we do every week. She met loads of our friends, and just kept marveling at "how amazing" it all was. She loved it. She said her favorite part was the scripture memorization we did with students (which was John 14:6). I don't think there was anything coincidental about that!
Afterward we took her to Brunchies and we talked some about the hospital plan. She timidly asked me if I would stay in the delivery room with her. As if I would say no! She talked about how she had never had a ton of support during the delivery process in the past and she needed someone to hold her hand and help her with her breathing. Of course Mama L. I will be there.
Trav politely commented that he would remain in the waiting room. LOL. Don't worry, she laughed too.
On the way to take her home, she shared some of the anxieties she'd been having. She had recently received the legal paperwork that she will eventually sign and wanted reassurance that we would let her visit the baby. FYI: adoption law varies state by state. In Indiana, once a birth mother signs the termination of parental rights it is final. She has no rights to the child. So, the paperwork makes that very clear. I explained to her that this was true, that it's the state law, but that it does not change the visitation plans we've made with her. I think she trusts us. She kept reassuring me that she would sign the papers. She kept saying she was sure this is what she wanted. She said if she was going to change her mind she would have by now.
I have no idea where my next words came from. I can only give credit to the Holy Spirit guiding me as I told Mama L that it was okay if she changed her mind. I told her that we respected her, that we cared about HER, not just the baby inside her. I told her that no matter how much Travis & I wanted to be parents, it did not trump that we wanted what is best for her. As I heard these words leave my lips, I realized I truly meant them. I want Mama L to know Jesus. That's the dream. I realized I have to treat her exactly like Jesus would and just love her relentlessly. I realized that this is the most important thing right now. That this stage of our journey is so not about us or about becoming parents. It's about her.
Before she got out of my car that day, I got to pray with her. It felt like the first of many moments to come.
I know that God will answer my prayers for Mama L and for a child, just like he answered my prayer from June. Just like He changed the lives of our students. I have complete confidence that Mama L will come to know Him, and that we will get the joy of raising her child. Our child.
He always comes through.
Love, Hannah
This is my "non-social media highlight type" selfie.
My teary-eyed, weary face after a very long morning today of jumping through some hoops with some adoption paperwork, due to something I could not control (another story for another time). I wanted to share this slice of proof that it is GOD who gives Trav & I strength and endurance to move forward. Not something we could ever produce on our own.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. -Romans 12:12
