Our Adoption Story

Well, it all started when I met this very interesting man. We had both been attending the same church, but had never met. I had been going to a friend's house to play cards and hang out. My friend told me about this guy...he was a ballet dancer and was very good looking, a college student. I was intrigued. So...I'll make this part short...we met and started dating right away. We dated for 2 years and he popped the question!

After Brent and I became engaged I had gone to the doctor because of some pain I had been having. I found that I had a grapefruit sized cyst near my uterus...well to be honest this was in 1988 and it took several painful tests to figure out what it was...how wonderful that ultrasounds are so much more advanced now...aren't you glad?

Back to my story...I won't go into the gory details (I rated this lens "G")...A few months after my surgery we got married and for the next 10 years I had three more surgeries for endometriosis, cysts, fibroid tumors, you name it! And I was sure over it! But, what bothered me the most is trying to become pregnant. It just wasn't happening. Year after year we wanted to have a baby and the tests were always negative. I don't know if you've ever been through that, but let me tell you, for me, it took a lot of prayer to make it. God sustained me and blessed me through those emotionally difficult years.

After we were married for nearly 10 years and had been trying to become pregnant for almost all of them, we started to think about adoption. We had thought about it here and there through the years, but had never thought that we could seriously do it. We were apprehensive about the whole process and worried that we wouldn't be able to afford it. And...to honest with you, we just wanted to keep holding out hope that a miracle would happen and we would be able to have a baby.

But one day while praying about it I just suddenly knew. I knew that adoption was our destiny and I knew it with all my heart. Most of the significant things that have happened in my life have happened that way...I just suddenly know. (It's actually faith that God is doing something cool)...anyway...

My husband and I started calling people that we knew had adopted and asked a lot of questions. We wanted to find out how they adopted and why. I ended up talking to a lady who we had seen a year earlier and had adopted since we had seen her last. She had such great information for me and I was so drawn to her story of adoption. We talked for a really long time that night. The VERY next day she called to tell me that a friend of a friend of a friend of a lady who's niece was pregnant in a town 2 hours away had called her to see if she would be interested in adopting the girls baby.

My friend and her husband prayed and thought about it, but their son was only a year old and they were not ready to adopt another baby yet. But, because we had just talked the night before and I was fresh on her mind, she called me and asked me if we would be interested...and Oh boy! Were we ever! After she talked to the aunt of the birth-mom and she talked to her niece, they agreed to meet us. She was so sweet and we all hit it off really well.

Then came the big question...HOW? How were we going to pay for it? Well, this is cool...some friends of ours at our church sent a letter out to everyone we knew telling them that we wanted to adopt. We started getting money from friends and other people from church. They just wanted to bless us! It was amazing! Then we found an attorney that would allow us to pay monthly for her services. We got our home-study done quickly (a series of visits from a social worker, a journal about yourself, background checks, and a physical). And then....the wait...

It was a very intense time during the waiting; between getting everything done that needed to be done and when he arrived. At one point we thought she had changed her mind. The attorney couldn't get in touch with the birth-mother or her mom. We thought it was over. Ten days after our son was due to be born, I had come home from work and was really depressed. I laid down and cried. Then "suddenly!" I got up and started cleaning. I can't explain why...I just started scrubbing the house. Finally my husband said, "stop cleaning and rest...let's watch a movie". We were watching "Pillow Talk" with Doris Day when the phone rang. She was in labor and they wanted us to come to the hospital. (It was about 10pm). We jumped in the car for the two hour drive...I don't remember that drive. I was too busy calling everyone I knew!

The baby was born about 6am. We were able to see him when he was 30 minutes old - and hold him. It was the most surreal feeling. We were in the room with his birth-mother, her mother and father and her sister...holding this little baby, who was about to change our lives forever!

Well, this is just a really cool little part of the story...the attorney, who was charging me $100 per hour had to be at the hospital to have our son's birth-mother sign the papers. We were a little worried about this part, because, like I said, the baby was born 2 hours away. Well, the attorney "just happened" to be in a wedding that weekend in the same town where he was born! She was already there!

Well, that's the story. We brought him home a few days later and a couple of months later it was finalized. He's the best thing that has ever happened to us and I wouldn't have wanted anything to be different. Not the pain, not the waiting, nothing. He was, really and truly, the best baby ever and is the most precious thing in the world to us now. He's 10 years old at the time I'm writing this.

It's my dream to be able to work from home so I can spend more time with the treasure that God has given us. (Our son)...So I'm starting a portrait business and looking for other avenues to work from home! So if you're a believer and want to pray for us...please do!!! My website is www.melindahowardportraits.com

Thanks!!!!