Our Adoption Story

~By Amber Owens

Failure after failure is what describes the last 4 years of our lives. My husband and I started trying to have a baby a year after our marriage. Nine months went by and still no baby. I am impatient and went to my doctor. This is a time when my impatience was beneficial! My doctor put me on Clomid and ordered a semen analysis for my husband. Five days later she called with the results of the analysis. She told us that I needed to stop taking the Clomid, our issue was male related, not me. I broke down into a ball on the floor and thought about all this would mean. 

The next four years we went through one round of IVF which produced three transfers. One ending in a miscarriage and two ending in a failure. We then tried doing IUI twice with donor sperm. More failures. We then took some time off which was amazing.  I feel everyone needs some time off to re-coup and get your life back together. When your life is focused on one thing, it really takes a lot of time and energy. 

After this needed time off, we thought further about adoption. At first throughout this journey, adoption was the furthest thing from my mind. It was so unknown, scary and expensive. The more I researched adoption, the better I felt about it. My biggest fear was that the child would not love me. And one day it clicked. My goddaughter told me she loved me, and I could tell she meant it. I thought if this girl who I’m not even around everyday can love me, surely a baby I raise can love me.

We had some friends that introduced us to Mustard Seed Adoption Consultants in Georgia. At the time, they were having a contest to win a year long contract with them.  We thought, why not? We wouldn’t win anyway. But we did.  And that’s where God started our journey. We won a year long contract with them and started our paperwork.  We completed our home study, our profile book and all necessary background checks and passed. This took about eight weeks. 

Adoption consultants work a little different than going through an agency or lawyer.  The consultants work with different agencies from around the country.  These agencies send them expectant mothers and in turn, they send them to us. This sometimes allows the process to go a little faster since they are working with agencies across the country. We were able to browse the profiles and let the consultants know if we were interested in presenting to the case. Some profiles have tons of information, some profiles have hardly any and you usually have about 24 hours to reply yes.  The expectant mother then looks at all the presenting families profile books and chooses one. This is called a “match”. 

My husband and I were home study approved by April and started our search for our miracle baby. Profile after profile came and went.  You start to get a little downtrodden. When you are presenting once a week, sometimes twice a week, that’s a lot of momma’s you are giving your yes to with nothing in return.  Four months later, we were looking through a profile that we gave our yes to without thinking twice.  They needed our yes fast because they were presenting less than 24 hours later. We gave our yes at 4:30 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon.  At 4:45 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, we received a phone call from the consultants telling us that the expectant mother we presented too chose us. She chose us.

That night we Skyped with her and started our paperwork with the lawyer.  It was all moving so fast! We were also so nervous. This expectant mother was only 12 weeks along when we were matched.  Therefore, we didn’t tell anyone until a fundraiser we had four weeks later.  Our friends and family showed up in ways that are unimaginable.  Remember how I said God started our journey by winning the contract?  Well he showed up in crazy ways that night. A man walked up to me that night and started a conversation by saying that he never comes to the establishment we were at that night.  His friends had randomly invited him to this particular place on this particular night. He proceeded to tell me that he is on the board for an Adoption Grant committee here in Omaha. I couldn’t believe it. He gave us his card and went on his way.  Whether or not that works out, it’s still amazing that God put him in our path that night. He put lots of people in our path along the way and continues to do so.

As many of you know, you learn along the way through infertility who is there for you and who isn’t. The same goes for adoption. There will be so many people who don’t get it and who ask insensitive questions.  But that it is when it is up to you, up to us, to help clear the stigma. Teach people the language of adoption. The beauty of adoption. Mom didn’t “give up” her child, she placed her child for adoption.  No child should ever hear that anyone gave them up.  There are no “real” parents, there are adoptive parents and biological parents. I once said these things too, so I know people are not trying to be rude.  I use it as a learning opportunity for them and for myself.

We are still happily matched with our expectant mother at 21 weeks. We just found out that she will be having a girl! We are so excited we will be parents of a little baby girl!  Our expectant mother is a wonderful person who we have gotten to know and love. We will have a semi-open adoption with her and plan on sharing our daughter’s growth with her and her half siblings. Long story short, it’s amazing what can happen when you open your heart and let God lead the way.  Everything about the fertility treatments felt awful. Nothing felt right, it didn’t feel like He was on our side.  After we took the step back and really let him take control is when things started happening. Everything about this adoption journey has been incredible in the best ways. From winning the contract to making new friends and now actually becoming parents. Our baby girl will know she is loved from all sides. From her birth mother, who made the most difficult and selfless decision of her life to our family, who will love her unconditionally and raise her to be the best woman she can be.