Even though we have two biological children of our own, we still felt like God was calling us to adopt for years.
Whenever we would think about it, the concept was always met with an overwhelming sense of dread. The whole adoption process just seemed like Mount Everest to us and we felt incredibly ill equipped to even begin the climb.
It didn’t help that we had heard horror stories of adoptions gone wrong and to be honest, I was uncomfortable with the idea of a social worker examining ever inch of my life. I feared that I would somehow come up short.
But the feeling that we needed to be a part of adoption remained strong despite our numerous excuses and long lists of pros and cons. So, we finally took the leap. We stood at the bottom of Mt. Everest and began to climb on faith. And as we began the process, we very quickly learned that the giant mountain that loomed before us was actually more like a small hill. In fact, the process wasn’t scary at all.
Then on December 21, 2013, a simple text changed our lives forever. Our wonderful social worker just had one question, “would you consider twins?”. My answer was simple, “yes!”. The next thing I knew; we were staring at the picture of two of the most precious little faces.
Five-month old twins who had been born three-months prematurely at 29 weeks gestation. Even at five-months, they still only weighed 8 and 10 pounds, which was a giant leap up from their original two pound birth weights.
The next 48 hours were a whirlwind, but one moment still stands out to this day. We had the amazing opportunity to meet my twins’ birth mother. Although I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, I quickly learned that she truly loved her children and right then and there, the worlds of two strangers collided. From that moment on, we would both hold the title as these babies’ mothers; she the birth mother and I the adoptive mother. We were on the same team and both of us would stop at nothing to care and protect these two babies.
They were God’s perfect gift to both of us.
Our birth mom would always be our babies’ first mother who loved and cared for them as they grew in her belly and anxiously worried as they struggled for life during their two-month stay in the NICU. I am their second mom. I am the one who will love and care for them for the rest of their lives exactly as if they came from my own DNA. And I too would anxiously worry when they were sick.
I understood that day when she gave them to me, that she was entrusting me with two pieces of her very own heart and that was not something that I would ever take lightly. I also understood that she and I were now the two women in the world who wouldn’t hesitate for even a millisecond to give our lives for theses two precious children. We were now family ourselves.
I’ve heard that some adoptive parents struggle with fears and competitive feelings when it comes to the birth family, which sometimes leads to, strained relationships or no relationship at all. I can understand how that might happen. Truly I do. I’ve had fears creep into my mind. I am, after all, human. But, I also believe that my babies’ birth family is just that…family.
We all love these children and want what is best for them. For us, we feel that the best thing for our children is to know their birth family and form relationships with them and we have been blessed with a birth family that welcomes that.
Adoption for us was one of the biggest blessings of our lives and I thank God daily for continuing to place the desire to adopt on my heart. I can no longer imagine my life without my twins. They were the final two pieces of my heart.
~Gina & Bryan
“Adoption is when a child grows in a mommy’s heart
instead of her tummy.” ~Unknown
