Family Friday: meet Fred and Sarah

Meet Fred and Sarah, and their sweet little family!

Fred has agreed to guest blog for us as he recalls the journey to adopt their son, Lewie...

A year ago, we would have told you we were probably insane for thinking about adding to our family through adoption, especially since we had a two-year-old and a 13-month-old at the time, but here we are one year later, with three children, three-years-old and under. The journey of bringing our, now nearly six-month-old, son home has rocked our world in such an amazing way. It is the biggest miracle of God we have experienced. Lewie was meant to be a part of our family. It’s so obvious now.

We decided in April 2010 that we wanted to proceed with adoption due to complications with Sarah’s last pregnancy and our feeling that we were still missing someone in our family. We had heard the adoption journey can often be a long one with spontaneous roadblocks and a high price tag, and with our advancing age, we decided to look into many different adoption opportunities. We instantly fell in love with the African American birthmom’s story.  We learned that there were far less couples willing to adopt an African American child and, as a result, women were being turned away from many agencies.  Not seeing our own genetic make-up or our race in our baby’s face didn’t deter us from adoption in the slightest. We were, however, still anxious about the high price tag of adoption.

We prayed more over our adoption process than anything we have before in our life. We prayed that we would be spared any unnecessary pain of a fall-through, that our child’s birthmom would be guided to us specifically, that we would be able to show God’s love to Lewie’s birthmom, and that He would provide the funding for our adoption.

In September of 2010, our agency called us to tell us we had been chosen by a birthmother due with a boy in November, just less than two months after waiting for a call. It was so surreal to know that a birthmom really had chosen us to be her little one’s adoptive parents. Although we did not wait very long, those two months felt like an eternity, just knowing our son, Lewie, was out there but not with us.

During this time, we were very humbled to find out Hands of Hope and Lifesong for Orphans had reached out to us to give us an opportunity to fund our adoption through an interest free loan and matching grant. We were delighted to know that our fear of asking our friends and family to help support us financially had been responded with an overwhelming amount of financial support. Praise God!

We didn’t meet Lewie’s birthmom until we were at the hospital as she had made the decision to keep the adoption as closed as possible, but she invited Sarah into the c-section room, which was such an amazing privilege. Sarah got to hold her hand during the procedure, hear Lewie’s first little cry, and immediately know his birthmom was giving us the biggest gift anyone can give another person. Lewie’s birthmom never met him, but we were able to talk with her at the hospital for a couple of days to get to know her, why she picked us, and what she wanted him to know about her. We cried with her over her life story and self-sacrifice.  Most amazingly, the Holy Spirit filled our mouths with words to pray with her that God would come into her life and change it for the better. That still knocks us off of our feet. We now get to hold this beautiful, sweet, giggly, six-month-old boy who completes our little family because of her sacrifice and God’s guidance. "

What an amazing story!  Thanks for sharing Fred!