do all things with love.... a story about adoption

It has been my privilage to photograph Mike and Heathers family throughout the years.  I have had the opportunity of watching their family grow.  Through the process she has become a dear friend.  I asked her to share a little about her adoption story as I believe it is a truly remarkable one.  Adoption may not be for everyone, however, for this family it has been an amazing journey and a blessing beyond what words can explain.

Their story....

When Mike & I had been dating for a while and talk of marriage came up I always said “I can’t marry you, I want to have little black babies, and there is no way you can give me them!” Little did we know that years later we would be faced with unforeseen medical issue, that would bring the option of adoption into our lives. After perfect, but high risk and premature pregnancies, the doctors told us at this point it was either my life or another baby. So, we decided not to have any more children.  After all we had been blessed with three little men that brought so much joy to our lives! Why would we ever need more? When our littlest was about 3 weeks old (with maybe a little postpartum on board) I broke down, cried and cried, because I felt so our family was not complete, however, because of my tubal ligation I would not be able to bare any more children of my own. I’m not sure at what point the idea of adoption popped into my head, but once it did I quickly became obsessed with the idea. For months I researched all things adoption, I researched on positives and negatives of biracial families. After a couple of months I brought the idea up to my husband he quickly shut it down. Well that does not work with me, because once my mind is set on something, it IS going to happen! So we finally started the process and paperwork. We turned in our paperwork and completed the process in February of 2010. April 9th I got a call at 8:15 AM our social worker said “I have a little girl who was born this morning; her mother wants us to choose a family, we choose YOURS"!!!  I cleaned and packed like crazy, Mike was sleeping because he had worked the night before. As soon as he even slightly opened an eye, I jumped in his face and said “We are getting our little girl TODAY"!!!  The moment we walked into the nursery and they pointed us to our little MaCee we instantly knew she was ours. It’s amazing how although not grown inside of you, your heart immediately knows they are meant to be with you. Once again sure she was the piece that would complete our puzzle we told everyone that she was it; we just had needed a little girl to finish us off. Well sure enough little Miss MaCee started coming up on 18 months and I started having that feeling again. This time took a little more begging and pleading and finally the hubby gave in to one more time. In the beginning we wanted MaCee to have a little sister, but it never felt right to me. The first few months I just felt so unsettled about the situation, but unsure of what it was I just kept praying that whatever was meant to be would happen. In December of 2011 I told my husband maybe we are supposed to have a boy, maybe that is why I feel so unsettled so we opened our preference up to boy or girl. January 1st I saw a situation for a little boy who would be born in Utah on January 10th, now first I would like to say I had called on probably about 50 situations like this and nothing had ever come of them. Second, we had decided we would wait until after June to continue trying to adopt, because we had a cruise planned. Feeling a little different about this one I said to my husband please can I call on this, and then if it isn’t the one I promise we will wait until after June. I called the agency and she said I’m so sorry we are just about to send profiles to the Birth Mother, but if you send us a profile we will send it with the next group. I sent it thinking this was our last shot. The next afternoon we got a call from the lady saying “I was bad, I shouldn’t have shown your profile, but for some reason I just felt like I should, SHE PICKED YOU"!!!  We were thrilled; we started preparing for a baby again. We have been truly blessed by two amazing selfless women, and love our little Chocolate Mochas! For anyone who is interested or even just starting to think about adopting, it is one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. It has brought so many amazing people into our lives! People will always walk up to us and say you're amazing, those children are so blessed. However, Mike and I know we are the blessed ones, they have changed our lives for the better.  I wish that everyone could adopt!