In the fall of 2007 as we were trying to decide which adoption agency to go with, the Lord brought a relative of Justin's who works for Bethany Christian Services to our home for a visit; after talking with her about Bethany we felt peace about choosing Bethany as our adoption agency. So in January of 2008 we began the long, arduous process of completing paper work for the domestic infant adoption program, attending interviews with our social worker, submitting more paper work, preparing for our home study, and then when we thought we were mostly done with our paper work our social worker handed us the remaining 75% of the paper work! We came to the conclusion that if everyone had to go through this process in order to have kids, the population would be cut in half! But the Lord gave us much grace and by July 15, 2008 we were finally approved to adopt! So now we just had to wait - whether that would be 2 months or 2 years we didn't know, but we began praying that the Lord would give us patience to wait however long He wanted us to wait.
Little did we know that what we should have prayed for was grace in case we got our baby quicker than we thought we would! On July 25, 10 days after we were approved for adoption, we received THE phone call from our social worker telling us that a birth mom and dad had chosen us to be the parents of their little boy!!! Overjoyed and in much shock we prayed, "Lord, we never expected you to answer so quickly, but thank you so much!! And now would you please give us the grace and strength to get ready for our little baby who is due in 1 month?" The Lord definitely answered that prayer, flooding us with love and support from family and friends who gave us showers, gifts, and much-needed help in getting the nursery ready for our little baby to come home.
Finally, on August 24th the day that we had been waiting and preparing for arrived! We weren't expecting Josiah to be born until August 27th, as that was when his birth mother was scheduled to have a c-section, so we were quite surprised when our social worker called us at about 9:00 in the evening and said that our baby had been born! We were in the midst of putting away all of the gifts we had received from a shower that was given for Sarah that day (which, by the way, was a huge blessing because, until then, we did not have any of the "essential" baby items we would need for Josiah to come home, such as a car seat, diaper bag, diapers, etc., and we received all of those things and more at the shower that day!) and thankfully Sarah's mom was there to help her and stayed up until 6am putting everything away and getting things organized! We certainly did not expect her to do that, but what a huge help that was!! Meanwhile, Justin and I rushed off to the hospital in Monticello where Josiah had been born and met our son for the first time (talk about being in a state of shock!). He was just a little peanut, weighing only 5# 12 oz., and measuring 18 1/2" long! We took lots of pictures and were able to spend the night in the hospital with him in our room - it didn't quite seem real! The next day some of Sarah's family came up to the hospital to meet Josiah, including Sarah's mom who had to go back to MI that evening (this was another blessing because if Josiah had been born as scheduled on the 27th, she wouldn't have been able to meet him. The Lord is so good and His timing is perfect!). That same evening we were able to bring him home and start experiencing this parenting thing firsthand!
Our adoption is considered a semi-open adoption, which means that we keep in touch with Josiah's birth parents through letters and pictures every once in a while. They have said quite a few times how grateful they are that Josiah is in the home that he is in and that we are his parents. We are so thankful that Josiah's birth parents chose life for him and that the Lord directed them to Bethany and ultimately to us! We can't imagine life without our little J.J. - he is such a joy and blessing in our lives!
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