“Our Adoption is sacred and the biggest growth period of mine and my husband’s life. I’ve heard other adoptive parents say that adoption is built on heartache and sacrifice. Ours is the complete opposite. Our adoption was built on prayer, love beyond our comprehension, and so much faith, lots and lots of faith.
My husband and I were married July 2011 and knew adoption would be in our future no matter what. Both of our moms are adopted, my little brother was adopted, and my oldest brother was placed for adoption and we have cousins who are adopted. We like to say, ‘adoption is in our blood.’ Adoption has made both our families. 2 years into our marriage we decided to start trying to grow our family.
I’ll be completely honest and tell you that I just had this gut feeling it wasn’t going to happen right away for us. After a year of trying, we met with our first fertility doctor. I cried many tears in their office, whether it was good news or bad news (Those poor doctors and nurses!) My husband and I are very goal oriented and we made it a goal that after 3 IUI’s we would stop and move onto adoption.
Our third IUI failed and it failed miserably! We took a break from the emotional rollercoaster it put us through. In January 2015 we knew it was time to start looking into adoption. We honestly didn’t know where to start, except that we knew we wanted to go with an agency. But which one? Which one wouldn’t steal our money? Which one wouldn’t have us sitting on the waiting list for months, maybe even years? One night when Riley and I were on a date night at a big shopping center, we ran into this couple that Riley knew from a friend. They were more acquaintances at the time. They had recently adopted the cutest baby boy and had him and their other little one tagging along. We made some small talk, and both went our separate ways. I quickly told Riley to run back to them and ask them where they adopted their baby boy from. We both were pretty flustered considering we barely knew them. So, Riley runs over and asks, ‘Question for you… where did you get him?!’ Talk about the most embarrassing moment of our lives! That’s not how you ask someone about their child’s adoption. We both were mortified but the couple was so kind and offered to meet up later and talk more about their adoption process.
It only took a couple weeks of meeting them for dinner and throwing out every question we had for them about adoption. I can tell you without a doubt, that we ran into them for a reason. And that reason was to find the agency we would get our baby from. The next day I contacted their agency and got all 20+ papers to fill out. But something didn’t feel right. We didn’t feel like this was the time. So, I filed our adoption paperwork away and took a step back for a bit. Then in January 2016 we got the same prompting to look back into adoption. I pulled out our paperwork one year to the date. We waited a full year till we felt like Heavenly Father was ready for us to adopt. A year!! That’s 5 years in a women’s mind 😉
My husband and I talked about our options. He wanted twin African American boys. His dream! I told the agency his desires but that we were open to whatever cases they had. Long story short, a week later the agency presented us with twin African American boys that were born that day! We only needed to come up with $45,000! Yep, we had 48 hours before we flew out to Indiana, to raise $45,000 and to find last minute flights out there. When the Lord wants something done, he moves mountains! In those 48 hrs. we were able to raise and pull together that $45,000. And a friend of ours gave us her buddy passes for flights out there. How does that even happen!
We were on cloud 9! This was it! We were getting our twin babies and becoming a family. The moment we got off the plane, we get a text that the birth mom was changing her mind. We were sick to our stomachs. Not only was she changing her mind, but she was trying to get money out of us and the agency. After a day or two of sitting in a hotel, the birth mom agreed to meet us at the hospital. Now, back up for one second, we asked our good friend who had adopted 3 times, how he knew it was the right adoption. He said the wisest thing ‘The lord will stop it. You do what you feel is right and if it’s not, the Lord will stop it.’ Okay, so we are at the hospital and the birth mom asks if we would like to meet the twins. Um, of course!! We make our way up to the NICU, start to glove up and then it happens ‘If it’s not right, the Lord will stop it.’ The NICU nurse stops us before we make our way in. With the birth mom going back and forth with her decision to place the babies, we were not allowed into the room. It was odd, I felt so much sadness but so much peace at the time. We walked away and ended up going home empty handed.
My husband and I grieved differently, I grieved while we were in Indiana and came home ready to put my best foot forward and start over. My husband was okay in Indiana and then it hit him once we got home and he was angry. I text our social worker telling her we were ready for more birth mom cases to be sent our way. We only wanted boy’s and that’s all she was sending. But odd things were happening, one birth mom stopped responding once she had the baby, one birth mom got in a car accident on the way to hospital and was in a coma, it was not looking good for us. Then our social worker asked if she could send us a baby girl. At that point, our hands were up, and we knew we had no more control, so send it over!
I can’t describe the moment you see your birth mom for the first time and know she’s family. You’re speechless, you are overcome with this undeniable love for a random stranger. That’s how it felt seeing a picture of our birth mom. She was stunning! We were able to talk to her on the phone a few days later, we knew her for only 48 hrs. and only so little, but we knew our babies middle name needed to be a combination of her name and mine. Because she had two moms, not one. We flew out to New Orleans 2 weeks later and were able to be with our baby girl only a few hours after she was born. Now the moment you meet your birth mom in person is another story. It’s like a movie, we said one last prayer as a family of 2, took a deep breath and opened the door. And the first words out of her mouth were ‘You’re here! You’re really here! You’re real and you’re so beautiful!’ Cue the tears!
We were able to spend 3 glorious days with our birth mom and baby girl in the hospital. I’ll never forget the time we left to go grab some lunch and came back into her room holding the baby and crying. We asked if she was okay and she said, ‘Yep, I was just telling her that she needs to be a good girl for you guys. That she’s so smart and so beautiful and she is in the best hands.’ That explains our birth mom to a t. Wise, loving and so Christ-like. The day we had to leave the hospital was one of the hardest days of my life. Probably the hardest day of my life.
We wheeled our birth mom out while she was holding the baby. Our significant others ran to go get the cars as we prepared for the most heart wrenching moment. As she was passing our baby girl into my arms, the biggest tears and sobs were running down both of our faces. I was literally being handed over my daughter by the most incredible women I’ve ever met. I can tell you without a doubt there were angels helping our birth mom hand her baby over to me and angels helping me take my baby into my arms. The most sacred moment (other than being married to my husband of course!) I’ve ever been a part of. I wish everyone could be a fly on the wall during those moments. Just to truly understand a birth mom’s heart.
We are now getting ready for our second adoption and from the start have thought ‘How the heck are we going to do this again?’ But when the Lord wants something, he moves mountains. Big mountains! We have seen things fall into place that normally don’t, we have seen prayers answered right away that we thought would take a while, we have seen strangers’ hearts soften to our story and donate, share, and help in any way. Adoption is in our blood and will forever be the way my family was started.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Kashia Palmer, 30, of Utah. You can follow her family’s journey on Instagram here. Submit your own story here, and subscribe to our best stories in our free newsletter here.
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