When we started talking about adoption I immediately knew I wanted it to be International. What I didn’t realize at the time was how selfish my motives were in making that decision.

You see, I was scared to “share” a child with another woman, and I was not interested in being part of such a messy situation.

God graciously changed my heart and showed me the beauty that is domestic adoption. He laid it heavily on my heart and I am so glad that He did… a passion for birth mom ministry was born in me, yet I had no idea just what God was doing. We prayed for our future Birth Mom with our two children and for each situation that we saw along the way. 

Another adoptive mom told me that when it was right we would just “know”. I didn’t understand how that would happen, until one day I got an email with her situation and I just burst into tears. It was her. She would be our Birth Mom… Our first conversation was a day I will never forget. My husband and I were blown away by our instant love for her. It seemed too good to be true. We took our kids to meet her and spent time with her kids as well. It was a gift. They immediately gave her a nickname so that we could acknowledge her as mom as well – she became our MamaD. 

When it was time for us to travel for the birth, emotions were high. We took her to dinner the night before and she asked me to be in the C-section. I was speechless. The birth of our son was nothing short of a miracle. We spent a wonderful but hard week in the hospital with her, caring for her as she recovered. But on the last day, family came forward to help, and we went home empty-handed. We didn’t get to tell her goodbye, and I think that was the hardest part. It was the hardest day of my life. 

But we continued to see situations from other birth moms as we tried to move forward, and nothing seemed right. None of them were her. It shocked me that I missed her so much. We emailed a little, and I wanted her to understand that we would love her forever – no matter what. But 4 months later, we got a call from our old agency. She had called them – and she wanted them to call us. Her help fell through, she was overwhelmed and she wanted us to come back. We jumped on a plane the next day and went to get our son. Hugging her neck and being reunited was amazing. I was so grateful. This process has not been easy, and to this day it is still different than I had hoped or expected. But I learned something so important and continue to learn that – LOVE IS NEVER WASTED. It has been our story and our song all along and forever will be, no matter how the story ends. 

I am so thankful that God changed my heart all those years ago and has graciously allowed me to experience the joy of getting to love our amazingly strong and courageous MamaD. She is my hero.