Most of you know that we experienced a miracle pregnancy on Halloween after 8 years of trying. No shots, no pills, no procedures...just GOD! We were so excited and immediately told Faith she would get to be a big sister! We were perfectly content with Faith and after such a long road to get Faith, we were convinced we would be a happy little triangle- a family of 3. However, with this amazing news God started planting seeds in our hearts to grow our family.
Like our other 2 losses, we went in to hear our baby’s heartbeat, but instead I was prepped for surgery...again. For some reason after my D&C I had a harder time accepting this miscarriage. Why would God give me a miracle baby only to take it away? Didn’t He care about Faith’s broken heart, if nothing else? Thanksgiving and Christmas were hard but I really dreaded our anniversary...my due date.
I joined a small group in the spring by Lysa TerKeurst called “It’s not supposed to be this way”. I was surrounded by a group of believers that lifted our family in prayer and never stopped believing that God would make Faith a big sister again. They spoke life over me and truly restored my hope for the future. We started opening our hearts to the idea of adoption again but we were discouraged when our adoption agency’s prices had doubled and their paperwork had tripled. We decided to get a private home study just to show God we would be faithful however He chose to answer.
My sister, as well as Joe’s brother, got pregnant in the spring and with their exciting news came more heartache for us. We could not wait to be an aunt and uncle again, but how could we explain to Faith that they would get a new baby when she didn’t get to keep hers? Within a week, I got a random phone call that there was a baby if we would be interested in throwing our name in the hat. We overnighted a Shutterfly profile book to give to the birth mother and we never heard another word.
For over a month and a half, we waited but thought this probably wasn’t our child. Then, I got a call out of the blue that she had chosen US! My first question was “Who?” because we had given up on the situation. I found out she wanted extra time to think about it, but among many families she was given, she chose us. She said, “I want to give Whitney my baby because she’s lost so many babies.” I was immediately devastated for those other families that weren’t chosen because we have been there and got the T-shirt. However, we felt like Faith deserved to have a sibling and this might be her only chance. We found out the baby was a GIRL and she was due on July 7.
Meeting her could only have been orchestrated by God and when Joe prayed over this sweet family, we knew this could really be something special. We went to a couple of appointments with her. We got to hear our baby’s heartbeat and we saw her sweet face on the 4D ultrasound. We instantly fell in love! These are all things we missed out on with Faith, but had always dreamed of. I will never forget being in that ultrasound room and the doctor looked at me and said “This has always been a place of sadness for y’all hasn’t it? This is when you always found out you miscarried, but He is redeeming that for you now with this baby.” We all wept and we couldn’t believe there was such light coming from our darkness.
You may not know that we had 3 adoptions fall through before Faith, so we were not convinced this was our child until it was legally official in black and white. We were so excited but still very guarded as we painted our nursery, washed baby clothes, had things monogrammed and prepared for a sweet baby girl. We didn’t tell anyone but our families and we made Faith keep the biggest secret of her life. Luckily, everything in our house was pink and all we needed was a name. We both agreed to pray about it for several days before we threw anything out on the table. One day we came together and said we felt like God has given us a name and at the same time we said “1-2-3...Hope!” It was weird but we knew that’s what God intended. We feel like their names will always be a testimony to how special they are and how God uniquely designed them just for us.
On July 3, our birth mother was induced and we got to be by her side. We listened to our baby’s heartbeat all day and brought in ice chips by the cup full for her. I didn’t realize how emotional I would be. To see another woman suffering to give you the most precious gift of all is truly remarkable. She was so brave and delivered her with such grace.
The Dr. let me catch her and then Joe cut the cord. It wrecked me to see the sacrifice this precious birth mother had made to grow our family. I was rushed to skin on skin time in another room where I sobbed uncontrollably. I had a new found respect for adoption in a different way than I saw with Faith. We got to witness the closest earthly example of Christ possible and it was truly humbling to think that she trusted us to steward her most precious gift of all.
Faith is officially a big sister and our baby girl was born on our due date (and our 9th anniversary). It took a LOT of faith to get Faith, but we always had hope that God would answer again. Now we have Hope! Thank you for being part of our journey and for praying for these sweet girls to find our family. If you are still praying for your miracle, we are praying with you. Only God made us a family of 4 and we know He will be faithful to you too.
“Perhaps you were created for such a time as this.” Esther 4:14
