ADOPTION JOYS

Adoption has been defined in the dictionary as “To take into one's family through legal means and raise as one's own child.” But this definition barely scratches the surface of what all is involved in the process. This book is designed to tell a few of the ordinary (positive and successful) stories of the common adoption miracles that happen every day. My prayer is that God will remove the fears, expose the myths, and express His incredible plan of LOVE through some of the true stories of adoption that have taken place with this one small Christian adoption agency. There are generally three major players in the adoption “triangle”. The adoptive parents choose adoption to build their families for a variety of reasons such as age or infertility. A single teen-age girl, out of love for her baby, wants more for her child than she is able to give at this time in her life. The adopted child completes the triangle. Children at times lose their parents through health failure, accidental death, or may become wards of the state when negligent parent’s rights are terminated. Adoption for these children can bring security into their lives. In reality, it is more than a triangle. Over every situation, God is there, opening hearts, directing the paths of each person involved in the process. Adoption is close to His heart, as it is a picture of how He brings us into His family. Whatever the situation, my goal is to present the beautiful and positive side of adoption through the true stories I’ve encountered in the several years I’ve spent as a caseworker for a small Christian adoption agency. I have been a witness to how the Lord has knit families together, while at the same time ministering to the birthmother and her unique situation. For all the couples who have walked the journey toward parenthood through adoption, their stories are basically the same. Getting off the “pill.” Month after month of disappointments taking its toll. Seeing fertility doctors can bring financial drain and more disappointments. Finally, the thought of adoption began to take place. Research for the right agency was an important step in the journey. Orientations at various agencies gave encouragement and/or more disappointments. Our couples create a “life book” or family picture album, referred to as our book, for young moms to study as they choose the family who is just right to parent her child. In the stories that follow, these couples eventually found Loving Alternative Adoption Agency. This is where their stories began to take on uniqueness and miracles. My education, life experiences and being an adoptive mother as well, took me to this position of adoption caseworker with Loving Alternative Adoption Agency. In my time with this agency, I have helped place more than one hundred adoptions. I have walked beside and sometimes right in the middle of them. These adoption stories will cause you to laugh with some, cry with others, and generally live vicariously through their miracles, as I have done. As an adoption caseworker, I help educate and counsel young women who find themselves in unplanned pregnancies. She will experience grief whatever her decision. Loss brings grief. Her loss can be the life she lived prior to the unplanned pregnancy. Another loss comes when the child is no longer in her arms. There are three things I can be to help her through her grief. I can be a shoulder on which she can cry, ears to listen, and arms to hold her. I am there for her. Home studies and supervisory visits are openings for me to bond with adoptive families. These parents have shared their miracle stories. Adoption Joys/They Expected a Miracle is a compilation of God’s involvement in those adoptions. This book is dedicated to you, if you are an adoptive family or a prospective adoptive couple, a birth mother and/or birth family, or an adoptee. My prayer is that you will be encouraged by these personal stories as you see God’s fingerprints all over each one.