August 9, 2012

Our journey to embryo adoption

The following was written by Heather Hanna, a Nightlight adoptive mother.

We are a full time ministry family blessed with six children (three teens born to us and three younger children born in our hearts from South Korea). The beautiful picture in Scripture of God adopting us into His family has been made more precious since our adoption journeys began in 2005. God moved in our hearts to consider South Korea and then moved us out of comfort zone into special needs adoption from that country; suddenly, we found ourselves going from a family with three kids to six in just 2 ½ years. We made very little money at the time, but God in His amazing heart for orphans always answered and took care of our every need through three different back-to-back adoptions. It’s been almost four years since our youngest came home from Korea and all of this time we prayed that God would open more doors for us to adopt again. Our family size as well as restrictions in our new state seemed to make adoption closed to us and our hearts ached as we waited for God to move.

We've known about Nightlight for many years and have known many families who have used them for their agency. What we were about to find out was that Nightlight was more than an agency, it was a family of believers who would pray for you, cheer for you and rejoice when God answered your prayers. In March of this year, we received an email about special case embryos from Nightlight. I have to admit I don’t always open these emails for fear my heart will be torn when God wasn’t yet opening doors, but that day I read. When I began reading it surprised me to hear of genetic families who were open to older moms (I am currently 40) and many children being in a family already. The idea of special case embryos (at risk for a possible genetic issue) thrilled my heart in a way that can only be explained as God moving. What happened next was amazing too. I sent my husband a message through Instant Messenger, and we chatted back and forth. We agreed that we are pro-life and being pro-life means defending life from it’s very beginning, so surprisingly he agreed to have me call and ask questions (one way we know God is moving in our hearts is when we both agree on a direction He is taking us!). I first talked to someone from Nightlight and instantly felt at peace with their friendliness as well as their resourcefulness. The next days were a whirlwind of activity as God supernaturally opened up a homestudy agency in our state that would help us with regulations against large families and we found a clinic a few hours from our home that we felt was the right place. Still, we thought is this crazy? What will our church say? What will our families say? How can we know this is God moving? We prayed and a few days later we received an email from Nightlight telling us that a genetic family had come forward and their embryos were special case embryos and they were Korean-American. We couldn’t believe that a loving God would so care for us and our heart that He would give us a potential match that would fit beautifully with the family He had given us.

As if the first miracle were not enough, the days passed quickly as we began to fill out paperwork for homestudy agency and Nightlight. We began to fear a bit about finances and how this would all work out and just then, God did an amazing thing by blessing us with the Babushka scholarship from Nightlight that was a tremendous help and answer to prayer, and God’s way in our hearts of saying “keep going..I’m with you.” We have had many obstacles with paperwork in our state and medical scares and each time I emailed Nightlight I was assured that they were praying for us and would support us and that God was with us. I have worked with three different adoption agencies for our previous adoptions and never have I felt such love and support as we did through this process. They too saw the miracle unfolding for our family and rejoiced with us in the story God was writing in our lives.

God has given us a new platform to speak and share His story in our lives and His heart for all children, even “our babies in the freezer” (as my 7 yr old likes to say with big eyes as she prays for them!). We have had many opportunities to speak to our church and family to explain that the love of Jesus compels us as we move forward in this unique adoption. We have had the joy of choosing contact with the genetic mom of our snowflake babies and sharing with her about our process. We have been able to share our motivation and faith with our clinic and its staff and some have remarked that this story is amazing. We look forward to what God will do as I begin medicines this week and our baby transfer is set for September. We praise Him for giving us courage to walk each step of this road and praise Him that He is with us. If God can be with a family of limited means and small faith like ours, then He can do great things in your family too when He’s the One who is calling you, He will be the faithful One who equips you to do it.

0 comments on “Our journey to embryo adoption”

  1. We are a full time ministry family blessed with six children (three teens born to us and three younger children born in our hearts from South Korea). The beautiful picture in Scripture of God adopting us into His family has been made more precious since our adoption journeys began in 2005. God moved in our hearts to consider South Korea and then moved us out of comfort zone into special needs adoption from that country; suddenly, we found ourselves going from a family with three kids to six in just 2 ½ years. We made very little money at the time, but God in His amazing heart for orphans always answered and took care of our every need through three different back-to-back adoptions. It’s been almost four years since our youngest came home from Korea and all of this time we prayed that God would open more doors for us to adopt again. Our family size as well as restrictions in our new state seemed to make adoption closed to us and our hearts ached as we waited for God to move.

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