Our adoption story began in 2017. My husband was away, hunting. I felt the Lord asking us to pursue foster care and adoption. I was not on board with that plan. When Nic returned from hunting, he said, “Hey, I think we should do foster care or something”. I laughed, knowing that indeed was the leading of the Lord.
At the time we were living in an old farm house with only 4 bedrooms (all of which were already filled with our 4 kids) and 1 bathroom. Knowing we would need more space we decided to rebuild the house. We moved into a fifth wheel trailer in one of our pastures where we lived for one crazy year. We were able to move into our new house in June of 2019. We felt ready to start our home study and licensing process for foster care.
In January of 2020 we got our first placement! We fell in love with this beautiful angel and were heading full steam ahead into the adoption process. However, we soon found out that a family member had been located. It was devastating but also wonderful. A chance to be with her biological family was the best thing for her.
It was difficult for our family to let go of our foster daughter. Was foster care the right path for us? I spoke with our caseworker and she mentioned the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program. Like many others, I had no idea what that was! My husband and I began to do research regarding embryo adoption and learned more directly from the agency. We decided to pursue embryo adoption.
In September 2020, we were matched with an awesome family who had six remaining embryos. But life became a perfect storm. The same week our foster daughter left our home, Nic was diagnosed with leukemia. We were also in the midst of finalizing our embryo adoption contracts with our placing family. We knew it was only right for us to tell the placing family about the leukemia – but we were sad to think the match might be broken.
Their response was amazing! They said they knew those babies were our babies and that God was going to heal Nic. We finalized the documents at the same time we were in Houston seeking treatment for Nic. In seven days, he was completely clear of cancer. He has been in clinical remission since June of 2021!
In November 2021 we had our first frozen embryo transfer with two of the six embryos. At our follow up ultrasound, we saw one very happy, healthy baby. In July 2022 we welcomed our Snowflakes baby boy!
It was a long, hard, and at times scary journey; but when I look at my beautiful son, I know that it was all worth it. The Lord made a way for our entire family to come out on the other side whole. We still have our beautiful home, our foster Goddaughter, a cancer free Nic, our kids know how to fight through hard things and trust God, our beautiful baby boy, and a dream for our other snowflake babies in the future. Only God can do this!