Our Story

Most of you don't truly "know" our story and so we thought after a year of being on this road to adoption, you deserve to know us completely.

Our story really begins with myself (Vanessa). From the time I was a little girl, I always wanted to do one thing: become a mom. Seriously, my parents and older sister can vouch for me in that I would play with dolls all day long. Growing up, I literally had all my "children" named and my life planned. At the age of 13, God gave to me the desire to adopt a child. I can't remember the details exactly on how it happened, but it was so real in me. In fact, I actually bought an African American Bitty Baby Doll because it was so strong in my heart that one day I would adopt.

Chris, on the other hand, was definitely your typical boy. All boy in fact. I think he can attest to the fact that he never gave a thought to growing up, getting married, and having a family at all. He had hunting and fishing on his brain pretty much exclusively.

Thus when Chris and I met and started even discussing dating, I let him know one thing. One day, I would adopt, so if that was not something he wanted to do, he needed to let me know right then. He was very honest with me and told me that it was something that have never occurred to him. Children and marriage were just something he had never thought of. He agreed to commit it to prayer. It was actually over time, watching the adoption of my siblings, that changed Chris' heart on adoption.

When we did get married, it was strong on our heart to adopt. We wanted to finish school first and then start a family. For me personally, I did not care if we adopted first or had a biological child, but for Chris, it was important that we have a biological child first. If that never happened, he would be fine with it, but he did want to give it a try. Thus, Zoelle came to us and we would not trade her for anything in the world. :) She brings spirit and spunk into our lives each day, but boy does that make our lives interesting!

Shortly after Zoelle was born, we felt that now was the time to adopt. We committed a year to praying about it and talking about what was right for us. Once Zoelle turned a year old, we decided to fulfill the plan God had for us. We are still waiting for that plan to be filled, but in the meantime God brought to us Meridian. Meridian was not totally planned, but she was not a complete surprise to us either. Before we ever got pregnant with her, we discussed with our social worker that aspect of getting pregnant (as we knew an adoption could take a long time and we didn't want our children too far apart in age). Thus Meridian came into our lives and what a sweet, content little babe she is.

When we first told people we were going to adopt, we got a ton of questions from friends and family.

"Why would you do that if you can have your own children?"
"I suppose you are adopting because your parents adopted your siblings?"
"What kind of child do you want?"
"What color of skin?"
"Are you crazy?"
"Why would you wreck your perfect family?"

The answer to all of these questions is: God. He has given me a passion to do this, and in turn given Chris this same passion. Those are just a few of the questions we have gotten, and perhaps I will dedicate another post some time to questions and answers that you have about us and our adoption process.

For now, I know that God has written the beginning of our story and that He knows the ending, but has yet to reveal it to us. I cannot wait to see the ending!