Bringing Home Our First Child

In October 2011, we put up our Christmas tree the day our portfolios were submitted to Covenant Care. Since our caseworker equated herself to the role of Santa Claus, we placed a baby doll underneath our Christmas tree to remind us to pray for our future child. We also had hopes that we would have a child by that Christmas. Christmas came and went. We sadly took down the tree but kept the baby doll on the fireplace to remain a prayer reminder. The year went by and the time came to decorate for Christmas again. The baby doll went back under the tree in hopes that just maybe Christmas 2012 would be the time for our chance at parenthood. On December 18^th, our Santa Claus caseworker called us with notification of our long-awaited and long-desired for gift of a child!!!

Our excited Christmas news was first delivered to Eric who then delivered it to Erin. Here’s Erin’s viewpoint . . . As a high school English teacher, the end of the semester can be taxing. After an exhausting few days, I came home from school, greeted my husband who was home early since he had taken a half-a-day off, and then took a nap. My nap was cut short when Eric woke me with great excitement! He is a very sweet husband who had been giving me a homemade card and small gift for the twelve days leading up to Christmas. Since we had been so busy, the previous two days had gone by with no card. Eric woke me up to give me my two missed cards and the one for that day – the 18^th. When I got to the card for the 18^th, the card read: “On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me … his five favorite words from his favorite movie: ‘You’ve made the mommy team!’” (Words changed from Facing the Giants which read “You’ve made the daddy team.”) We are hosting a Chinese high school exchange student, so I thought it may have been related to her since she likes to call me mom since I’m her host mom. I was sort of in disbelief, even though I knew Eric wouldn’t tell me a lie. I said, “Really? What do you mean the mommy team?” Eric told me to go down to the kitchen with him because he had something to show me. Then I knew something was up! I said, “No way.” When I saw the flaming candles and vase of long-stem red roses on the kitchen table, I knew this had to be real! (Eric had just received the placement call from our caseworker when I got home from work, so he snuck out while I was napping to get his mommy-reveal items together.) Eric had me read the accompanying card which read: “Someday he’ll be a strong, confident man … but you’ll always remember the first time you held him in your arms. Someday he’ll have his own hopes and dreams, not knowing that once upon a quiet time, you closed your eyes and dreamed to have him in your life.” Wow! The whole time I was still saying, “No way! Really?! Is this really real?!” As I read Eric’s handwritten note I began to weep uncontrollably with tears of overwhelming joy, excitement, and shock. Eric’s message read: “Erin and Mom to our son, Words can’t express how I feel right now. Can’t wait to see our son and you hold your son in your arms. I love you so much and wouldn’t want anyone else to be his mom. I love you! Love in Christ, Your Hubby.” On the left side of the card Eric had written Eli’s birth information. I began to weep more. I was just so overwhelmed with the knowledge that I would finally be a mom and that someone so special had chosen us to be Eli’s parents! At that moment when I heard our son’s name, read his birth information, and heard about his story, I knew he was the son God had us wait so long for. I knew this was the moment … this was God’s chosen son for our family.

After attempting to process the news, Eric and I took the baby doll from underneath the Christmas tree and wrapped it up with a note. We took it to our exchange student. When she opened it up she cried as she realized that she would be a host-sister. She had been a close part of our adoption story since she had been staying in our home for the school year, so this made a big, positive impact on her. We then had our exchange student stay with some neighbor friends as we drove an hour to surprise our parents and siblings with the news. They were so excited when we showed up unexpectedly on their doorsteps with “It’s a boy!” balloons! That began the notification process of those close to us who had joined us in prayer and support along our adoption journey.

As the week progressed, we began to pray even more for our son's birth parents because they both were dealing with a difficult decision. The 21st was an especially prayer-filled day for them as we heard of our change in placement dates (because the possibility of a birth parent decision change). We had people all over praying for peace, comfort, discernment, and wisdom as their adoption plan decision was being finalized. We must agree that we admire how the birth parents took every last minute possible to make sure they were making the best possible choice for their/our son. That showed us more than anything just how much they love Eli!

Throughout our entire adoption journey, we have wanted God’s fingerprints to be all over our future child’s story. As much as we desired to be parents, we did not want a child in our home that God did not want in our home. When all of the pieces started falling in to place, we knew that this was God’s appointed time for us to become mommy and daddy. Details even down to Eli’s name served as confirmation. We heard that the birth parents had named their son Eli. We quickly became attached to it, but continued in prayer regarding what name we would give him. We came to the conclusion of keeping his name Eli. When we went back and looked at our baby-name-idea document from January 2012, the first boy name was Eli.

When the day finally came for us to meet our new son Eli, we were overjoyed with excitement that this day had arrived! We were really going to receive the best gift of all for Christmas besides Jesus – a son! Words cannot express our feelings as we met Eli for the very first time! He is perfect and handsome and adorable and sweet! We were in awe at the beautiful baby that had been placed in our arms and forever care. All the words we had planned to say to Eli left because we became speechless when our eyes laid hold of our precious baby boy. November 2012 made ten years of marriage for us, so our longing for a child had been long. December 22nd was definitely a dream fulfilled and a prayer answered!

To view our placement video, click here.