Because of a story told to me when I was young, adoption has always held a special place in my heart. While that story is not mine to tell, I do believe it was God’s way of paving the path for this child to join our family.

Jared and I have been married for seven years. We have been blessed with three beautiful children. Ian is my oldest and together we have Nadia and Gabe. While always having compassion towards adoption I really began to feel drawn to it while pregnant with Gabe (our youngest). I had seen a program on television featuring China adoptions and was instantly drawn to these children. I felt adoption grabbing at my heart. I expressed my desire to my husband but we agreed that our plates were full at that time, with 3 children (2 of which were infants), a new house and a business. So my aspiration for adoption was placed aside, at least, for the time being.

In late 2005 we began feeling pulled in a new direction, we knew something needed added to our lives. Unable to recognize exactly what we felt, we decided to fulfill the need by expanding our business. We were going to diversify and build our own building to increase business! Jared began working feverishly to make this happen. He enlisted my help and together we made the decision to purchase property and have it re-zoned commercial. We purchased new equipment, attended endless meetings and had our site development plan made. In the beginning all seemed to be going great but about half way through this process, we began noticing that something didn’t feel right. Unable to put our finger on it, we continued with the demanding needs of our business project. The week before we were going to sign our contracts and basically our lives away, Jared and I looked at each other and without words could hear each other saying “What are we doing!?!” With those thoughts we decided to put that chapter of our lives on hold and concentrate on what was really important to us, our family. We also felt comfortable with the fact our business had been good to us and knew we needed to get “back to the basics” and make the most of what we already had in our professional lives. It was at that life shift that Jared and I knew what we needed to do…begin the adoption journey of finding Malaya, our daughter from China.

Or so we thought…

We knew that we had been blessed with three beautiful healthy children. We were drawn to adoption because we wanted to open our hearts and family to another child. When we looked at it from that perspective, it didn’t make sense to us to wait for a child when there could be one already waiting for us. The best way I can explain it is as our faith grew so did our adoption heart. The concerns we once had towards special needs and older child adoption were eased by educating ourselves with all different types of scenarios. With that said, we also knew the special needs we could best provide for. We began to feel very comfortable reviewing waiting children and exploring this new direction.

The beginning of May 2007 we asked our agency permission to review their Waiting Child List….expecting to find a daughter. Surprisingly the majority of children on their list were boys and there was a child that would fit well in our family and whose needs we knew we could meet. The Child was a 2 year old boy. A bit different then our original thought of an infant girl, but without a doubt we were drawn to him. At this point I really need to tell you all that, Jared has been given the great gift of natural faith. If it feels right to him he’s a go. So as this transition unfolded, regardless of what we had planned he was “a go”. I, on the other hand, am a planner and this again was not my plan. So it took some time getting out of my comfort zone to realize that God had placed adoption in our hearts for a child, girl or boy and that we once again needed to go with what we felt was right.

On May 18th we requested to review the file for little boy that seemed to fit so well in our family. Remembering what I told you earlier, Jared took one look at his photo and simply said “Looks Good”. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment or the words. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated, just a cool dad accepting a child for who he is! On May 23, 2007 we proudly accepted the referral of our son.

So many changes have happened for us over the last two years, but holding on to the great virtues of Hope, Faith and Love we have learned to accept and embrace them. We have quickly learned that what we have wanted is not necessarily what we have needed. With our combined qualities of compassion and faith we were able to see the gift of adoption in a whole new light. It is our hope that our path will continue to lead us to another daughter but if not...maybe our Malaya, was a guardian angel connecting a little boy to his forever family.