Jason Wright remembers his family’s “Stork Drop” from 4 years ago this week:
“Stork Drop” – two crazy adoption words that changed our lives. Four years ago this week. Where did the last four years go? I could have gotten a degree in that time frame! (Well, I didn’t get a degree, but I must have a PhD in “Adoption Parenting” by now surely. With all the crazy paperwork, the learning, the figuring out, the emotional and physical ups and downs of adoption I definitely feel like I have a wealth of knowledge and greater understanding).
“We have had the joy of loving our sweet baby girl over these last four years.”
We have had the joy of loving our sweet baby girl over these last four years, and each birthday we celebrate now only the blessing of her life, but we remember with immense gratitude and respect the woman who gave our precious Joanna life, and we know she is imagining her blowing out those 4 candles!
So, rewind back 4 years and here’s our story of adoption craziness: Dawn and I had been dreaming and planning on bringing home a sweet girl from Ethiopia through international adoption, and unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control our adoption fell through. Heartbroken and devastated are words that only scratch the surface of what we were going through at the time. Despite our grieving and loss, we knew God still would redeem this situation somehow, and would restore our broken hearts. When Joanna did then come into our lives she didn’t ‘fix’ us, God did that, but He gave us this gift to meet the desire we had to love a baby.
About 3 months after losing our referral for international adoption we heard through the blog realm about using an adoption consultant to receive placement of a baby through domestic adoption. Within hours of connecting to our consultant on a Friday we heard about multiple “Stork Drop” situations, where babies were born with no family to take them yet in place. One of them was Joanna. I believe God led us to her through some discernment. She was born the following Tuesday night. We talked with Deb at Mother Goose Adoptions (Creating Christian Families‘ sister company), and got some details. Wednesday afternoon we called Deb and said we would be thrilled to be Joanna’s mommy and daddy! Then our clock started ticking very rapidly.
We had to wire funds to the agency, book airline tickets, make child care arrangements, find hotels, sign MOUNTAINS of paperwork, scan and email more documents than you can shake a stick at, get baby clothes, diapers, buy a car seat, and all within 12 hours. 6:00am Thursday Dawn was on a flight from Lake Charles, Louisiana to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and shortly after lunch was holding our girl! I flew up the next day and was blown away with the preciousness of our daughter! The moment I walked through the hotel doors Dawn placed her in my arms, and I’ve never been able to let go since!
“I flew up the next day and was blown away with the preciousness of our daughter!”
Somehow the emotional crazy, the stress, the tiredness, the “stuff” all faded away, and was lost as I stared at her cute baby girl face! We got loving on Joanna, and enjoyed taking her precious birth mom out for dinner that night. It was a brief time together, but so glad we talked, shared, and shared our obvious love for this baby.
With Joanna’s birth mom at our hotel.
Saturday morning I’m pretty sure we did wear out the carpet in our hotel room as we waited for mom to sign the legal paperwork. We got the call that she had signed. Relief! Joy! I don’t exactly remember what we did that night to celebrate, but we did surprise a few people via phone call and Skype that there was a new baby girl in the family! I think we did go to Target and buy some pink baby stuff – you have to do that right?!
And so the journey of our lives with our special “Stork Drop” began, all covered in pink, hair bows and soft curls. God has blessed us with Joanna every day, and this cute bundle who curled up on my chest and moved with me with each breath I took, is now such a big girl, although she still treasures and needs mommy and daddy cuddles.
Joanna loves anything “The Little Mermaid” – what better way to celebrate being 4?
Remembering this week four years ago brings me many smiles, and I am so grateful, and so incredibly blessed. So grateful for Mother Goose, and for Deb….for her heart for our family, for the birth moms she cares so faithfully for, and all because of precious babies like Joanna who make her hard job so worth it!
We’d love for you to be encouraged by our own adoption journey of nine amazing children at our blog: “Are These Kids All Yours?” or to read more about our domestic adoption journey from four years ago with Joanna.”
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