One of the big questions we get from couples considering adoption or people who know our story is how we decided adoption was right for our family/how we knew God was calling us to adopt. Once we made the decision to start moving towards adoption we wanted to be open about our personal story. Posts about our journey with adoption: Our 1st Adoption Announcement and Adoption as our Plan A
Since the answer to the question "How did you know God was calling you to adopt?" is different for every family impacted by adoption, I wanted to highlight other families and their various perspectives and testimonies! Each of these families I look up to SO much for how they have given God the permission to grow their family in the way He sees fit. Some of them were also influential in answering all of our questions and helping us as we entered the world of adoption. First up: The Stanley, Titus, and Konyn family! Choosing Adoption: Part 2 will be coming in the near future.
The Stanley Family! Nathan and Lauren have adopted all 3 of their children.
“Two beautiful questions have been posed, and we are delighted to respond and reflect on each. First, How did we decide adoption was right for our family? Upon dating and especially in engagement, we talked about our desire to have children often. We both said we wanted at least four! At the time, infertility never crossed our mind, and adoption was only mentioned briefly. We looked forward to the day of welcoming our first child without a concern in the world. Soon into our marriage, we were confident that we were facing infertility. At first, we talked about all the medical options we could take to help our chances, with maybe a possible chat about adoption here or there. We knew God was calling us to have children, and so we first tried some medical interventions. As months passed with no pregnancy and heavy hearts, we began talking a little more about adoption and began forming relationships with others who had adopted. We finally received news that it would take a miracle for us to conceive naturally, and so God graciously gave us a closed door (but an open heart to a miracle). With the reality that we would most likely not conceive on our own, we carried a heavy cross and grieved, but our desire to be parents only intensified and we trusted God had placed such a desire on our hearts. Adoption not only seemed the next logical step, but began to become a calling, a call from the One who placed this desire for children deep into our hearts.
This leads to the second question, How did we know God was calling us to adopt? We grew confident in our call to adopt through prayer and relationships God placed in our lives. I’ll be honest, prayer was difficult for me. How many times did I need to tell Jesus that I wanted to be a mother, He already knew? I didn’t have the words to ask over and over. However, He found ways to reach me, through written prayers and songs. There are two I’d like to share. The first, Hillsong United followed us on our adoption journey. I felt God speaking directly to me, to trust His plan for the growth of our family, particularly through the song Oceans. “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders / Let me walk upon the waters / Wherever You would call me / Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander / And my faith will be made stronger/ In the presence of my Saviour.” God alone knew the path for our family to grow. We only had to trust. What a better way to follow Him into the unknown then to enter the journey of adoption! Secondly, old prayers on The Cross, often hit me to my core, but in the deep grievances of infertility, gave me great hope for a plan far grander than I could imagine. I stumbled upon a prayer called, Your Cross, by St. Francis de Sales. Here’s just the opening line: “The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost heart.” God continued to remind us that if we united our will to His, we could be pleasantly surprised. For Nathan, prayer helped him to understand how we are all adopted children of God. He realized not only could he love intensely someone we were blessed to adopt, but he was also reminded how much God loves us. This intensified his call to adoption. Finally, God placed an abundance of couples in our lives during this time, who all had adopted. They were incredible resources and support as we discerned adoption. We trusted God placed them in our lives to help grant us the courage to move towards adoption. These families are still dear to us. We have been beyond blessed to grow our family through adoption. God has outdone himself in generosity and has taught us so much. We are forever grateful for the gift of our children and their birth families. I’ll close with the words from Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” “ -Lauren Stanley
The Titus Family!
“One of the many things my husband and I discovered that we had in common before we were married, was our desire to adopt. Adoption has always been near and dear to my heart because of my own adoption story. For my husband, he knew at a young age that there were kids in need and deserving of a loving home and he was going to play a part in that somehow in his future. My husband is one of 11 (all birthed by my AMAZING mother-in-law) and I am one of 8 (whom 6 of us were adopted, including myself, and I must add that my mother is also AMAZING). With both of us coming from big families, there was no doubt that we wanted to have kids. Whether we were blessed with them naturally, or if they came to us through adoption, kids were always on our radar.
The Lord blessed us with our first biological son in 2015. Adoption was still always on our minds, but it really didn’t become a priority until after we miscarried in 2016. I started doing my research and realized how EXPENSIVE adoption is. I couldn’t believe it, especially because adoption was not nearly as costly for my parents when they adopted my siblings and me. I reached out to multiple adoption agencies, both public and private, and my husband and I came to the conclusion that we wouldn’t be financially ready to adopt for a long time. I tried my best to find a cheaper way to adopt, but without asking for help/fundraising, or knowing a pregnant woman wanting to give up her child, I didn’t know how to make it a possibility. Although, there was one other option that I always knew about, but I didn’t want to consider it to be an option. And that was fostering. I always told myself that I would never foster. I’m not really sure why. Maybe the stigma behind it. Maybe because you weren’t guaranteed to be able to adopt a child. Maybe because of all the crazy stories I had heard. I think it may have been my lack of understanding and the fear of the unknown behind it. But it was consistently the only financially doable option that would continuously pop up on my google searches when researching about adoption. Because fostering wasn’t going to be an option, my husband and I came to the conclusion that it may be a very long time until we could adopt.
In 2017 we were blessed with a baby girl. Life was good. We had 2 beautiful children, a beautiful home, a beautiful life, and yet something was telling me to figure out what this fostering thing was all about. I told my husband how I was feeling and we had a long discussion about the pro’s and con’s of fostering. We realized, “Why would we not try this fostering thing out?” We had plenty of space in our home and love in our hearts. Now seemed like the perfect time. We put our fears aside and our trust in God and agreed that we would give it a shot. We started our fostering classes in 2018. We knew the classes would be a good sign as to whether or not this would be the right thing for our family at the moment. After our very first class I remember looking at my husband and we both smiled and knew that this was exactly what we were supposed to do. Even if we couldn’t end up adopting a child at the end of all of this, the fact that we could give a child a safe and loving home for a moment was all that mattered.
I remember it taking forever for a phone call about a placement. I began to wonder if maybe God didn’t really want us to be doing this. It took months and months. We finally got assigned to a Foster Parent case worker and I asked, “Why is it taking so long to get a placement? Did we do something wrong?” She looked into it for us and apparently part of our home study or something wasn’t turned in and or filed, so we weren’t even on the list to be called (one of the many MANY hiccups during our fostering journey). It was now the beginning of 2019 and still no call. I remember saying to my husband, “Maybe we aren’t supposed to be foster parents after all.” I was so disappointed. Soon after I found out we were pregnant and I just assumed this fostering thing wasn’t going to be a thing anymore. A month later, on my birthday, I got a phone call about a little baby girl that needed a home. Best birthday present I have ever received! Of course we said yes! We have been fostering that little girl for over 2 years now. We recently had a court hearing about her case and in about a month her case will be moved to the adoptions unit! After that, we just wait for a forever date! Fostering has been one crazy rollercoaster that has made us feel every single emotion you can think of. For us it has been another proof of God’s miracles, His timing, His love for us, and how trusting in Him can lead you on a beautiful/emotional journey you could have never imagined.” -Taylor Titus
The Konyn family is currently pursuing adoption #2! Follow along with their journey on instagram @jennparkerkonyn
“My husband and I discussed early in our relationship that we both had a heart for adoption. My father and best friend were both adopted, and my husband has two sisters who were adopted. Because of this, adoption was something we just grew up picturing for our futures. As it turned out, I experienced infertility in my first marriage and having biological children wouldn't be simple. We knew we'd be okay if we never had children, but we were definitely open to adoption.
Something we learned during our adoption process was that there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the need for infant adoption. There are quite literally tons of prospective adoptive families to every one infant whose mother is making an adoption plan. I think many of us grow up hearing about how there is a need to care for orphans, but in the vast majority of cases infants being adopted in the United States have never been orphans. It led us to discuss foster care, which we intend to pursue in the future. We are immensely blessed by our daughter joining our family through adoption, but it is very important to us that she grows up knowing we recognize that she wasn't an orphan and that infants are not commodities. I pray that the narrative surrounding adoption in the US begins to shift to being centered on the needs of adoptees and expectant/birth mothers, and less about prospective adoptive parents. After all, there would be no need for adoption in God's perfect world.” -Jennifer Konyn