By Christi Felabom
In January of 2014, my husband and I both had the desire to have another child. We knew that we were supposed to have another little one, and I got pregnant in August of 2014. We were so excited and began to anticipate the arrival of a new addition to our family. However, a week after we found out we were pregnant, we lost the baby. It was devastating and painful — our first time losing a child. We were heartbroken that we did not get to hold or meet them, but we got pregnant again right before Christmas. A few days later, we lost that baby as well.
At this point, we thought that, perhaps, God was leading us to be done trying to have children; however, we were told by a doctor that perhaps my taking supplements could make it possible to carry another child. So we took the doctor’s advice and got pregnant again! We were shocked but also excited because we thought this must be the answer to our prayers. Then, again, a week later, we lost the baby. This grief was extremely intense, as it was hard to understand this was God’s plan for us. Our grief was for our three children we did not get to meet and our acceptance that the door was closed to have more children biologically.
Through this process, we turned to God a lot through prayer. And while we may not have understood the meaning of our losses at the time, we chose to view each pregnancy as a gift from Him. We will always grieve them but have also found an intimate solace. We sought comfort from each other, through readings and through community.
We began the adoption journey when we realized this was our plan all along. We were supposed to adopt; we just didn’t see that at the beginning of our journey. In fall of 2015, we had a garage sale to see if we would be provided the means to adopt. We were blown away by our sales! It was a great start. We also began a gofundme page and again, received a lot of support. It was clear to us that God would continue to provide and give all that was needed to direct us each step of the way. We had an amazing consultant that helped us through each step of the process since the adoption journey was a whole new language and process than what we knew.
We began our home study in December of 2015. There was a lot to be done, and waiting for our little girl seemed long some days and short others. We presented to several expectant mothers, wondering each time if it would lead us to our future daughter. While we were passed up a number of times, we never lost hope and were presented again shortly after Thanksgiving of 2016. We immediately said yes! She seemed like a perfect fit for us. A few days later we were called and told she wanted to talk to us! In our conversation, she told us that she had such peace knowing her little girl would be in our family.
On December 31st, 2016 our sweet Hannah was born. We got to be with her from day one and have had her with us ever since then. She is an amazing gift to our family. She is ours, and we are so blessed to have her in our lives. Every day, we get the gift of being able to see her grow. Adoption is so beautiful. We didn’t know this was our journey, but we are so grateful it has been.
Christi Felabom is a stay at home mom of four amazing children. She has been married to her husband Ryan for 13 years, and they live in the Chicagoland area! She has been a mom since November 2007, and works as a part time mental health counselor. Check out her blog.