"Our agency, along with Rebecca, became our guides through the many ups and downs of the adoption process. Without these professionals, we would not have our little one."

A few years after Nick and I started dating, I was diagnosed with Viral Cardiomyopathy, which leads to weakness in the heart muscle. Although my heart significantly improved, we knew that adoption might be the best option for growing our family. After getting married and settling into our first home, we decided that we wanted to pursue domestic adoption wholeheartedly.

Our first step was to research the various agencies in our area and schedule meetings with five of them. A few years later, we decided on the agency that we wanted to work with. This was the best decision we have ever made, as they led us in the right direction and were always open and honest with us. Since adoptions were down in our state, our agency recommended hiring a consultant to do an interstate adoption. That’s when we found RG Adoption Consulting
and began working with the wonderful Rebecca. Our agency, along with Rebecca, became our guides through the many ups and downs of the adoption process. Without these professionals, we would not have our little one.

Next, after getting to know our preferences, we began creating our profile book. Although this was the most challenging part of our journey, we produced a book that we were both very happy with. When our profile and home study were complete, Rebecca recommended quite a few agencies that seemed to be good fits for us to work with. In total, we decided to be aggressive and sign up with 5 agencies. We were able to do this due to their low application
fees.

We presented our profile to many situations and received that dreaded message letting us know we were not chosen too many times to count. That was difficult! Thankfully, we had many friends to lean on during this period. After a few months, we felt as though we would never be matched. To our surprise, one of the agencies we signed up with first told us that they had a couple of situations for us to consider. We decided to present to both and were matched within a week! This moment still sticks out in my mind as a very joyous one! We smiled, cried, and hugged each other.

We began working with the wonderful staff at our placement agency after our match. They also became a key member of our support system. We began receiving ultrasound photos and updates regularly. We were still in shock and couldn’t believe that this was actually happening. We were thrilled that the birthmother wanted us in the delivery room! This was a huge honor for us. Ultimately, she wound up getting an induction date. We flew from Illinois to Texas the day before the induction to give us a little time to settle in; however, we didn’t even finish lunch when we received the call that she was in labor. We rushed to the hospital and finally met this courageous woman. We talked with her and tried to ease her mind a little bit while we waited.

William was born less than 2 hours later. We were extremely lucky that the hospital let us have a room of our own at the hospital, so we had a lot of baby bonding time. A few days later, papers were signed and baby William became our son! We were finally parents and let out a huge sigh of relief (and a lot of tears) The time we got to spend with William’s birthmother in the hospital will also forever be fond memories.

Due to a two week NICU stay, we were in Texas for almost a month. At times, this was challenging as we just wanted to bring our baby home, but we knew this was the place for William at the time. We spent approximately 11 hours a day at the hospital caring for our son, growing closer and closer each day.

Once William was discharged, we were cleared to bring him home about a week later. We jumped for joy and celebrated this wonderful news. We flew to Texas empty-handed and now, William, our son, was asleep on our laps, with lots of baby gear in tow.

We have cherished every moment with our now five-month-old, William. He is the greatest gift! We are still in touch with his birthmother, mostly through text messaging. We’ve done a few video chats so William could see her and hear her lovely voice. We hope she will remain a part of our lives through our weekly communications.

Although our journey was rocky at times, we stayed strong for each other and knew that the right situation would come our way. We had an amazing support system as well, which made our journey easier. William’s finalization date is set and we cannot wait to celebrate!