MEET THEO

I will never forget the first time I got the chance to talk with Lauren and Nathan. Their hearts were incredibly kind and I could instantly tell that they wanted to walk the adoption journey in a way that honored each and every person involved, mainly their future child's family. It was beautiful to see them take each step forward with faith as they completed each step of their adoption journey. They checked off their home study, continued forwarded with their education, designed their profile book, and started applying to agencies, even with a few road bumps. Each time they said yes to a mom that did not choose them back, their hearts amazed me. "I am so glad she found a family that has brought her peace." A posture that was for an expecting mom each and every time. When their yes did come, watching them so lovingly care for her was just natural. It was an honor to not only walk with them, but to know them and be connected to their story too! I hope their story encourages you today. 

In Lauren's words:

Adoption has been a part of our extended families’ stories through both of our grandmothers - one as an adoptee, and one as an adoptive mother. We always knew we wanted it to be a part of our family story, too. Our hearts were called to adoption and we had many conversations about adoption in the early years of our marriage. After walking through infertility, we knew that adoption would enter our family story earlier than we had expected. While adoption was never our plan B, we would eventually see just how God would use the timing of our journey to lead us to our son.  

We contacted CAC in May of 2023, and got connected with Fallon immediately. Overwhelmed with everything involved in the adoption process, Fallon gave us a sense of calm and direction, organizing and explaining everything through each step. We had a mountain to climb, but with CAC and Fallon, we knew we had our guide to lead us on the journey.

While each step felt like it took forever, featuring several bumps and setbacks, we tried to trust the process and held onto our faith and our community as we completed our home study, many background checks, paperwork, creating our profile book, and working with agencies. 

Along the way we experienced all the emotions every hopeful adoptive parent walks through: fear, discouragement, hope. We saw many cases, and were told “not yet” many times. As the wait grew longer, we began to wonder more and more what God was doing with our stories while we were trying to be faithful during the wait. 

And then one day a case came through that our hearts connected to as soon as we saw it. We immediately decided to say yes, again in hope. We presented our profile book through our agency, and sent the expectant mom a letter. The next day, she wanted to do a video call with us as she made her decision. We have never been so nervous! We got on a Zoom call and got to talk with her and answer some of her questions. We felt connected to her but knew she had a huge decision to make. Only two hours later, we got the call, hearing the words that would change our lives forever:  “she loved you guys and she chose you.” 

Over the next couple of months we cautiously prepared for a baby’s arrival, wanting to be ready but also knowing that things could still change and the expectant mother could choose to parent at any point. We slowly became more in contact with her, and began getting to know each other. We always knew we wanted to work towards an open adoption and were finally taking those next steps with her. We had a lot of hope, but fear for the unknown, too. 

There were many ups and downs while we waited for baby’s arrival. This was by far the hardest part of the entire process! One day, we woke up to a phone call from our agency’s adoption specialist: “you should get ready and start driving because she had the baby!” We were in shock and immediately began the longest drive of our lives. Our son was here, we just had to get to him. 

The next couple of days gave us moments we will treasure for the rest of our lives. We got to spend two days in the hospital with our son and his amazing birth mom. We got to know each other and learned so much about her and where he comes from. The hospital gave us a room next door, and we were so grateful for that time altogether. We can’t wait to share all the details of his story with him one day. After a few days, we finally brought our son home. 

All throughout our adoption process, we experienced a lot of “both/ands” and I know we will continue to walk in those as we raise our son to know his story. Adoption is both sorrow and joy, grief and gratitude, loss and love. I can confidently say that God used this journey to show us his incredible, overwhelming grace. 

When we were frustrated with infertility, God was preparing our hearts to be resilient and to lean on Him through hard things. When we felt alone and abandoned, God gave us a community filled with foster and adoptive stories to encourage and strengthen us. When we were overwhelmed with the process, God brought CAC and Fallon into our lives to give us a sense of direction and purpose. When we thought nothing was happening, our son was being formed in his mother’s womb. When we felt hopeless in the waiting, our son’s mom was making the decision to place for adoption. When we started to wonder if we would ever be chosen, our son’s mom was looking at our profile. We learned that even when we couldn’t see it, God was writing all of our stories the entire time. He is worthy to be trusted and he is full of grace that we don’t deserve. In the midst of our doubt and lack of faith, He meets us where we are and gives us more than we could even imagine.

We truly couldn’t be more grateful for Fallon and Christian Adoption Consultants. They faithfully guided us, prayed for us, and walked with us every step. Our whole family thanks you, CAC! We could not have done it without you.

MEET NAOMI

Walking with Josh and Lily through their adoption story and watching them become parents for the first time was such an honor. What I love so much about them, was their approach to adoption as learners. They truly were open-handed and open-hearted about what the Lord had for them and what that could look like. Watching them lean into understanding the true heartbeat of adoption was beautiful, and in that journey of understanding, they were chosen to love and care for their daughter her entire life. Watching them step into parenthood with love at the forefront for their daughter and her mom was so incredible to witness. I hope their story and words encourage you today. 

In Lily's words...

Since the very beginning, adoption was always part of the plan. 

Always a part, but a very distant part of our future that we didn’t think about all that often. On our second date, we talked about kids, and to our surprise, we both wanted to have four bio kids and adopt two later on in life to complete our family. But as with anything, we can plan, but ultimately it’s up to God. And in the end, His way is always much better than ours. A couple of years after getting married, we found out that we couldn’t have biological kids due to male factor infertility. It was tough. Some of the hardest moments in our life. Once we got to the other side of grief, I felt a nudge from the Holy Spirit that it was time to pursue our dream of growing our family through adoption now rather than later. 

Just a couple of years before this happened, I was on Instagram, and a couple I follow, Brian & Jenn Johnson, adopted their two little boys, and they partnered with CAC for their adoption journey. I felt it in my spirit that once we were ready to pursue this step, CAC would be the first place we called. And so we did. Right after we filled out our form, we got connected with Fallon. We were scared, nervous, and honestly just terrified to begin this process. But after the first call, Fallon calmed all our nerves, helped us work through our fears, and we were ready to move forward. If not for that one call, I don’t know if we’d be where we’re at today.

By the time we were approved, we were a third of the way funded. 9 months after starting the process, we received our first case. I remember driving home and getting an email with the subject line “baby.” My heart raced, and so did I, speeding home to Josh so we could read it together. We read through the story of a baby that was already born, prayed about it, and ultimately decided not to present. We would receive many cases and wouldn’t present on them because we weren’t “feeling” crazy connected with the cases. We decided to call Fallon to ask her to help us navigate our fear of presenting. We had fears like, what if it’s the wrong baby? What if we’re not supposed to? Etc.. and she said something that changed the trajectory for us from that moment on. She encouraged us not to think that God would put the wrong baby in our family just because we said yes to a case we weren’t “feeling” 100% and that it is a bigger faith step to say yes to a mom and trust God to close the door if it’s not meant to be ours. From that moment, we were saying yes at every moment. There were stories we were on standby for weeks to fly to Florida because the baby was already born, but no one had been chosen yet, and cases where the baby wouldn’t be born for months. Cases with twins and singletons. In many different situations, and just as many times, we heard the answer “NO." Fallon reminded us that it was actually a "NOT YET."

We began our home study process, eager to complete it as soon as possible, but we were met with holiday delays and covid understaffing. While we waited for the court to approve us for adoption, we shared our story with our community. Out of nowhere, people began to bless us by donating towards our adoption fees. It was absolutely crazy and mind-blowing as we were going just to keep it under wraps until we were chosen by an expecting mom. Something in our pride said that we should be prepared to do it alone without the help of those around us. But God convicted us and reminded us that we were meant to live in a community and lean on one another. 

In the middle of waiting in faith, we leaned back into one another and reminded ourselves that even though this wait was hard for us, there would be an even greater heartache for the mom who would choose us. We started praying for her, even though we did not know her yet, that she would feel sully surrounded by love and support. A few weeks later we received an adoption story from Fallon. We presented on Tuesday, October 11th, to this expecting mama praying for peace in her heart no matter what decision she would make. And exactly a week later, I walked out of a meeting, and I see an envelope on my desk. I quickly open it, and inside, I see a check that had enough on it to fund not one but multiple adoptions. And you won’t believe this, but just an hour later, after getting that check on Tuesday, October 18th, our case worker called us and told us that this incredible expecting mom had chosen us. You see, God’s timing is so so perfect. As I released myself from making it happen in my own efforts despite knowing that we were in this situation because of our choices, God’s plan still prevailed, and He provided. 

We were in awe of His goodness. I couldn’t contain myself all day with how excited I was.  We knew it was the mom and baby that God had in mind for us. I partly knew it was a girl because God gave me her name two years before. Naomi Eleanor Petit. Naomi - Pleasant one, above all. Eleanor - God is my light. When we started the process, I had this vision of holding our newborn on the couch at my parent’s house in Seattle during Christmas. It was this vision I held onto as hope for what was to come. Our baby girl was due on Christmas Eve but came early On December 8th. We got to meet her the next day. Knowing how much her mom loves her humbled us to our core and the amount of respect and love we have for her is infinite. We got to take her home on December 10th, and on December 21st, we were in Seattle, and I was sitting on the couch holding my newborn just as God showed me it would be. She is truly the greatest gift we’ve ever received. She is our everything. Adoption has allowed us to become parents, expand our love greater than we ever thought possible, and has shown us God's plan on display in front of our very eyes. 

***If you are interested in learning more about adoption and services we provide at Christian Adoption Consultants, I would love to chat! Feel free to email me, Fallon Palacios, at   Fallon@christianadoptionconsultant.com and check out www.christianadoptionconsultants.com for more information!! ***