When I first chatted with Joey and Danielle I could hear in their voice the passion they had for adoption. This would be their second time adopting through Christian Adoption Consultants and their arms and hearts were ready to grow their family again. Only 6 weeks after they became an active family they were chosen! Watching their faithfulness in leaning into the wait time and trusting Jesus was beautiful to witness. They said yes with open hearts to a sweet baby boy who had already been born and what felt like minutes later they were chosen and packed up their car to drive to Florida. Watching their story unfold and seeing how beautifully they embraced their son's birth mom was incredible. I loved working with them and felt so grateful to walk side by side in this journey with them. Read their story below and feel encouraged.
IN DANIELLE'S WORDS-
"My husband and I began growing our family through adoption a few years ago. Our first adoption was a rollercoaster of all the things that began with working with a local agency for a year and then changing over to CAC after the local agency closed their adoption program unexpectedly. Through that journey we really grew stronger in our faith and closer as a couple. The experience with CAC with our first adoption was wonderful. We felt well supported and prepared. As much as one can prepare with adoption. Without hesitation we knew that we would be reaching out to CAC again when we felt called to continue to grow our family.
Our second adoption match happened rather quickly but it wasn’t without its ups and downs. We were grateful to have our consultant, Fallon to pray for us and walk along side us before and after the match. It is such a blessing to have someone in your corner that has walked a similar road. She was knowledgeable and so genuine. It was such a pleasure to work with her.
In 2018 we felt some strong tugs on our heart to start the adoption process again. In September 2018 we started working with Fallon with CAC. We met with our social worker in September also to have our home study updated, took some family photos in October for our new profile book, and then we WAITED…. which is hard to do even when it is your second adoption and “you know what to expect”. Just when you think you know what to expect, or that you have it all planned out perfectly, the other shoe drops. So we thought that our homestudy would be approved by Mid October or early November. After all it was just an update. We were told that the state was backed up with completing background checks and it was taking 8-10 weeks for clearance. Just a few weeks before Christmas, after multiple calls/emails to check status, we found out that one of our applications had been rejected back in September when it was received because it was missing the smallest detail. An e-mail had been sent out to us to notify us, but we never saw it. WOW. Clearly this was a God thing. We needed to slow down as our baby wasn’t quite ready for us yet. We made the corrections, sent back the documents immediately and requested that the application please be reviewed sooner rather than later. We knew of course this would only happen if it was part of God’s timing. Thankfully for our eager hearts it was. The week before Christmas we got our approval from the state and our SW had the finalized home study for us the day after Christmas!! Fallon had our beautiful profile book ready for us to print weeks before so now we were ready to start seeing situations after the holidays!
We saw several situations over the next 5 weeks. Each of us would review the situation and then we would agree to present or not. We presented to a few before our match. The “No’s” were hard to hear, but we were confident that God would not let us miss OUR baby. While we were waiting, we learned about a sweet baby boy that was 2 weeks old in the NICU waiting for his forever family. There was something about him that tugged at my heart. However, we were still waiting to hear back from an expecting mom we were saying yes to. Praying for her and that she would have peace and clarity in whatever she chose. We waited a few weeks for an update to find out that she was choosing another family. Later that week we received a call from Fallon. That sweet baby boy in the NICU that had been born 2 weeks ago still needed a forever family. His mom had reviewed 9 profiles and was requesting more. WHAT?! We FedExed our profile books that Friday afternoon so that they would arrive by Monday. Mama “K” said when she saw our profile she knew. We packed up and drove through the night to meet our boy! We spent 5 days with Grayson in the NICU before he was discharged and then only waited a shocking 2 days for ICPC clearance. While we were there we had some good visits with Mama “K”. They were extremely emotional visits, but I’m so glad that we had those moments so that I can share them with Gray as he grows up. Each of our boys have their own unique story, and we feel so incredibly blessed that we were chosen to raise them. We will never regret saying yes! "
***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!! ***
