This sweet family has an amazing adoption story and you can read about it at the bottom of this post.
I was so glad to photograph them. Baby Emma Providence slept like a champ the whole session.
My 10 yo son, Scotty, tagged along with me for this session and took this photo…
As always, get 25 comments on this blog post, and receive 2 free 5×7s! More info here - http://www.kellyrockholdphotography.com/blog/2009/11/24/2-new-ways-to-earn-free-prints-from-your-session-489/
In November of 2009, Dennis and I were out on a date when I brought up the subject
of adoption. We had longed for children for five years and had been told by my doctors
that it was unlikely to happen without some extremely risky and expensive measures.
Adoption had been on my heart for quite a while, but I had not brought it up to Dennis,
because he wanted to have “our own” children. I dropped the subject and figured that
he would come around in five or ten years. In the following months, adoption seemed to
keep coming up in messages at church or brought up in conversations with friends. All
of these things worked on Dennis’s heart and softened him toward the idea. He even
ordered a book on adoption called “Adopted for Life.”
Also in November 2009, a young woman came to a couple of services at our church and
loved how friendly and warm the people were. In February she called Pastor and Mrs.
Stone and told them that she wanted to talk to them about something. When they met,
she told them that she was pregnant and she had been thinking about making an adoption
plan for the baby girl she carried. She knew that she didn’t have the means to raise a child
and knew it would be wrong to have an abortion. She really wanted to be able to pick the
parents that would raise her baby, so she called Pastor Stone and asked if anyone in our
church would be interested in adopting her little girl.
Pastor knows our history and how long we’ve wanted children. He and his wife, Dawn,
prayed over the situation and felt confident that the Lord would have them present the
situation to us. When they called us up and asked us to come over that night, they simply
said that they wanted to “run an idea by us.” We were expecting to be asked to start
working in some ministry of the church. We were absolutely floored when he told us that
there was a baby just waiting to be adopted if the right Christian family stepped up and
took the opportunity. Dennis and I tried to remain calm through the whole conversation,
but were both about to burst. Pastor told us to go home, pray, talk it over and let him
know. After praying and talking, we felt that our time had finally come to be parents.
A week later we went out to dinner with Pastor Stone, Dawn and the birth-mother so that
she could meet us. We talked for a couple of hours and left that night wondering if she
would decide that we were the right couple. Four tortuous days later we got the call that
she felt that we were the parents God had to raise her baby.
The following months went by so fast and painfully slow all at the same time. We hired
lawyers, an adoption agency to do our home study, took the birth-mother to doctor
appointments, and decorated a nursery. The preparation for the baby to get here took a lot
of time and energy, and we were absolutely thrilled about it!
We got to know the birth-mother very well and became like family. She would talk to
the baby and tell her that her Mommy and Daddy wanted her to get big and strong. It
was wonderful going through the process with her. She made things so much easier on
us with her strength, courage and unwavering determination. She had faith that God was
going to bring her through the situation and use it to grow her.
Finally, on June 2nd at 10:12 PM, Emma Providence was born. She was 20 inches
long and weighed 8 lbs 2 oz. I even got to be in the room to help with the delivery
and Dennis came in afterward to cut the umbilical cord. It was the most amazing
thing I’ve ever witnessed. She is a perfectly healthy, beautiful and sweet baby!
Now we are awaiting our adoption hearing, which will make everything final!
It has been amazing seeing how God has worked things out. Although the years of
dealing with infertility were painful, I thank God for using them to bring Emma into our
lives. Emma, my grandmother’s first name, means “universal or all-containing.” We
chose “Providence” as her middle name because we never want to lose the wonder of
how God has begun building our family. We always want to remember God’s “universal
providence.”
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