{Adoption} Ben's story

In many ways, Ben's story is a continuation of Cate's story. And, really, their stories are the story of God's faithfulness in making us a family. This is our story.

On Cate's second birthday, we met with the same social worker to update our home study for what we thought would be an agency adoption. We loved everything about our independent, private adoption process that led us to our first-born child. And, really, we wanted to do it again, but we assumed we should proceed with the "normal" adoption route.

{Somehow I still thought I was in charge of the plan. If you've been around here, you know this is a lesson I learn over and over and over again. God always wins.}

So we chose an agency in Fort Worth, Texas, and made plans to attend an orientation there in July 2009. Meanwhile, I filled out grant applications, gathered documents for our home study, and made an appointment to meet with our Kentucky attorney to update him on our desire to adopt again, especially because I already had listed his name on countless forms.

More evidence of life not being what I expected, our attorney called us a couple days later to tell us he found us an adoption scenario. This conversation came on a Monday: Pregnant, unmarried woman who also worked full-time and was going back to school wanted a family to adopt her baby boy that was due at the beginning of December. 

Yes. Really? Maybe. Wait. 

We were supposed to leave Saturday for Texas on an extended family vacation that also included our adoption agency pit stop. And yet on Monday afternoon, I talked on the phone to the woman who would turn out to be our son's birth mom. We met her in person the night before we left for Texas. 

Yes, we went on vacation and met with the agency anyway until we had a chance to talk to the birth father. {Really, you should read: I nagged Greg to call the birth father.} Our only reservations with this adoption scenario were having the birth parents, who weren't together anymore, living in our same town. We live in a small town. And it's a typical small town where people know each other's business.

We didn't want everyone to know the details of this. We love to tell our adoption stories. Our kids know {and will know more} they're adopted. But some details aren't other people's business and we weren't sure how that would happen in a town that my husband has lived his entire life with most of his large, extended family.

But conversations and prayer led us to peace. 

So, when we returned from Texas, we proceeded with this second independent, private adoption we weren't expecting. The week before our meeting with the agency 663 miles away, the attorney just down the street who finalized our first adoption told us a woman had walked into his office seeking help to find a family to adopt the baby boy she was expecting in less than 20 weeks.

We meet the birth mom at her next appointment and we saw our son via ultrasound. Oh how I love God orchestrating the details. He also was 25 weeks long in his birth mom's womb and he weighed 1 pound 7 ounces, so much like his big sister's story. 

Our son Benjamin Lucas was born Nov. 23, 2009, three blocks from our house. His sister, who was almost 31 months older, was happy to welcome him into our family.

God knew the desires of our hearts again and fulfilled them in his time. He showed us his faithfulness in such a tangible way. This time it came into the world at 2:56 p.m. on the Monday before Thanksgiving, weighing 7 pounds 10 ounces and with a head full of dark hair. 
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This is the fourth in a series of adoption posts this month. You can find them all here, as they are published throughout the month. 

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