How Max joined our family

Over the coming weeks I am going to be doing some updates on Heart Knit Home, especially to my adoption story page and adoption info, but I don't want to lose the story of how Max joined our family in the process of adding how Baby Golden #2, now being called Baby G by Max and I, is joining our family, so copied from my Adoption Story page, here's how Max came to be a Golden and I became a mama.

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When I was 8 years old, I read a story that hurt my heart so greatly about how little girls were treated in China, I decided at that moment I would someday be a mother through adoption.

I've never particularly felt attached to the idea of giving birth to babies. Don't get me wrong, I've always imagined that I would have kids and assumed that eventually I'd have one or two children biologically, but it was never something I dreamed of like adoption.

Before Dan and I got married, I shared with him my plan to adopt eventually. I explained to him how I had known since I was a little girl myself that I would adopt. I shared that it wasn't something I was willing to compromise on and if adoption wasn't something he was open to then we simply weren't right for each other. Thankfully, that didn't scare him off! We got married the following summer.

After Dan and I had been married for 3 years, we decide it was time to begin our family. As what we thought would be a last hurrah before becoming pregnant, we took a trip to New York City just the two of us, our first trip alone since our honeymoon. On our way to NYC, I began having severe leg pain and a couple of days later, my back went out completely (both of which from degenerative disc disease and nerve impingement in my low back).

Fast forward another 2-1/2 years- My back pain was as bad as ever, despite having undergone surgery, and we still had not conceived a child. I visited my OB/GYN, who recommended both Dan and I undergo tests. I took all the forms home, but as Dan and I began discussing and praying, something just felt off to us- adoption was already in our plan so why were we holding on so tightly to the idea conceiving a child?

We decided to take a few months to think and pray and at the end of 2010, we both had come to the conclusion that God had called us to become first time parents through adoption. Just a few short weeks later, on January 3, 2011, we met with our adoption specialist at Bethany Christian Services for the first time.

We walked into the Bethany office thinking we were getting information on the China adoption program. Since that time as a little girl, I had always imagined that I would adopt from China. We knew that the wait list was long and that we couldn't submit the official paperwork until we were both 30, but we figured we could get the ball rolling, at least a little bit.

As we sat in the Bethany office with our adoption specialist while she explained the different programs to us, a still, small voice kept speaking to me saying that China just wasn't the right path for us. We took a bunch of brochures to read at home and headed to the car.

When we got in the car, Dan and I began discussing the options we'd been given. It felt crazy to say it aloud, but I said to Dan I felt that maybe we were being called to domestic infant adoption instead of China- he said he had been feeling the same thing too! The next day, we called our specialist and we officially got started.

Our road to approval was a long and arduous one, but we finally made it onto the list of waiting families at the end of July 2011. Over the following 13 months, we would ask to be considered as parents for more than a dozen and a half children and we'd also meet and spend time with a birth mother, each time the children going to different families and each time my heart breaking a little more.

In mid-June 2012, I was so dejected after getting yet another rejection, I emailed our adoption specialist and said "Why on earth aren't we being chosen?!" The last one had put me over the edge. He was an African American baby who was due mid-June and I was absolutely certain that he was meant to be our child, but his birth parents had decided to make other plans for him.

Heartbroken, I called one of my best girlfriends and said, let's go shopping. We headed out of town for a girls' day and we were having the time of our lives! But all day long, I had this little voice speaking to me again saying that something big was about to happen. Just as we were leaving lunch and heading to Target, my phone rang- it was our adoption specialist. The birth parents of the baby boy I was so certain of had chosen us and he was coming home to us that night! I was elated and scared out of my mind at the same time. We made a mad dash through Target grabbing anything and everything that seemed like it would be useful for a newborn and headed home. We welcomed Max home on June 18, 2012, just five hours after we got the call that we'd been chosen. Without a doubt, I can say he was worth the wait and was the best surprise!