Dream Baby - Our Second Adoption

My last blog post was all about the loss of our daughter in pregnancy. Go check that out if you haven’t seen it yet so you can have a bit more context on this story.

Before I was pregnant, on January 2nd, 2024 I woke up and texted my best friend telling her that I had a dream that we were at Thanksgiving and I was talking to someone who was holding her daughter (she was pregnant with a girl at the time) and I very vividly said this is C (keeping his name private) and told her a boy first and middle name. The dream was incredibly vivid and I’ve had very prophetic dreams before so I just took note of it and moved on. Then, about a month or so later, I find out I’m pregnant. That pregnancy ended up being our daughter that we lost. It confused me a bit just because I felt like that dream was telling me I was pregnant with a boy. Then I thought maybe I’ll get pregnant with a boy right after. My other post talks about how it all played out, but that didn’t happen. Later in the summer of 2024, I felt healed from everything we had gone through, but I just felt like I couldn’t sit in it. I needed this pain to have a purpose. We always said we planned to adopt several times so we started that process again thinking we’d either adopt again during my waiting period of not being allowed to get pregnant or if it didn’t happen, we’d try again in 2025 and just see what happened first. When we were debating on whether we should adopt again at that time, we were driving down the interstate and see a license plate that says “adopt2”. This is a story for another time, but it’s a joke in our family and God speaks to my husband through license plates. Sounds weird, but the amount of things that he’s seen on license plates are too crazy to be a coincidence. During the paperwork process, I had a vivid dream introducing a baby boy with the same name who had darker hair and had a tan complexion. I remember someone saying that it happened fast. It felt so real that I found myself missing this baby that I didn’t even know was real or not. I felt genuinely like I was losing it, but at the same time I knew it was going to happen.

Within weeks of our home study being open, we get a synopsis to review. Baby boy, with a birth mother that fits a similar description to the features of the baby in my dream. How crazy if this was it? There’s no way. Her due date wasn’t for a while so we didn’t expect her to make a decision right away. We expected to wait weeks. It was about 4 or 5 days later and our social worker calls us with the news that she had chosen us to be his parents! We were in shock, so excited, and incredibly nervous just given the fragility of the situation. Just because you’re chosen, the baby isn’t yours. She still has every right to change her mind up until she terminates her rights in front of a judge. So, we go on about our days preparing, but not getting ourselves too excited just in case. Then, about a month before his due date the social worker calls to tell us he was born early! Perfectly healthy, happy, and absolutely beautiful. He had brown hair, slightly tan skin, and was so so tiny. I had never seen a baby that small in person. He was just under 6 pounds, but seemed so small to us. On the way home from meeting him a license plate in front of us said “psalm 40”.

Psalm 40:

“I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.”

I had cried out to God and prayed so much during that time of grief and uncertainty to just please show us that the purpose of this all was before the year ended. I just felt like if I could see the reason, that would help me heal to know that all of this pain had happened for a greater purpose. That isn’t always something we get this side of Heaven. We don’t always get answers and I knew that God was still good regardless of whether we got an answer or not, but it felt like he was working so much for our good and I felt so much purpose behind everything even on my darkest days so I felt like I would see an answer, but I selfishly wanted an answer by the end of the year. Seeing that verse was the first time I knew that I was smack dab in the middle of an answered prayer. We had him stay in the hospital with his birth mom and we went home after meeting him to finish prepping to bring him home the next day. I was having all the same familiar feelings I had with our first son of just wanting to be in the moment and cherish every moment of meeting a new child for the first time, but adoption is different in the sense that it’s hard to let yourself fully be excited because you know things could still change. We had a lot of peace about it, but it’s still hard to be fully as happy as you want to be because you’re nervous to have your heart broken. 

The next day, we were finally able to take him home! We ended up having to wait several weeks before we knew that we were for sure going to stay his parents, but on the way home from the hospital we got what felt like another amazing sign that would give us comfort in the weeks to come. The car in front of us on the way home had a license plate that said “mnt2hpn” MEANT TO HAPPEN!! Are you kidding me?! That wasn’t a coincidence. So, over the next few weeks we held on to what felt like many times God had spoken to us in dreams, giving us peace, and even license plates! The most important detail of this story, however, is that he was born before Thanksgiving. We were at Thanksgiving with our baby who we named the full first and middle name that I had in my dream. My dream 11 months earlier had actually happened. All of it actually happened. He was born 3 days after our daughter’s due date. He would have never been our son had his sister made it out of the womb. I’d never wish a loss on anyone, but I also have felt so much healing and like the loss of her had such a massive purpose. Her little life and the complications from being pregnant with her ushered in a series of events that even I would have classified as traumatic and painful. Nothing good felt like it could from any of that. Deep in my heart though, I had that hope that something would. I had a deep knowing that something would come of it. We would never have baby C in our family had we not experienced what we experienced as a family and I can’t imagine my life without him as he’s lying on my chest days away from being 3 months old. I ended 2024 with a full heart and watched what I thought would be the worst year of my life turn in to the most pivotal and beautiful year I’ve ever had. I have never felt closer to God and I’ve never trusted him more with the path for my life. I have such an eternal mindset now that this life truly isn’t about me. It’s about just letting God direct my path because he knows what’s best. He has such a plan for my life and all I want to do is chase after that plan in my walk to feel closer to Him and seek knowing Him more and more on this side of Heaven. What a story this baby boy has in such a short time and I know that God has big plans for him. I can’t wait to teach all of my children how to seek what God has for them because nothing is more fulfilling.❤️