One year ago, Amanda and her husband, Chris, adopted their children (boy/girl twins!) with the help of Lifetime Adoption. Last year, I featured Chris and Amanda on our Birth Parents blog, so I’m delighted to be able to share the story of how adoption has graced their lives here!
This story originally appeared on Worth the Wait, an online collection of stories of people whose greatest dreams, hopes, and aspirations didn’t necessarily happen when they expected them to or how they expected them to – but when they arrived, it was worth the wait.
We hope Amanda’s beautiful and well-put words encourage you today as you move through your adoption journey!
Chris and Amanda’s adoption profile cover photo
When it is your season, it happens quickly—God moves in His own timing, and blessings appear suddenly in the blink of an eye. Amanda was at work and came out of a meeting to a missed call: “Hi, this is Tiffany at Lifetime. Please call me back. We have a birth mom that wants to talk with you.”
This birth mom was the mom of healthy four-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. Unfortunately, the birth mom was in a situation where she could no longer provide for the twins.
Amanda called the birth mom, and they spoke for over an hour. Both women cried. They hit it off. From that phone call, the ball was in the birth mom’s court. Twenty minutes later, Lifetime called back. The birth mom had chosen Chris and Amanda.
“They said, ‘She wants you, and she wants you now,'” Amanda shares. “Like—now now. It was the craziest timing ever, but we made it work. That’s what we do.”
Five days before Christmas—Chris and Amanda were going to be parents immediately. Talk about a Christmas miracle!
Click to read Chris and Amanda’s adoption story in full at Worth the Wait.
The fact that all of this was happening so suddenly at the most wonderful time of the year added extra magic to Chris and Amanda’s answered prayer.
After arriving in the birth mom’s state, Chris and Amanda were standing by the river looking at Christmas lights when the twins ran up to them and hugged them for the first time. It was the first time the couple met, face-to-face, their children.
“Holidays are for family,” Amanda said. “For that dream of ours to come true—to make that dream for them and for the birth mom come true—she was crying, saying ‘This is the life I wanted them to have.’ She’s the bravest person of all.”
Chris and Amanda remain in touch with the twins’ birth mom, who texted Amanda happy Mother’s Day this past May. She said she knew she did the right thing by entrusting the children into Chris and Amanda’s care. “That is an amazing woman right there!” Amanda said.
Click to read Chris and Amanda’s adoption story in full at Worth the Wait.
“[This experience] has changed me in so many different ways,” Amanda shares. “The biggest one for me is I look at what’s truly important now. I find myself thinking, ‘Does this really matter?’ If not, I try not to focus energy there. And as much as I love my work and am committed to excellence, I have to leave things at the office much more now. That hasn’t been easy for me after all the years of being able to arrive early and stay late. However, I have a new title of Mom, and I take those responsibilities very seriously. I love doing things for the twins and seeing the wonder through their eyes. It’s so fun and rewarding.”
It’s not lost on Amanda that before her twins entered her life, she and Chris lost a boy and then a girl. That God restored that. “He was like, ‘It’s okay, I’ve got both of them for you,'” Amanda said. Everything they lost was restored. There were two babies they were meant to have, and they would exceed every expectation and then some.
Amanda remembers the days of her wait—the years, the years of the nagging in her head, wondering if it would all ever work out. But the waiting season was where her faith grew. She believes that God won’t put a dream in your heart unless He has a plan in place to fulfill it. Will it look like what we envisioned? Likely not. Will it be worth it? Absolutely. Look at Chris and Amanda. God restored everything that was lost and blew their minds while doing it.
“He will fulfill it beyond your expectations, if you only have faith and get out of your own way,” she said. Within a span of 24 hours, Chris and Amanda went from being just Chris and Amanda to being a family. It happened just as it was meant to.
“We were chosen, and the kids were chosen,” Amanda said. “We needed them, and they needed us.”
And suddenly, two became four—and the rest, as they say, is history! Visit Worth the Wait to read Chris and Amanda’s full adoption story.
Are you curious about adoption but need help knowing where to start? Learn more today by calling Lifetime Adoption at 727-493-0993 or requesting free adoption information.
Heidi Keefer is a Content Creator for Lifetime Adoption and has over 15 years of experience in the field of adoption. An author of thousands of articles and social media posts over the years, Heidi enjoys finding new ways to educate and captivate Lifetime’s ever-growing list of subscribers.
Heidi has a keen eye for misplaced apostrophes, comma splices, and well-turned sentences, which she has put to good use as a contributor to Lifetime’s award-winning blogs. She has written and published hundreds of adoption articles which explore the various facets of domestic infant adoption today.
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