Oftentimes, Lifetime connects with adoptive couples in the midst of their route to parenthood, at a crossroad where loss meets the possibility for positive things ahead through adoption. In this post, Lifetime mom, Lisa, shares how she and her husband Frank moved from infertility to adoption.
In this family’s story, we hear how Frank and Lisa moved through their adoption wait to a match and embraced the opportunity open adoption gave them to develop a friendship with their daughter’s birth parents.
“She is so lucky to have you!” many people so often exclaim when finding out our daughter, Tori, was adopted. My response is and always will be, “No, we are blessed and lucky to have her.”
Our journey started when my husband, Frank, and I decided to stop trying for biological children. We decided not to try IVF and thought that we were just meant to be parents to our “fur-children.” After about six months, I knew that Frank was meant to be a dad and my heart never let me stop thinking about becoming a mom, so I started researching adoption. It took another six months before we found Lifetime and it was then that our lives changed. Both of our hearts were fully committed to adoption and knew this was where we were meant to be.
After being “active” with Lifetime for four months and listening to every webinar I could get my hands on, we received a call that an expectant mother was interested in us! We were stunned that this was actually becoming real. I heard about it, read about it but never really thought I would get that call.
I spoke with her and felt the conversation went well, but was still incredibly nervous. She was also interested in two other couples – would we measure up? Would she like us more than them? I hated the feeling of competition and obsessed over the profiles of the other couples that I THOUGHT she may be talking to.
A couple days later, as my husband was putting up Christmas lights on the house, Diane from Lifetime called to confirm, WE WERE CHOSEN! I eagerly waited for Frank to come in the house and had a little note waiting for him on the counter that said, “Congratulations! You’re going to be a dad!”
Five weeks before Tori’s due date, I received a text message at 12:15 pm, while sitting at my desk at work, that Tori was coming early. I called Frank at work and he said, “What do I do?!” I told him, “Hunny, you leave work, tell your boss you’ll see him in a couple weeks and meet me at home and we’re going to meet *S* and her baby!” (We had practiced this over and over and our bosses were aware and supportive, but it still makes your heart pound when that moment arrives!)
A few hours later, we met Tori’s birth mom and dad and as crazy as it sounds, we just connected. It was like we were meeting with old friends. They asked us if we had a name picked out and I was so nervous they wouldn’t like it! I told them what we liked for a first name and asked if they would like to pick the middle name. They had one picked out that they hoped we would like and of course, we did. It has a lot of meaning behind it and I’m really happy they wanted us to pick her a first name and for them to give her a middle name. After the name was established, they took us to the NICU to meet our daughter.
Over the 13 days that Tori was in the NICU, we were fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with her birth parents. I will forever value that time and all of the information they shared with us. The rest of that story will be shared with Tori as she gets older.
Tori is now 21 months old, and has visited her birth family this past summer and we exchange regular communication and pictures with them. We are close friends with her biological parents and are forever thankful for their sacrifice and love. It is not lost on us how much pain they had to go through and continue to go through, while we are over the moon with our amazing daughter.
I love seeing that she’s left handed like her birth mom and also like my brother. I love seeing her love for reading like Frank and her birth mom. I love seeing the red tint in her blonde hair that comes from her birth dad and the compliments that she looks like me. The examples of how both families and characteristics bleed together is never-ending and no matter what, we are all one big family, forever connected.
Not only are we now an adoptive family but are also a waiting family, as we look forward to Tori becoming a big sister. While we’ve been through the process once, we are just as nervous the second time around as we know no two adoption stories are alike. We are eager to see where this new journey takes us!
We’d love to help you adopt! Start your open adoption journey today by completing Lifetime’s free application to adopt.
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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