The Backstory

We’ve known that adoption was in our future for almost 10 years, but our journey started years before that. The dreams started when I was pregnant with our first child 15 years ago. I had no idea what they meant at the time, but dream after dream have come through the years in which I gave birth to or was holding a dark curly haired, dark skinned baby girl. We first met someone with the name Hadassah at a church in the city which we were invited to come and speak about LIFE. The pastor and his wife were a black couple and they had a daughter whose name was Hadassah. I was giving the message that night and it was all about Esther. My husband Jeremy and I left and said to each other, “The next girl we have, her name is Hadassah.” That was 8 years ago.

Throughout this process every time I wanted to give up on this dream, every time I got discouraged, or thought it was too hard or maybe wasn’t God’s plan, I had a dream. In one specific instance, I had a particularly challenging day with the kids. I went to bed and as I was falling asleep I cried out to God and said this is too hard, the waiting is hard. Either come through or take away this desire. The next morning I had a message from a friend she said, “I had a dream about you last night, in it you had adopted a baby girl.” This has happened multiple times over the past nine months. God is so faithful! So many times I wanted to give up on Him, but He never gave up, He never left our side because He knew the plan He had in store. It’s so much better than I ever hoped or dreamed it would be!

Labor

Over the course of our marriage we have had many adventures! None have even come close in comparison to this! July 1st 2015 we sent in our first application and check to hire an adoption consultant. We also started praying for the momma that would carry our Hadassah. On November 20, 2015 we got the completed home study. I cried as I read that our family had been approved. It was time to begin applying to agencies! On Friday March 11, 2016, just days after getting matched we were notified that we needed to get ready to leave our home state because birth mom was scheduled for a C-section Monday morning! That entire day is a total blur of packing, and phone calls with the attorney and the adoption agency. One thing that I will always remember about that day is the attorney asked me if we had a name picked out. I told her we had chosen the name Hadassah Joy. She said, “Oh like Esther in the Bible? Isn’t there something coming up soon that has to do with that?” Purim is a Jewish holiday commemorating what Esther did when she was used by God to rescue the Jewish people from Haman’s plan to have them wiped out. This year Purim happens on March 23rd and 24th. If all goes smoothly we will bring Hadassah home during Purim.

We had planned to leave early Sunday morning so we would be sure to be there in plenty of time. Saturday night Jeremy had a dream, he rarely dreams so when he has dreams that he remembers we take notice. In the dream he was leading a group of black children to safety and there were trees with low branches lining the path he was leading the children along. In the trees there

were men with small paring knives that would jump out and try to cut off the hands of the people leading the children. We prayed about this dream and knew that God was trying to warn us about some kind of danger. After a little more prayer and searching we discovered that the trees in the dream looked very similar to Myrtle trees. The root word of Hadassah is Hadas which mean Myrtle tree. We knew this dream had significance and meaning. The knives we believed represented word curses and cutting off of hands we felt was a warning that the enemy was trying to cut off the work of God’s hands. We sent off a quick e-mail to a few prophetic friends and asked them to pray and call us and we were off. We got about ½ way to our destination and we got a call from a prophetic friend of ours saying she too had a dream that night with Jeremy and I in it. She told us her dream and we talked a little about the 2 dreams and what they might mean. Her dream was that there was a home remodel happening but there were a lot of delays. And obstacles in the way of accomplishing the goal. We talked and prayed and felt that although the Lord was warning us that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, He was also guiding us along the way and showing us how to pray through it. With that ammunition and faith boost in hand we continued to drive and pray. We had no idea just how challenging the week ahead would be.

Birthday

We arrived at the hospital Monday morning and right off the bat we were met with delay. The C-section was not going to be at the time we had been told, they were moving it back 2 hours. We were able to meet Hadassah’s tummy mommy and she told us she chose us specifically because we had other children and she knew we would be able to take good care of her baby.  This blessed my heart so much.  The reason so many agencies had told us we wouldn’t be chosen was exactly why she thought we would be a good fit.  The nurse came and told her it was time to get ready for the C-section and we headed over to the Labor and Delivery waiting room to get ready to meet Hadassah.  It would be 2 more hours until we actually got to meet her.

We finally got the news that she was born,  and we had more waiting until we were told we could go in to see Hadassah.  What a glorious meeting that was!  She was absolutely perfect!  The first time I held her I cried like a baby.  It was so good to finally have this promise of God in my arms.  Leading up to this day we had been praying for favor with the nurses and doctors.  We knew that some hospitals are not very friendly toward adoptive parents and we had asked God to give us a staff that would be understanding toward us.  He delivered in more ways than one!  Hadassah’s first nurse was amazing and she helped us have skin to skin time within the first hour after her birth so we could bond.  The entire nursing staff was very supportive and worked to help us navigate this dance.

The 5 Day Fight

We were so happy to have this promise in our arms but having been warned through dreams, knew we our journey wasn’t finished.  It’s such a delicate dance in an adoption situation.  The adoptive family is in a place of absolute joy at the arrival of their much awaited blessing, but there is another mother who is grieving the loss of a son or daughter.  As difficult as her life situation may be and as much as she may know that she can’t raise this little one, it is still a hard path.  After 2 days in the hospital Hadassah’s birth mom was discharged.  We were minutes from being discharged from the hospital when our representative from the agency came into the room and asked to speak with us.  With tears in her eyes she told us that Hadassah’s birth mom had changed her mind and didn’t want to go through with the adoption.  We were filled with faith that this wasn’t over.  We knew in our hearts because of the dreams we had, and the promise of God that this was an attack of the enemy on Hadassah’s life that he desired to cut off the work of God’s hands by taking her from us.  He had given us too many signs along this journey for us to turn away without a fight.  We called some dear intercessor friends we knew would stand and pray with us, and we set our hearts to prayer.  We made the little room in the hospital literally no bigger than a closet, our prayer closet and we fought for this promise.  Psalm 126:5-6 has been the verse we have stood on during this journey, and we knew that God had given Hadassah to us as a harvest of joy.  So we held her and prayed and cried and asked God to intervene and change the situation.  Then I left her there with Jeremy and went with our agency representative to talk to Hadassah’s birth mom.  I prayed the whole way there and asked God to fill me with his spirit and give me the words to speak.  In the end we left that meeting with a provisional custody agreement giving us temporary custody of her until signing day.

I returned to the hospital.  And found Jeremy sitting in the rocking chair with Hadassah.  He told me the Doctor had ordered blood work to check her bilirubin levels because she had some jaundice, and that she wasn’t being discharged that day.  After that whole ordeal we were slightly traumatized and couldn’t imagine leaving her alone at the hospital all night.  We stayed in the room as long as we could and when they kicked us out at midnight we went and slept on the floor in the hall.  Even that ended up being a way for God to show His kindness to us.  Nurses brought us pillows and blankets, and

everyone seemed to understand why we refused to leave without our daughter.  We were shown such kindness by everyone it really is a testimony to the power of God.

The next day Hadassah was discharged to us and we cried.  Her doctor was so kind and understanding with us.  He was a gift from God!  After the scare of birth mom almost changing her mind we still had to wait 2 more days for her to sign her relinquishment.  Today, Saturday was signing day.  We received a call from our attorney at 11:14 am with the good news that mom had signed and it was irrevocable.  Hadassah Joy was officially our daughter.  We have to wait a few more days for some paperwork to clear her birth state and our home state before we can go home.  We are thrilled, amazed, and in awe of the awesomeness of God.  His plans are so much higher than ours.  We are also so very thankful for our friends and family who dropped everything on short notice to help out with our kids at home.  And for our church family and our dear intercessor friends who stormed the gates of Heaven with us.  Hadassah is absolutely precious.  Her birth mom is an amazing, coureagous, and brave lady.  We love her and have welcomed her into our family as well.  We can’t wait to build a relationship with her from a far.  We are in love.

There are at least a dozen other amazing things about our story that we would really like to share, but we cannot. Hadassah deserves to hear many of the details we are not sharing from us first as she grows up, but we are amazed at the faithfulness and kindness of our heavenly father. He has woven together an amazing story for us with incredible intricacy. It is a pleasure to run after God and join Him in another amazing adventure.