We did not get the path we mapped, but the love we waited for found us right on time. Kristen has always been a planner. She and her husband, Drew, waited to be steady with money, bought a house, married, and then tried for a baby. One month after stopping birth control, the test turned positive, and they laughed and cried in the kitchen. Their son, Jackson, arrived a little early and spent two weeks in the NICU while Kristen battled pneumonia and needed a blood transfusion. They went home together and learned the rhythms of new parent life.
When Jackson turned two, they tried again and were pregnant within a month. Kristen didn’t realize the cramping she felt was a miscarriage until she woke on their fourth anniversary and knew. They held hands through a wedding rehearsal that night, carrying a private grief. Soon after, another pregnancy brought hope. At a routine visit, they got a worrying call and asked for prayers, thinking the baby was a girl. By twelve weeks, the heartbeat was gone. Two days later, with Let It Be playing in the car, they said goodbye to the baby they named Elijah.
They kept moving, even when it felt hard to breathe. They talked in a corner booth over wings and beer, prayed with their church, and decided to pursue adoption instead of fertility treatments. They took the classes, raised money with help from friends, family, and students, and quietly kept trying. In December 2016, another pregnancy ended in loss. Kristen told God she was finished and would be thankful for one child. Then, in February 2017, she saw another faint line. This time, the heartbeat held. Their second son, AJ, was born that November, stubborn and strong. Kristen needed another transfusion, but they made it home as a family of four.
Nine months later, they restarted their adoption process with two little boys and a new job for Drew. A profile crossed their path for a birth mother who wanted her son named Elijah. It felt like a sign. They said yes and waited for a call that never came. The answer was no. More profiles followed. More no’s. Nearly a hundred times, they said yes and were passed over. Kristen asked their social worker to send profiles only to Drew. She would focus on the boys they had and try to release the dream by the end of the year. One Thursday, a profile arrived for a baby girl at thirty-three weeks.
Drew said yes with low expectations. On Friday, he called Kristen to the hallway outside her classroom and told her the words she longed to hear: We have a daughter. They drove out that weekend, leaving the boys with their grandparents, and met Eliza. She was tiny and learning to feed. The Ronald McDonald House became a soft landing while paperwork moved, and Eliza gained weight. At last, they drove home to Alabama with their daughter in the backseat and three children waiting for bedtime stories.
A few weeks later, the court set a date to finalize the adoption: August 26, 2021. Kristen barely noticed until a social media memory popped up. On that same date in 2015, she had asked friends to pray for the pregnancy that ended in Elijah. She stood still, seeing how time had circled back. At one in the afternoon, on the day she had once begged for a miracle, the judge made Eliza their daughter by law. Tears came again, this time for a promise kept in a way she never expected. Kristen still plans.
She also knows now how to surrender. Some babies arrive with beeping monitors and transfusion lines. Some arrive after a long line of no’s. Some arrive by a brave mother’s choice and a courtroom’s stamp. Her family of five is the shape of both faith and persistence, of grief held gently and hope that would not let go. She keeps the name Elijah tucked in her heart and the name Eliza held close in her arms, grateful for the boys who made her a mother and the girl who made their home complete.
