I felt called to adopt, and after some guidance from God, I knew my future son was a little boy from Uganda.
In April of 2014, we contacted another couple who had adopted from that orphanage to figure out the next steps. We were then put on the waiting list at the same adoption agency and assumed we wouldn’t get a call for at least another year. I was busy in my career in education, finishing up my master’s degree, and Jesse had completely switched careers as a Project Manager to working for our church. So, we would wait. We knew we had time. In fact, we needed time to save money, as international adoptions are very expensive.
We got the call in January 2015, a few days after my birthday, we were off the waiting list. The question that came next, we weren’t expecting. Our social worker needed to know our age limits. Looking at that on a piece of paper, how could we tell God who our son was supposed to be based on biological age or health conditions? We agreed we would do the max-age Uganda would allow.
We trusted God’s plan for our son and accepted whatever challenges came with him. We got the call that we were matched with a 7-year-old boy, and we were over joyed to finally become parents.
On December 3,I got the exciting call that changed everything. I literally started scrambling, basically throwing papers in the air trying to find my phone buried under the mess on the desk.
I remember almost dropping my phone as I was trying to call Jesse. He informed us we had 24 hours until our flight left, and our court date was first thing Monday morning. It takes at least 31 hours to get there. If any flights got delayed, we wouldn’t make it to court on time.
By the time I was able to calm down and wrap my head around it, he told me flights were already booked, and he had started packing. I wrapped up work as best as I could over the next few hours and said goodbye, not knowing when I would return. That night, our adoptive friends brought over dinner and prayed with us. Other than that, the rest of the 18 hours before we left, was a blur. We also found out he was finally given the photo album we sent over a few months earlier.
This album had pictures of us, our house, his school, basically detailed pictures of what his new life and family looked like. He finally knew about us, about me. We were sent a picture with the caption, ‘I’m getting a mummy and daddy?’ We just couldn’t believe it. It was finally happening.
We enjoyed a quick babymoon in Frankfurt but ran into a surprise $400 luggage fee at the airport.
We didn’t know how long we were going to be in Uganda. We couldn’t spend that money. I sat on the floor of the airport sobbing, as I had to decide what was significant enough to take and what had to be left. Many of the items left were gifts for our son. As I finished sorting through everything, I looked up and saw a homeless man walking by. We gave him everything we were leaving tons of food, toiletries, and men’s clothing items. God’s timing again was perfect.
At this point, I hadn’t slept in over 31 hours. I crashed on the short flight to Entebbe and awoke exhausted, but eager to meet our son. It was a 3-hour drive to Masakka, where we were staying. We finally arrived, quickly dropped our stuff off, and rode over to the orphanage.
We finally met our son on his eighth birthday, and though early motherhood in Uganda was overwhelming, love and faith helped us adjust.
We bought our son home and shared a special bond with his grandmother and learned that adoption brings both joy and challenges.
It was extremely difficult for him to calm down after anything exciting and small noises in America like the vacuum or the dishwasher sent him over the edge. He was a sensory avoider which for the most part was fine for his life until he came here, where something is always making noise.
Adopting our son brought challenges but through love and family growth and healing, we built a strong family and now help other adoptive families too.
