Once Upon a Time...

Our adoption story begins a ways back, over 5 years back actually. Our first baby was born with something called Metopic Craniosynostosis, which means one of the sutures making up his skull fused prematurely. The metopic suture goes right down the forehead. So little Bud had a ridge down his forehead, and his head would grow back more to compensate and allow for room for his brain to grow.

We were told he would need surgery at around 9 months old, and I prayed over and over for a miracle, I couldn't see how good could come out of it at the time, I couldn't see the whole story. Let me tell you, watching your baby go through surgery is horrible. Childhood illness of every kind is horrible. You just want it to be you, not them. It was an extremely stressful period for us.

(Some of these photos are not pretty, consider yourself warned.)

Here is his forehead before surgery:

And here he is post op. The swelling was the worst part, the surgeons (a neurosurgeon and plastic surgeon) completely rebuilt his forehead. What was once on the left side was taken over and put in on the right, and the same with the right. I still don't really understand exactly how they did it to be honest. And his skull to this day feels really great with dips and bumps, but his forehead looks incredible.

And we all survived it. Even more than survived. I would never want to go through that again, but I am so thankful for everything I learned from it. I learned about trust, I love this little guy so intensely, and as hard as it is to imagine, God loves him even more, and wants to give him hope and a great future. I learned that I am stronger than I thought, and I learned that no matter how much you don't want to eat when stressed its actually a really good idea!

A few years later, when Birdie was around a year old, Jake and I started to talk about adopting a child. I will share more about how we came to that decision another time, but when we would look back at Bud's surgery, and Bud as a little baby, our hearts were broken for babies that were born with medical conditions that were given up. Most of them we will never know why their parents came to that difficult decision. Maybe they were pressured by family, maybe they felt their child had a better chance receiving medical care as an orphan because the family was too poor to handle it. Maybe they were scared and just didn't know what else to do.My heart breaks for the mothers of these children, but it also breaks for these children.

We felt like we were being called to welcome one of these babies into our home. We already know how much love and joy our children give us, how much they teach us, and how much richer our lives are because of them, so we are very excited to add another little one to our family and have them be a part of our story, our adventure.