Our Adoption Story

"A father to the fatherless...is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families." Psalm 68:5

The Pre-Adoption Story...

Adoption was something that had crossed our minds briefly when we took a trip to China and saw how many little girls were in orphanages there...but as life went on we didn't think about it much. Then we decided we were ready to start a family...well the Lord, in his faithfulness, decided it wasn't time and that it wasn't his plan for us to have biological children at this time. It was one of the most difficult times for us in our marriage and in our personal lives, but our loving Father was so good and met us in wonderful and new ways. We were able to see more of His heart and how he uses hard things for His glory and our good. In January of 2005 we went ahead and sent an application to Lifeline Children's Services to adopt a child domestically (from the U.S.). We continued with some more infertility treatments at the same time. In February we met a family who had just returned home with their son from Ukraine (Nathan, Ann, and Canaan Duncan). Seeing them and hearing their story confirmed to us that adoption was definitely what the Lord was calling us to. Adoption was not plan B, or second best. It was what God had planned for us since before we were born. He just had to take us through some hard things to realize it. We stopped with our infertility treatments and went full-speed ahead with our adoption...and changed our plans to adopt from Ukraine! We realized the incredible needs in Ukraine. Here are some staggering facts that made this decision easy for us:

• children have to leave the orphanage at age 15 or 16

• after they leave, 60% of the girls end up in prostitution and 70% of the boys end up in crime

• there are hundreds of thousands of children in the orphanages of Ukraine that might not ever know the love of a family or hear the life-changing good news of Jesus Christ!

The Name

We decided to name the child we would adopt, Samuel Gibbs. We had requested a boy because there are more boys available for adoption in Ukraine. Samuel, is of course from the Bible. Hannah had prayed for a child, much like us, and when the Lord finally granted her request, she decided to name him Samuel because she had asked for him of the Lord. Simply put, Samuel means "asked of God"...what an incredible thing to know you were asked of God for so long! His middle name, Gibbs, is a family name on Rachel's side. We wanted him to have the heritage and tradition of belonging and taking a part of Rachel's family.

Our Timeline...

Our entire process took about 9 months (from the time we started to the time we returned home with Samuel). Here's a summary:

March through April 2005 - applied to Lifeline Children's Services in Birmingham, Alabama and started our homestudy with Hope For Children in Atlanta, Ga (we had to have a Georgia social worker do this since we live in Georgia). During this time we had 4 visits with our social worker, visited the doctor for physicals, got two different sets of fingerprints done, and filled out LOTS of paperwork (we had to apply to homeland security to adopt an orphan internationally).

June 2005 - Received our 171-H (approval from homeland security to adopt an orphan internationally). We then went to Atlanta to get all of documents notarized and sealed with the state of georgia seal. After that we were finally able to send our Dossier to Ukraine on June 16 2005. It was then translated and submitted to the National Adoption Center a few days later.

July 22 2005- Received word that our appointment date with the National Adoption Center in Kiev, Ukraine was on Monday October 31!!!!!!

August through October - the wait went by pretty quick as we prepared for our trip. We had baby showers, secured plane flights, and made arrangments for our cat, mail, and house while we would be gone. Before we knew it, we were leaving on the plane!

Now that we are home with our precious Samuel, we are so thankful that the Lord called us on this journey. We know that He hand-picked Samuel to be our son! It wasn't an easy or smooth process (international adoption never is), but we know it is what God wanted for us. Through this adoption, we have been more amazed at our own spiritual adoptions through Christ. Because of His sacrifice we are a part of God's Kingdom family and have all the blessings of being God's children.

Finding Samuel

From our Finding Samuel blog 2005
(this was the post where we let everyone know about our son!)

NOVEMBER 3 GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY
"He has made everything beautiful in it's time." Ecclesiastes 3:11 Thank you all for your prayers and for lifting us up to the throne of grace! God has been good and faithful in the last 36 hours. We have had much to pray about as we have sought his direction with something that will change the rest of our lives. We feel confident that He has met us and has confirmed in our hearts the direction we are to take! It might not be an easy path, but it will be one of joy and one that gives glory to our Father! We prayed that God would give us a referral at our appointment that would be Samuel. After our appointment, we thought the referral we took was just a means to get another appointment later with a "better" referral. We are so grateful that God is much more powerful and wiser than we are because he led us to a beautiful, sweet little boy who needs a home. That's right, we have decided the boy we saw yesterday is our Samuel! We are humbled that God led us to him despite our finite minds and understanding. The reason it has taken us so long is because there are some medical issues that we wanted to seek advice from doctors back in the states as well as here in Kiev. It is amazing how the Lord has worked to give us confirmation through wonderful Christian physicians. Samuel has a heart defect that can be corrected. He has had one surgery and will require one more surgery after we get home. God has given us incredible peace despite these circumstances. We are proud to give Samuel a home and offer him the best medical care in the world no matter what that requires! We know God will provide. We are reminded of our adoption in Christ...God decided to adopt us because our own hearts were dysfuntional and full of sin. He did not need us to be perfect before He decided to give us a new name and a new heart. He graciously bestowed His grace to us without condition! Now what you all want to know about...Samuel. He is three years old and beautiful! He has blonde hair and light blue/green eyes. He seems very sweet and was well taken care of at his orphanage. We were so impressed at his orphanage yesterday...they really love him and want the best for him. He is a favorite among his group and they described him as "friendly, curious, and playful." He is a little small due to being in the orphanage as well as his heart condition, but we have full confidence that he will catch up! His caretaker told us that he likes to give massages...we can't wait to receive those! As he left us yesterday, he told us "bye,bye" in English and blew us kisses. It really stole our heart and we cannot wait to see him tomorrow and show him off to all of you. We will post pictures as soon as we can tomorrow. Thank you all for your prayers...we know that God has answered them and led us sovereignly and in his amazing timing to the child he chose for us before the foundations of the world.

My Family

Here they are....my pride and joy. I love them and I love showing them off!!!

Jeff and I met in 1997 when we were freshmen at The University of Alabama. We dated for 3 years, got married, and joined staff with Campus Crusade for Christ (an inter-denominational ministry). We have been ministering to college students ever since at different places like University of Southern Miss, University of Georgia, and now our alma mater The University of Alabama. Jeff loves telling students about Jesus and helping them grow in their faith. I love being able to stay at home but also still be in the ministry alongside Jeff. He loves Alabama football, golf, basketball, and the occasional video game.

Samuel is 9 years old - my wild and crazy boy. He loves digging in the dirt and trying to figure out how things work. He also breaks a lot of things. Adopting him has been one of the greatest blessings and privileges of my life. You can go back to the home page of the blog and look for the links to his adoption story. You should read it. God worked amazing wonders to lead us to our son!

Ellie Kate is my little diva and turned 5 in February. She is high maintenance but as sweet as pie. Giving birth to her was beyond amazing and an experience I will never forget (both good and bad -ha!). She tests me daily and tries my patience, but she also gives the best kisses and I love her to death! Currently, her obsessions include (but are not limited to) her best friend Neely, anything princess, and playing mama to anyone or anything that will let her.

Abigail is the happiest, sweetest little girl.  She is 3 and so much fun right now! We prayed she would be laid back and easy because after our first two, we hoped for a bit of a break. For the most part, she has been easy and laid back and as sweet as they come.  Abigail loves to play with baby dolls, read books, and follow her big brother and sister around. What a joy it has been to have this 3rd little miracle in our family!

Anna Mitchell is our precious newborn who was born January 19, 2012.  Her first few weeks of life were very difficult with lots of fussiness and reflux, but now she is settling into a great routine and is just the perfect little {surprise} completion of our family.  We are all a little smitten by her and love to give her kisses all the time!

About Me

Hi! I'm Rachel...a.k.a Miracle Mama. Not because I'm a miracle...but because I'm the mom TO miracles. There was a time I wondered if I would have children. It took lots of prayers, waiting, money, more praying, more time, and lots of miracles...but in His time, God has blessed us (hubs and myself) with 3 wonderful children here on earth and one in heaven. Samuel came to us via adoption in December 2005. Ellie Kate was conceived through In Vitro Fertilization and was born on February 23, 2007. Our baby in heaven was our little surprise in July of 2007 but was called home on September 15 after being in my womb for a little less than 10 short weeks. Abigail joined our family in November 2008 and is "all natural"! Ha!!! God certainly has a sense of humor and works in ways that are sometimes unimaginable because He brought us one more "all natural" surprise and our 4th child, Anna Mitchell was born January 19, 2012!!!    The journey to our family has been a whirlwind of an adventure that has included lots of tears and lots of laughter.

I'm married to Jeff. We tied the knot on August 4, 2001. He's my best friend and an amazing father. I could not have asked for a better mate and I am so thankful.

So, this blog is about them. I love photography and making things (sewing, designing blogs, photo cards, home decor) and this is my creative outlet for many of those hobbies!! I started my first blog in 2005 to journal our adoption journey. Over 5 years later, I'm still going strong! I love having a place to post pictures for our friends and families (and even lurkers) as well as document my thoughts and just the everyday happenings of our little family.  I hope for this blog to be an ebenezer of sorts...a place of remembrance in honor of all that God has done.  Because that is my story...He has done marvelous things, in the midst of the messy and the mundane and the beautiful.   I also hope and pray that it continues to be a place of hope and resource for other women who are or who know someone who is struggling with infertility or pregnancy loss. I have loved hearing from so many people who read my blog or have passed along my blog for just that reason and I think it's so cool that God can use what I have gone through to minister to others.

Also, most important for you to know...I am a sinner saved by grace. I mess up a lot, but God's grace is sufficient and I am thankful for a Savior who offers me forgiveness and hope. I am not perfect...this blog is not perfect...I do not parent pefectly...and if it looks like our little life together is perfect, it's not. I love to blog about the fun and happy things that go on, but I hope that just as often you can see the real me...the real picture of what it's like to raise a family trying to follow God and honor Him in the process.

Thanks for visiting and if you do or if you have, would you let me know?! Just like any other blogger, I LOVE comments...so leave one if you can (on every post if you want:))!