50 Most Inspiring Adoption Stories with Beauty Revived: Part 25
Beauty Revived has joined with Adoption.com to bring you the 50 Most Inspiring Adoption Stories. We have found 50 amazing photographers with big hearts to donate a session to tell the story of an inspiring adoption story in their community. This is Beauty Revived: Part 25.
Want to learn more about Beauty Revived and see the rest of the pictures? Check it out here and on Instagram.
Photography for this session by By Emily Photography Website
Beauty Revived: Part 25
Tabitha has spent her life devoted to children. Helping to raise, nurture, and love other people’s children has given her joy and fulfillment. She has yearned for the day that she would be a mother. She writes, “Everyone is born into this world for a reason. Ever since I was small, I knew my reason was to be a mother.”
Through her experiences with children, as she grew up, Tabitha developed a strong desire to adopt children in addition to those she hoped to have biologically. When she was dating her husband, Nick, she shared her feelings about adoption with him and was happy to learn that he had hoped to adopt as well. Shortly after getting married in May of 2011, Tabitha and Nick began to look into the adoption process, excited to start their family together and looking forward to becoming parents of adopted and biological children.
On November 13th, 2012, Tabitha and Nick received the devastating news that they would never be able to have biological children. Pain and anguish overflowed as they tried to come to terms with this unbearable sadness. Leaning on one another for support, they waded through their pain and loss and did their best to move forward with the hope that they might still become parents through adoption. Tabitha explains, “While adoption does not take away the sting of infertility, infertility does not take away the joy and excitement of adoption.”
Fast forward to May 6th, 2014. After months of searching and waiting, Tabitha and Nick had been selected by an expectant mother to adopt her baby. They were excitedly waiting for an update on this baby girl, born the day before, and details about when they would be able to fly out to meet her. Around noon that day, though, they received a call they had prayed they would never get: The baby’s mother had changed her mind. They would not be bringing this baby home after all.
Their world seemed to shatter around them as they realized they had lost the child they had longed for, searched for, and hoped would be theirs. Unsure of how to deal with the pain of this loss, Tabitha and Nick tried to do whatever they could to feel normal. They packed up everything that reminded them of the little girl they would not be bringing home. However, they weren’t ready to give up their search for their child.
On May 30th, 2014, just weeks after their failed adoption, Tabitha received a call from their adoption agency informing her of a baby who needed a family. The only information she was given was that the baby was a girl and that they would need to fly out that day. With excitement beyond her capacity to express herself, she called Nick, and they immediately went to work on getting a flight and hotel accommodations.
In hindsight, Tabitha realizes that she and Nick were taking a big risk. They knew nothing about the birth mother or birth father. They had no medical history on either parent or the baby. They were essentially walking blindly into the adoption. However, despite the lack of information surrounding this baby and her birth family, Tabitha states, “From the moment they told us about her, it all felt right; we knew that no matter what issues there were, this was our baby.”
A few hours later Tabitha and Nick got a call back from the agency. “We were sitting on pins and needles, scared that things would fall through like last time,” she describes. This time, the agency was calling with more information: The baby girl had been born prematurely. She was already almost a month old and was nearly ready to be released from the hospital.
Due to a few lingering medical issues, the baby had to stay in the hospital a bit longer than expected. On June 4th, after a few more days of anxious waiting, Tabitha and Nick were finally able to sign the adoption papers and meet their beautiful baby girl, Vivian. They will never forget the feelings they had when meeting her for the first time. Tabitha writes, “I hear mothers talk about that moment of giving birth and the instant love they have for their child; I will admit that is something I will never know. When we met our sweet girl, it wasn’t just an instant love for her, there was instant love for her birth family too.”
Tabitha, Nick, their new baby girl, and her birth family sat together in a tiny hotel room with a feeling of love and complete joy. Tabitha writes, “We laughed and talked like old friends. Our family grew by more than one that day … Our sweet Vivian was placed in our arms by a strong, amazing woman. We are blessed every day because of her courageous choice. She loves this little girl with all her heart. She provided love and support for her for the first month of her life and has now placed her with a family that longed for her. She will never truly understand the hero she is in our lives. She gave us the one thing we wanted most in life and could not give ourselves. She is the strongest woman we know. We will think of her every day and tell our little girl about what an amazing birth mother she is.”
While May 6th could have remained only a day of sadness, on which Tabitha and Nick mourn the loss of the child they longed for but never knew, it has now become a day of joy and celebration. May 6th, 2014 is their little Vivian’s birthday. That’s right, Vivian was born the very day that Tabitha and Nick received the crushing news that the baby they had thought they would bring home would not be theirs.
Tabitha writes, “I think that Vivian knew how much we needed her—that we could not find her on our own. I think she came eight weeks early because we … needed her to heal us, we needed her in our family, and we needed her birth family to be a part of our family. Adoption is a miracle that has changed our lives. Adoption is our “birth story,” and we are so blessed. We hope that each of our adoptions will bring us together with more amazing families.”
We hope you’ve enjoyed this story from Beauty Revived: Part 25.
