50 Most Inspiring Adoption Stories with Beauty Revived: Part 6
Beauty Revived has joined with Adoption.com to bring you 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.
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Photography by Carie Cruz of Peas and Peanuts Photography
Beauty Revived: Part 6
Meet the Higgins family! What a pleasure to have the opportunity to photograph this lovely family of (almost) 4! I wanted to share what Tiffany sent to me in her application to be nominated for this project. Tiffany writes:
“My husband, Jared, and I always knew we wanted to adopt, we just didn’t know how or when. In May of 2013, I met the director of an agency while working at a Day Program for adults who have developmental disabilities. This agency is an adoption and foster care agency that specifically focuses on connecting kids who have special needs to forever families. It was an immediate “this is it!” in my head. I continued asking the director for more information about their agency and called my husband on the way home from work that day.
He tends to be the processor and I tend to be the person saying, “Let’s do this, now!” I’d been praying since the moment I heard about Alliance only hours before and when I told my husband, he said, “Yeah, let’s do this!” Wow! This was the start of the greatest, and the hardest, journey we’ve ever been on.
Within weeks we had started the certification process. In October of 2013, before we were officially certified to accept children in our home, we found out about Jasmine. She was living in a state facility for kids who are considered medically fragile. She was scheduled to be featured on “Wednesday’s Child” on the news because she’d been waiting so long without a family. That fact pushed our social workers into lightning speed, and within the week our home study was complete, we were officially certified, and our information was in the hands of Jasmine’s social worker. (That process usually takes 2-3 months.) In November we were officially matched to be her adoptive family and we got to meet her in December!
We knew in our hearts she was our daughter the moment we first saw a picture of her, but the next five months, until she came home at the end of March 2014, were full of many unknowns and no guarantees. Fast forward through the season of being in our home under “foster placement,” but the gift of that time being spent home as a family of three brought us to December 2014. What an amazing day we had in court, hearing the judge say that Jasmine Joy is an official member of our family!”
Jared and Tiffany always planned on adopting. It was very evident during our photo session that this family has a deep love for one another. I tried to capture what I felt being with them, which was as if these three Higginses have known each other forever. It was humbling, listening to them wander down memory lane from the time they began visiting Jasmin in her facility. Once they began visiting Jasmine regularly, Jasmine would fill up with joy to see her then-soon-to-be forever parents. Now, look at them! They are (cue adorable baby bump) now expecting another daughter in May! I bet Jasmine will be the sweetest big sister. She sure loves to give hugs, snuggles, and smooches. Jared and Tiffany have seen Jasmine blossom over the past year. She’s now three years old. The Higgins share that they are overwhelmed by the joy and privilege they have in being Jasmine’s parents.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this story for Beauty Revived: Part 6.
