God’s Will Be Done!
We had such peace throughout the process; we knew God was in control.
When we married more than 10 years ago we dreamed of growing our family. We couldn’t wait to experience all of the love and joy a child would bring to a family. We imagined our home filled with laughter and tears, hugs and kisses, and an infinite amount of unconditional love. Adoption was an easy decision for us as we have watched many of our close friends and family be blessed by adoption.
We decided early on we wanted to work with an adoption agency outside our state as we believed it would expedite our adoption. We started with a list of adoption agencies recommended by our home study agency. From the moment we called Graceful Adoptions, we knew we wanted to work with this agency. From an emotional standpoint, it felt different than any other agency we talked to, it felt like being part of a family rather than a business transaction. Graceful Adoptions took the time to talk to us, the staff answered each of our questions, and they really cared about the birth parents. From a factual standpoint, Britt made a spreadsheet comparing the agencies we were considering. Graceful Adoptions’ fees are affordable relative to other agencies, they match in the third trimester and we found their refund policy unique.
From the time our Family Profile was completed to when our son was born was just 8 months.
Working with Graceful Adoptions was everything we hoped for and more. They approach the adoption from a team perspective – the agency, us as adoptive parents, and the birth mother were all part of the team. Graceful Adoptions is customer service focused and proactive in their actions and advice. Ultimately, they were fantastic at making it all happen.
As it turned out, the speed at which our adoption happened and how incredible Graceful Adoptions was to work with wasn’t the best part of our adoption. It was the mother of our child. It’s even hard to articulate how special she is; she’s smart, strong, funny, kind, and beautiful inside and out. She made the experience so much better than it might have otherwise been. Thirty seconds after we started our call with her, we felt at peace. Her sweet, warm bubbly personality put us at ease. We looked forward to visiting her before the baby was born and once she went into labor we couldn’t get back there fast enough to be with her. Even though we knew we would see her before we left town, we cried as we hugged and said goodbye to her as we left the hospital. We didn’t want to leave this amazing woman who was now part of our family.
The one piece of advice we would give to other adoptive parents is to absolutely embrace the first face-to-face meeting with the birth parents. It lays the foundation for your relationship. I can’t imagine doing this process without having met her first.
Britt and Karl
Mandan, ND
