Adoption: the Standridge Family

By the eve of our fourth wedding anniversary we had been wanting to have a baby without success. My husband asked me what I would like for our anniversary and I sheepishly answered, “A baby.” He gently told me he couldn't promise me that, but that we'd have a nice celebration of four happy years.

An anniversary wish impossible for my husband to promise was not impossible for God! The next day we heard that after waiting four months with an adoption agency, we had been chosen to parent a baby due to be born in two weeks! Miraculously, we were the expectant couple's second choice of a family to parent their son. The first family selected had decided that adoption was not God's plan for them and said no to the adoption match.

Although we were his birth parents' second choice, we were God's first choice for Erik. If we had become pregnant one of the months and years we hoped and prayed to, we would not have pursued adoption. We wanted a baby, we thought we couldn't have one, God placed adoption on our hearts, and then came Erik. Simple? Not really. Impossible? Not for God.

When Erik was four months old, after four years of infertility, we discovered we were expecting! Our second son Andrew was born one year and four days after his big brother Erik.

Erik is now six years old, Andrew is five, and our “later in life surprise” Jenna just turned one year old. Although you hear about it often, it is really not common for couples who have adopted because of infertility to then conceive and have other children. But God's plan will not be thwarted and His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9). Praise Him!