This is the story of how God brought us together with our daughter with the help of CFS
We found out in the summer of 2009 that we were unable to have children so we decided to start the adoption process. We chose an agency close to us through a recommendation from a friend and were “officially waiting” in March of 2010.
Just a few short weeks later we were matched with a expectant mother and was able to be there when the baby girl was born, and cared for her for the first 24 hours before the birth mom changed her mind. We were devastated but of course didn’t give up.
At that time we were frustrated with our agency because we didn’t feel like we were given much support in dealing with our failed placement when we were introduced to CFS through friends that had mutual friends that had been placed through them. We called and spoke with Monique and it was just such a completely different experience from the first phone conversation. We really felt good about how much compassion they have there for all parties involved in adoption, expectant parents and adoptive parents both. We decided we wanted to work with them in addition to our current agency but hoping our placement would come through CFS!
Prior to our placement through CFS we had 2 failed placements and even though they were not through CFS they were there to talk to and encourage us. Debbie even set up a phone conversation for me with another adoptive mom that had some similar experiences just to help encourage us and know we weren’t alone. Everyone at CFS went above and beyond to help us with encouragement and prayer, as well as just love on us.
We finally got our wish just shy of 3 weeks after our 2nd failed placement. The call that changed our lives came late in 2011. It is one we have been expecting for 18 months but it’s still a shock when it happens! The call was from Jerry Callens from CFS and he said the words we had been waiting to hear, “There is a little girl here in Florida that needs a good home, do you know anyone that has one?” We got the call at 7:20 pm the night our daughter was born and left the next day to drive to Florida. Jerry kept in contact with us the whole way down.
We got to meet our beautiful daughter when she was 2 days old. Jerry met us at our hotel and we talked for awhile so we would know what to expect on how things would go and to give us background info that we needed including our birth mom’s incredible story and just shared with us what an amazing woman she is. He stayed with us all day until she was discharged. Monique also drove 2 hours to meet us to sign our papers. I just never imagined that they would be so excited for us. I mean this is what they do all the time but we felt like we were their family and it was the first time they were getting to experience the excitement of the adoption. Jerry of course having done this many times made sure to capture all our first moments with our daughter because we were too busy holding her to worry about getting pictures.
We were able to meet our birth mother before we left Florida to go home and again Jerry was there for us and our birth mother, he made it so comfortable. We were really nervous about how it would go because here we are holding this precious baby that she gave birth to and she’s going home with us. It just put us all at peace though and it was such a beautiful thing to experience. She is such a wonderful person and will always be such a big part of our lives. CFS is also such a big part of our life now. Papa Jerry checks in on us to see how we are all doing and I know he continues to help our birthmother. We now have expanded our family to Florida and we are so thankful that God brought us together with our daughter with the help of CFS.
~ T&G
