OUR ADOPTION STORY!

Over the past 3 years, Scott and I have been trying to adopt after feeling that God was leading us in this direction. We tried through many different ways: referral programs, adoption websites, consultants, and LOTS of different attorneys. I joined a Facebook group, talked to many, many moms and even called people we’ve never met just to try and find my way. The process was VERY frustrating, and many times I just wanted to scream because I felt like all of it was so foreign, and there are so many scams out there (which we were targeted with multiple times). We sent in our profile book/pdf’s to about 8 different adoption cases, of which none came through, and our hearts were broken many times. This went on for 2 ½ years. It felt like lots of wasted time and money, BUT we definitely learned a lot.

In October of 2020, we took a big leap of faith and decided to move forward with an attorney in S. Florida. She was very unique, and to the point, but really knew what she was talking about. I was VERY nervous about sending our large deposit/retainer fee in because it was the most we had spent on adoption at once, and we both felt super doubtful and weary. But, after receiving a donation for the EXACT amount of the deposit from one of our incredible family members, we decided we needed to do it! Take a leap of faith!

Month after month, we never heard anything from this attorney, which again was disheartening. In January, Scott and I decided that we still wanted to pursue adoption until March (when our home study expired), and then cross that hurdle when we got there. We also decided to start looking into fertility again. UGH! This felt overwhelming, but we really wanted more kids, and were do whatever necessary. So onward we went, starting the fertility process, which was way more expensive than we thought.

Side note, backing up a little bit, I (April) have been struggling with pretty extreme anxiety since July 2020 (due to Covid, and other life experiences over the past year). After starting the fertility process again in February, my anxiety went through the roof. I truly felt out of control, to the point where I sought counsel from close friends, and even started taking meds. Totally not normal for me at all.

Fast forward, in March, Scott went up to MN with Nathan. I wanted to stay back not only because of my anxiety around traveling, but also to seek God, pray and truly figure out what the heck was going on in my head and heart. While he was away, we got a call from our attorney (that we had hired back in October). She said she had a possible match for us (young mom, healthy, baby due soon, etc..). One thing the bio mom specifically wanted was a strong Christian family… insert me raising my hand saying THAT’S US! Wow, did it seem perfect! I remember immediately crying while telling my mom (who was with me), and thinking “this is it!!” That call was March 29th and the attorney was meeting with the bio mom on April 2nd to present our profile to her. Now, we had done this song & dance before, and there’s a lot of emotion and doubt, kind of mixed with “so you’re saying there’s a chance?!?!?!” With this particular case though, it felt different, and there was a TON of prayer surrounding us from everyone we love so much.

On April 1st, we went to a Passover/Seder meal at the home of a family who’s been blessed with children and we revere them as parents (Doug and Fran). Scott had actually cut his trip short just to go to this event, as it is a night that we really enjoy each year during Holy Week. While there, they asked Scott to read a Psalm during the Seder meal (Fran felt led to include Psalms this year, even though they had little to do with the Passover story). They had 7 prepared, but there was only time for one. So Scott selected one at random to read. The majority of the Psalm praises the Lord for who He is. However, the last verse reads “He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!” This moment completely stopped him in his tracks. It just felt too orchestrated, that he (out of about 30 people) would be asked to read a Psalm, and that the random Psalm that he read would mention the barren woman becoming the mother of children.

The next morning, Scott woke up early and took some time to pray and simply could not get that verse out of his head. So he began to search through the Psalms to find that passage because he didn’t actually see the specific chapter the night before (again, he just picked at random). So he searched through the last verse of over 100 Psalms until he found it was Psalm 113. This stopped him even further in his tracks, because for the past decade, Psalm_113 has been our password to just about everything in our home (don’t worry, everything has been changed now). From Netflix to bank accounts to emails, it truly was the password for just about everything! 49 total passwords to be exact! This isn’t because he knew what that Psalm said, but rather it was a very random number choice he made 10 years ago. So when he came to realize that the Psalm he read was Psalm 113, he knew something was different. He told me that morning that this felt just like a moment we experienced during our infertility journey with Nathan, when we had lost hope, and then God restored our hope in an instant (a story for another day). This felt like God was showing us how He was putting together all of the puzzle pieces for this child.

7 hours later, low and behold we received a call at 4:30pm FROM THE BIO MOM saying she selected us as the parents for her son!!! We were overwhelmed, and just feeling like that this long awaited moment was so surreal, and we were in a bit of shock. Her due date was April 26th, so we had a lot to do and everything moved fast. Easter morning we told Nathan by giving him a Big Bro shirt in his Easter basket. He was also in shock, so much so he said he was going to faint ? HA! He has been praying and longing for this moment for a VERY long time. That following Thursday (the 8th) we met the bio mom in person and everything went perfectly. I got to feel him kick, and the bio mom was just so sweet and excited for us to be his parents. Scott and I both left that meeting really fee

Remember that side note about my anxiety, well it completely went away. From the time we got the call that she picked us, it was gone! I’ll keep going for now and circle back to this.

That Saturday (the 10th), the bio mom had an 3D ultrasound (given to her by the wonderful pregnancy center she was living at). We, along with the bio mom’s mother, were FaceTimed in to be a part. In that moment together, we ALL found out for the first time that the little guy had a cleft lip. It was very obvious, and you could just feel the mood of the room go from super excited to super concerned and silent. My heart was broken, and I felt very angry. I just didn’t understand why this was happening. Why God?? All this time and heartache and now just more heartache and challenges! All I could do was cry, and try to sort through all of the emotions, including seeds of doubt popping up in our minds of “should we still adopt him?”

In the weeks following we (and others) did a lot of praying! What felt so sure a week prior all of a sudden seemed uncertain. Our faith that appeared unshakable was shown to be weak ? The bio mom was having more tests run on him to make sure everything else was ok. This process of blood work and anatomy tests went on FOREVER (or so it seemed)! During those 2 weeks of waiting, we did a lot of soul searching. It became clear to us that we needed to repent of our desire for a “perfect” child, and recognize this this child was indeed perfect for us! After some time of reflection, we realized that all of the signs that God provided us leading up to getting the call was intended to anchor us for the difficult journey that lay ahead for this little guy. We did a lot of research on cleft lip and palate, in order to be as prepared as we could. We finally got the anatomy results back on April 23rd, and everything was good to go per the Dr’s! The only additional thing they found was a hole in his heart, and a valve that was enlarged.

All the while, still no anxiety this whole time, even amongst all the challenging news. This was definitely confirmation of God’s hand being at work in all of this.

On April 25, the bio mom went into labor, and our lil man was born at 9:45pm on April 26, 2021. So heart wrenching for someone like me to go through, as I just wanted to be there every second of his life! But due to COVID, we couldn’t enter the hospital until after the bio mom was discharged. No visitors at all.

Under FL law, the bio mom has 48 hrs to sign consent after birth. This I knew would be one of the hardest moments of all. My sweet bestie, Ashley, made me a bunch of stickie notes to put on the door to keep track of the hours and help the time go by faster ? Well as the hours went on, the bio mom was having a really hard time with everything, and the 48 hrs ended up being almost 72. It was really hard. Baby boy went into the NICU immediately after birth and he was on a feeding tube. He was doing well though.

Thursday the 29th rolled around slowly, and the attorney finally gave us the ok to come down and see our baby. The bio mom was going to get discharged from the hospital and sign consent after she left. Of course this made me VERY nervous. We left our home, had a nice quiet lunch, then headed to Dunkin Donuts while our wonderful attorney went in to get her consent. As you can imagine this process is super emotional for a bio mom, and can take a while, a LONG while! At this point my anxiety was kicking into high gear. I was literally pacing in front of Dunkin Donuts trying to keep myself calm. Finally, 3 hrs later, our attorney called and said “Congratulations, he is all yours!” The relief I felt was unbelievable. So we bought 2 dozen donuts for the NICU nurse team, and headed to the hospital to meet our baby boy. 

When we arrived, unfortunately only one of us could go in at a time (COVID!). The NICU nurses were at the end of their shifts, which meant they were pretty tired and didn’t have the best attitude. I went in, and thankfully our attorney followed me in secretly and videoed everything. For the first time I saw our baby boy by myself, with a tired nurse and an attorney who had been working her butt off to get us in there. He was sleeping like an angel and I just couldn’t believe he was ours. It was a very unique/weird/overwhelming experience, and one that I will never forget. The nurse was even hesitant to let me hold him… UGH! She finally said I had to leave because of the shift change and I was so sad. I just wanted to sit there and take his little face in and kiss his cheeks through my mask ? Scott had some brief time with him too. After we left the room, I just lost it. The tired nurse said I couldn’t come back until the next day. We were not able to go back in for about 2 hours, at which point we could see him for another hour or so. The NICU said we couldn’t leave until I knew how to feed him well. He could NOT be losing weight at all. So then I just wanted to stay around the clock and feed him every 3 hours to prove I could do it. That didn’t happen because I needed rest. After that first feeding though, I really felt like I got to see him and all his super cute attributes, even his cleft lip. 

The next morning (April 30), we went back up for the 9am feeding. On the way there, the attorney called to ask what his name was, and after a long discussion, Scott finally gave in to me and we decided on Elijah (Eli) Lee Patterson. The nurses in the NICU were waiting for me (thankfully), and this time it was the speech therapist (feeding nurse) who would help me, and she was a God send. Super helpful, nice, and just what I needed. I was able to feed him at 12pm as well, and then it finally became easier and I felt ready. This was the only thing keeping him in the NICU.

Around 1:30pm, we had to leave the hospital (meaning I couldn’t see him the rest of the day as Covid rules state that you cannot leave the hospital and come back the same day). We were going to see the bio mom and her mom (who was anxiously wanting to meet us). We also had a HUGE check to write to our attorney ? We grabbed Chick Fil A, and Scott asked me to highlight some scriptures in the Bible we were going to give her as a gift. So here I am completely delirious, trying to rush around highlighting like 50+ scriptures! AHHHH, I mean those days/hours were insane!

We finally arrived at the attorneys office, and seeing the bio mom and her mom was pretty overwhelming and emotional. I didn’t cry because I think I was running on pure adrenaline, and stress about getting Eli out of the NICU was taking over. We had some good conversations, and the bio mom showed us some pictures from the birth, and of her holding him. I just can’t imagine what she was really thinking in that moment. It felt very surreal. Like we are going back to the hospital to take your child home… just so crazy! They were both very thankful for us and the goodbye was tough because I know we can’t keep in too close of contact in order to help her move on. SO very hard!

The next day (May 1), we arrived once again for the 9am feeding. This time we had a GREAT nurse. She was letting me hold him as much as I wanted, then finally asked “why is he still here?” YES! Great question. So she checked into his charts and got the approval for us to go home… praise the Lord! They knew I could feed him and he was keeping his weight and temp just fine. We were ecstatic. Of course in that moment (for a sec) I was like WAIT, what’s happening?! I’m taking him home?! It was really wild. So sure enough our attorney got there pretty quick, and boom we were leaving! For the first time that day, not only was I able to kiss him without my mask, BUT Scott and I were together with him for the first time! What a huge relief ?

We took the 3 hour ride home back to Nathan, arriving at 11pm that night. He was SO excited to meet his brother for the first time. That moment filled my heart with so much joy and love. After a minute or two of curiously studying his lip (and us explaining it to him), Nathan then looked at him as his perfect little brother. Evidently these issues are much bigger deals to adults than they are to children ? I’m thankful for our sweet friend, Avery, who was able to capture these pictures for us at that moment.

Our adoption journey is still not over, as we will keep in touch with the bio mom as long as she allows or wants us to. We will be very open with Eli once he’s at an age to understand. His story is special and we want him to know how God sovereignly placed him in our home. In the same way that God had a plan to bring Nathan to our home, he also made a way for Eli to be there as well. This was not a contingency plan for God, but rather His perfect will. The adoption finalization will hopefully be this Fall (maybe September). Then we will celebrate him actually becoming a Patterson (legally). #gotchaday

His cleft lip/nose surgery will take place in August. If you think of us during that time, maybe say a prayer because those days will be hard and long. It will be a 4 week process (2 weeks leading up to it and 2 week recovery). His palate will then be repaired before the end of the year sometime. He will probably need some speech therapy, and maybe another surgery down the road, but thankfully there’s so much research and information out there to help us along the way. We feel confident that Eli will be just fine, and he won’t even remember the surgeries… yay! Despite our trepidation regarding the diagnosis, his cleft is actually one of our favorite things about him. It’s crazy to think the one thing that scared me the most is now the thing I love the most. He’s just SO cute! I will definitely miss his lil cleft ?

This experience has grown us in so many ways. We are 11 weeks in, and I can tell you that we are still learning and growing. Some days are challenging (as with any newborn), but we just keep trucking along, no sleep and all. Eli is a part of our family now, and we feel so blessed to have him. We have all bonded with him in different ways, but the wonderful, most amazing thing was how quickly he bonded to me. I felt like it was almost instant. He would snuggle right up to my neck even from day 1. He is such a sweet boy, and I’m excited to see him grow and watch his personality blossom.

One final note about the anxiety. The reason I kept mentioning my anxiety in this story is because I truly feel that I was given anxiety so I would NOT do fertility. It was like God saying, no, I said to adopt, so here’s a lil anxiety to deter you from going the fertility route. We were scheduled to start fertility treatments around the last week of April. Elijah Lee was born on April 26th. As the saying goes, “Man plans and God laughs!”

Thank you again for all your support along the way. We feel extremely blessed to have such amazing friends and family.

These pictures below were taken by our wonderful and amazing friend’s Justin & Ashley DeMutiis ?

Some of my sweet friends and family who were in it with me praying like crazy! This was taken during my baby shower for Eli ? So much love I have for these ladies!!!