Meet the T. Family

Hope                 

Our Journey to Finding Hope

In 2017, our lives were changed forever! We were a family of 5, seemingly complete with his, hers and ours. We had four adult boys (Ryan, Darren, Cameron and Noah) scattered across the US and one daughter, Anya, who was 11 years old. All healthy and living life to the fullest, so what more did we need in our life? Apparently that answer was Hope, in the form of a bible verse Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” The Lord spoke to us telling us we would have a child, and she would be named Hope, and she would have Down syndrome.

We could no longer have children, so we took it as a sign that we were to adopt. We prayed on this hard for 9 months and all the while God continued to speak to us through songs, and signs with Hope’s name, bible verses and even seeing individuals with Down syndrome, seemingly everywhere we went in the most random places! We even stopped for a quick drink and snack at a Mexican restaurant while out shopping and in walks a Hispanic family, and they had a young teenage daughter with Down syndrome. At the time, this was just another sign, but it would have meaning later down the road.

In December 2016, we made the decision to adopt. We started our home study, and it was completed in January of 2017. Then we reached out to Stephanie at the National Down Syndrome Adoption Network (NDSAN) and asked how we needed to proceed in registering. We completed our family profile and our NDSAN registration form and we waited…a whole 3 weeks.

We received our first match! She was not born yet, but she was in North Carolina, and she not only had Down syndrome but she also had a heart defect, though we would not learn the extent of that until she was born. We also had another match of another little girl in Kansas, and she only had Down syndrome. Both sets of parents wanted several files to look over for a week. After a week and after narrowing down some of the files, they each wanted another week and Stephanie advised us that we needed to make a choice ourselves which match to proceed with and while the girl in Kansas was closer in distance to us, as we lived in Arkansas at the time, we just didn’t have any strong signs from God about her so we chose to continue the process with the baby girl in North Carolina.

Another week went by, and we got the call that we had been chosen by the birth family! We were overjoyed with the news! This was when we learned that our baby girl was Hispanic and instantly, I thought back to that day in Farmington when we saw a young lady with Down syndrome who was Hispanic. God’s plan was always in motion, even when we didn’t have a clue! We still had 6 weeks to wait for her arrival, but we also had lots of preparation to do!

The day we had planned to drive to North Carolina, we got a call at 8 am saying she was here! She wasn’t due for a few more days, so we had to scramble for 2 airline tickets for Anya and I and loaded the car with all our luggage and baby items for Greg to drive the 15 plus hours. Anya and I arrived around 6 pm and we met with the adoption counselor in the lobby of the hospital, and she escorted us upstairs to an empty hospital room. It was there that we waited for them to bring us our beautiful little girl.

When I met my daughter, I immediately started to cry and thankfully the birth counselor took pictures to catch that moment in time. Anya and I spent the next several hours admiring this brand-new blessing…feeding her, changing her and loving her. All the while waiting for my husband to arrive. Hope was only in the hospital for 2 days, like any other typical baby. And then she was able to go home with us!

We now had the newest member of our family with us, but we couldn’t head home until all the documents were signed with the adoption agency and until Arkansas said we could come, and North Carolina said we could leave. That was an agonizing 2 and half weeks, but we spent that time enjoying our daughter, meeting with the cardiologist and pediatrician as well as catching up with my childhood best friend who just happened to live nearby.

While we had our daughter with us, the actual adoption process took a whole year and 3 days, but I’m thankful that her adoption day is not on her birthday but also close to her birthday at the same time.

We chose to name her Hope, and Hope’s middle name honors her birth mom, so that we would always have the reminder of the precious gift she gave us! When Hope was 4 months old, she was admitted for failure to thrive due to her heart defect. We waited 3 long weeks to have her moved up in the schedule for her open heart surgery. She was born with AVSD Balanced Complete which in a nutshell means she was missing the middle wall in her heart, had only 2 valves and had 2 holes in her heart. Her surgeon had to rebuild the wall, patch the 2 holes and divide the 2 valves into 4, which he did perfectly!

She is now a healthy, thriving little girl and we couldn’t ask for a better blessing to our lives! We are forever grateful to her birth parents for choosing LIFE for our girl and the NDSAN for connecting our families!