Adoption was the means God used to grace guest blogger Amy Stout and her husband with a baby. Today, Amy shares their family’s adoption story, warts and all. Tomorrow, she’ll be back to explain how the experience gave them a deeper understanding and greater appreciation for Joseph and Mary’s stay in the manger where Jesus was born.

An Adoption Story: No Room at the Inn, Pt. 1

When I reminisce about miracles I have seen or observed, the most precious of all is the birth of a baby and how God makes families. Some families are created by birth and some families are created through adoption.

Adoption Is God’s Best

Adoption is not second best, it is God’s best. God chooses the perfect baby for each mommy and daddy and the perfect mommy and daddy for each baby. I can say this with confidence because my own little family was created through adoption.  The hospital part of our adoption story is a true nightmare. I don’t share it often, as I am concerned it will discourage couples from adopting.

As a brief overview, our baby was taken from us hours after birth, we were separated from our birth parents, we were accused of kidnapping our daughter, I was told by hospital staff that I was “not her mother.” This statement about killed me. Our birth mother’s attorney, who was there for paperwork to be signed and who had been invited by our birth mother, was escorted out of the hospital by armed security guards.

The experience was so horrific that I have a hard time reminiscing about the first days of my daughter’s life because it was so emotionally painful. What should have been one of the most cherished times of my life instead became one of the most traumatic.

Adoption: No Room for Our Family

Throughout that terrible experience, there was one event that, while awful, made me reflect intensely on my Father God and the birth of His Son, Jesus. When we were finally given permission to be with our new baby, the hospital told us that we would have to parent her in a waiting room as there were no hospital rooms available. We later learned this was a lie, and another attempt by the hospital staff to sabotage our adoption experience.

We spent 4 days in a waiting room with our daughter who was low birth weight and who could not maintain her body temperature. We had no food, no blankets, no water, no cell phone coverage, no privacy, and no restroom. The waiting room was not cleaned once while we were there and hospital staff repeatedly drew blood from our baby in that unsanitary area.

We wore the same clothes for 4 days and slept sitting up in chairs with one eye open, concerned someone might try to again take our baby. We had to take turns going to another part of the floor to use the restroom, wash our hands, or even get water to make a bottle and had to be buzzed in and out by nurses because they wouldn’t give us access badges as they do for most newborn parents.

On the day we were finally able to the leave the hospital, there were no friends there to greet us or congratulate us, no balloons, or pictures, but it was honestly one of the happiest days of my life!

Your Adoption Story

Amy’s adoption story is a painful one, but as the end of Part 1 of the story shows, all did end well. Tomorrow Amy will tell how the experience brought her and her husband closer to God. Please leave a comment about your family’s adoption story.

An Adoption Story: No Room at the Inn, Part 2

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop-up box and the second at the bottom of this page.