Lyanna’s Story

For my husband and I adoption has always been something we have been interested in. It has always been a topic of conversation in our home and over the years we became incredibly motivated to continue growing our family through adoption.

About 16 years ago, one of my brothers was adopted and the entire experience impacted my life. I was a teenager at the time and was fully aware of the process and it helped me to become interested in adoption. I studied mental health counseling and did extensive training with at risk children 0-5 years of age. This experience also sparked a desire to have a large family and provide all our children with unconditional love. When we decided to more seriously purse adoption we already had three amazing biological sons who were 7, 4, and 1. Our children were aware of the adoption plans and were just as excited that our family would be growing through adoption.

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took us beyond the borders of the United States and we quickly founds ourselves with our hearts in South America. We contacted an agency that worked in the area and our journey began. We didn’t have a clear understanding of what the path ahead would look like but we knew we were all in no matter what!

Immediately upon starting our journey we faced our first hurdle and harsh realities of an international adoption. Finances. The first part of the process is your home study which can cost several thousand dollars. The tricky thing about adoption is that once you start the process there’s really no way of stopping it. We had to increase our faith and trust that we didn’t choose adoption; adoption chose us and God would make a way.

Months after starting our journey and making he first large payment to our agency we received devastating news that our agency had lost an important accreditation. We had to choose between waiting it out indefinitely or switching agencies and losing all the money we had recently paid. We had to make the difficult decision of choosing not to stop our process and starting over with another agency.

What seemed like a setback was truly a blessing. Once we switched to the new agency our process started moving along quicker than anticipated and things started looking up.

We decided we wanted to adopt from a specific orphanage and although we couldn’t pick a gender we were approved to adopt a child 0-6 years old. Soon we received US immigration approval to adopt internationally and we began preparing all documents to send overseas as required by the adoption committee at the orphanage. We also received approval from the adoption committee in South America. Now we needed to be matched at the orphanage.

Up to this point most of our journey had been hurry up and wait… this part was no different. The adoption committee reviews adopting family submissions monthly. We waited for a few weeks and waited for a few months but it wasn’t until 3 months after submitting our file that we finally got the call! We were matched! The adoption committee at the orphanage hand picked us and felt that we were the perfect match for this precious girl. The joy and excitement we felt when we received a photo of this beautiful nine month old was out of this world. She was perfect and she could become our daughter!

We received her entire file soon after our match and we carefully reviewed it as well as consulted with a doctor that specializes in international adoptions. We knew whole heartedly that she was ours, she was the one! We proceeded with accepting the match and did everything required by our agency and the orphanage to move the process as quickly as possible. We found out our future daughter was in a foster home and soon we were able to start video conferences. The first time we saw her on live video we were overwhelmed with emotions. It didn’t feel real. We continued gathering necessary documents and within a few months we were granted permission by US Immigration to travel to get our daughter.

The trip would be between 3-8 weeks and would require many appointments and additional documents while in country. We struggled with the idea of leaving our boys for such a long period of time especially because we were in the middle of a world wide pandemic. We decided that our whole family should stay together and we wanted all our kids to experience adding our newest family member at the same time as us.

Finally our plane tickets were booked we were told that the day we arrived in country we had an appointment to meet at the orphanage to go over some ground rules. The day after we arrived we were schedule to finally meet our daughter and take her with us. I will never forget the nerves and anxiety leading up to this moment. Driving to the orphanage I often felt like my breath was being taken away. This was it, the moment that would change our lives forever.

Getting our beautiful daughter in our arms was incredibly emotional. After 18 months of sweat, blood, and tears we were finally face to face with our girl! The boys were happy and emotional as well. We took her back with us and we were told that in about a week we had to change locations to another city where all the legal court proceedings would take place. So after a week we packed up and went to the other city where our court proceedings were being done virtually. Within a few days we were notified that it was official. Our daughter was officially our daughter forever and ever. We named her Lyanna Victoria which means: my God has answered, victory. No other name would be better fitting for her.

We made our way back to the first city we were at and now the real waiting started. We had to wait got an appointment with the US Embassy to get our daughter a visa to enter the United States. This process took longer than expected which was really hard on me personally but also hard on our children. In the meantime we were able to bond with our daughter and let the kids bond with her as well. After 30 days out of the country we finally got the visa and made our way home for the very first time as a family for six.

We had a huge welcome home party for Lyanna and our family and friends came to celebrate this sweet victory! The first weeks at home Lyanna adapted so well and soon our family started to feel like we were always meant to be together. This process without a doubt was one of the hardest I’ve had to experience in my life. I felt like it broke me many times but I would go through it again just if I could be this sweet girl’s mommy. I’m grateful for the lessons learned.

Many of the lessons have been hard and not without tears but the joy we feel as a family to open our hearts and grow our family through adoption is out of this world.

Lyanna’s Story

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For my husband and I adoption has always been something we have been interested in. It has always been a topic of conversation in our home and over the years we became incredibly motivated to continue growing our family through adoption.

Prayers & Research

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