This past Saturday evening (January 22, 2011) our family participated in our local March for Life. The coordinators of the event approached me to speak at the prayer service following the march. As someone who has received an amazing gift of life, they asked me if I would share my story. It's a little rough, but I thought this would be a good place to record it....
Saying Yes to Life
We come here today to join in prayer for Life. We’ve gathered, we’ve sung, we’ve marched and now we come to reflect and renew our commitment to life….especially life at its very beginning.
From as early as I can remember, I knew I wanted to be a mother. It seems like every chapter in my life supported that early desire. Even on my nursery school report card, my teacher remarked that I was a little mother hen to the other children.
I have always had a huge heart for babies and children. This made it exceptionally painful, when I learned about the truth of abortion. I was maybe ten old was unbelievably shocked and horrified. I went to bed that night in tears. I prayed to God and even bargained with him. I promised that if He would inspire these birth mothers to have their babies, that I would adopt them. I was serious. That memory is etched in my heart.
As I entered my early teens I began a long babysitting career, I spent my summers as a camp counselor, majored in elementary and special education in college. As an adult I worked as a professional youth minister. Loving and teaching kids has been a definite theme and calling in my life from the very beginning.
The vocations of marriage and motherhood were a deep desire for me. I just knew God had planted those desires in my heart. As my twenties came and went….I began to have SERIOUS conversations with God about this plan of marriage and children that I thought God and I both shared.
I began doubting that vision when I found myself in my thirties – still single. Still praying. Still wondering why God wasn’t answering my prayers for a husband and children. And just as I began to accept and embrace the single vocation as God’s plan for my life, I met the man who would later become my husband.
Because we had a late start in marriage, we knew that there was no time to waste in planning a family. We knew that our age could add a degree of difficulty in our effort to conceive, so growing our family became our focus. Month after month passed. We used Natural Family Planning, so I observed and charted cycles until my eyes crossed. Eleven months into our marriage just as we bought our first home, we discovered we were expecting a baby. Halleluiah! I felt as though that God finally got all my memos – and everything was falling into place. Or so it seemed.
About five weeks into my pregnancy I knew something was wrong. My husband was out of town…so a friend came by in wee hours of the morning and took me to the E.R. where it became clear that I was miscarrying. For those of us who believe that life begins at conception, miscarriage isn’t just the end of a pregnancy – it the end of a life – just without a funeral. We were devastated. Weeks later when we received the bill from the hospital – the diagnosis circled was “spontaneous abortion.” I was horrified to have that term applied to me.
As my husband and I healed from our loss, we looked into our future with hope. The gift in the miscarriage was – “At least we know we can conceive.” And for another year we lived in that hope. But once again, things didn’t happen as we planned. We knew that for every passing month and year, our chances to conceive lessened. We also knew that we didn’t feel called to pursue fertility treatment, so we opened our hearts to adoption.
The world of adoption is vast, complicated, and full of emotion and uncertainty. As we navigated our way through the ups and downs of paperwork, home studies, interviews, fingerprints, and background checks, we kept hopeful that somehow the children that were meant for us would find their way into our home and hearts.
On October 1st of 2007 we turned in our adoption profile, which was the last step in our adoption process. We emailed our family and friends to say we were done with the process and the waiting would begin. We said, and I quote “…we now consider ourselves officially expecting.” In the world of adoption, it’s considered being Paper Pregnant.
A few months into our wait…our plans were challenged again when we were asked to consider the possible adoption of an older sibling set. We were stunned. It was not at all our plan to start our family with older children. After some hesitation and an initial “no” we finally agreed to accept these two precious children. So with the nursery turned into a children’s room, and with love and support from family and friends we welcomed these little ones with open hearts. Five weeks into this new and exciting chapter, they were placed back with their birth family. Once again we were devastated. Our busy, vibrant home was empty and silent.
As we moved ahead in our journey, we healed, and prayed and were completely confused by God’s plan for our family, we could only focus on mending our hearts. We took what we called our Bandaid Vacation to help ‘make it better.” Not long after we returned, we received an unexpected call.
“What are you doing?” the loving voice said on the other end of the phone. I explained to our adoption sweet case worker that we had just pulled up to my parents home for supper. “Can you change your plans?” she said. Hesitantly I asked why she wanted to know. “Well, because we are here at the hospital with a newborn baby waiting for her parents to pick her up.”
A birthmother chose life and chose to place her newborn baby for adoption. We were in awe and disbelief. An hour later when the paperwork was complete we got the confirmation. In our state the birthmother can’t sign over her rights until the baby is five days old. Knowing the roller coaster we had been on they asked us if we wanted the baby in a transitional home until the birthmother could sign. My husband looked at me and shook his head. His response: “Let’s go get our daughter.”
On the way to the hospital, still in shock about this miracle….I made a realization – causing me to gasp and my husband to panic and slam on the breaks. “Her birthday is July 1st !” I excitedly told my husband. He asked if that day had any significance. “No, but I just did the math. Remember when we turned in our adoption profile? It was October 1st. That was the day we emailed everyone to let them know we were done with the process and officially expecting.” It was exactly NINE MONTHS TO THE DAY that this precious baby girl was born. It was also the day we began praying for the birthmothers of our children. Apparently, it was the day that our baby was conceived in our hearts. I knew, then, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this baby was meant for us.
We met her for the first time and fell instantly in love. I was even wheeled out with her in a wheelchair just like all the other mothers who gave birth to their babies. God’s fingerprints were all over this adoption journey.
So, why in the world am I here telling you of our unique journey? I asked myself the same question. Why is this story important at a pro-life prayer service?
As I reflected upon this question, the answer began to make itself clear. It’s about saying yes to life and it’s about the power of that YES. I said yes to life as a ten year old girl praying for aborted babies. We said yes to life when we got married. We said yes to life when we got pregnant. We said yes to life when we miscarried. We said yes to life when we took children into our home. And we said yes to life when we let them go with broken hearts. Our birthmother said yes to life when she chose to continue her pregnancy and she said yes when she chose an adoption plan for her newborn daughter.
Even though many of our yeses were painful – it gave room for God to move. God can do immeasurable things when we give him our yes. God used Mary’s yes to bring our Savior into our world. He used Jesus’ yes to save us from our sins.
Being pro-life is not easy in our world today. It is full of discouragement, devastation and sadness. No matter how hard we pray, abortions still happen. But I am here to tell you that your prayers do matter. I’m here to tell you that your prayers may have been the ones to inspire our daughter’s birthmother to choose life. I’m here to tell you that your prayers may have been the one that made me a mother.
If you ever wonder if your prayers make a difference (Gianna joins me in the sanctuary) - you can remember this sweet, tired little face.
This is Gianna Elyse.
She is our daughter and she is the face of a YES to Life.
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