When I was 8 years old I remember watching Oprah after school. (I’ll give you a minute to gasp at the fact that I mentioned Oprah, but if you were a kid in the 90’s you watched Oprah after school!!) On said show they were discussing the orphan crisis in China. Baby girls perfectly healthy and precious being abandoned on the streets purely because they were girls and families wanted a boy. This shook my little 8 year old self to the core and I remember thinking someday I will do something about this. Fast forward 12 or so years. I had gotten saved and was in college and started hearing about families bringing home children from Africa. I began obsessively researching the adoption process. China, Russia, Ethiopia, Haiti and the Ukraine. Anywhere and everywhere. I started asking God to let me bring home children right then and there. You know as a 20 year old college student who couldn’t balance a checkbook? Perfectly sane idea. I think I signed up for every agencies information list and started pouring over these things called blogs and reading about families in the process. I then decided at 20 years old someday I would travel to Africa and bring a son home.

A few years later I met this very handsome man who made me smile a lot and rode horses and wore boots and I was smitten. But early on in the relationship I told him if you want to marry me, you have to be committed to adoption. Yes I would love to have biological kids as well, but adoption is a big piece of my heart so you better get on board or boot scoot out of here. He thankfully said, ok I can get on board with that. (I was pretty cute and I worked at the lake so how could he say no). We were married July of 2008 and I probably waited until September of 2008 to start talking babies. Ha! January of 2010 (we waited a minute) we welcomed Luke James into the fold. He was the best baby ever and we thought he was pretty easy so I started hounding Michael a minute later for another one. We were poor seminary students so he said we should probably wait awhile so we can actually you know feed the children so a few years passed. But all the while every few months you would walk out to the mailbox and find “Hi Mrs. Taylor. Thank you four your interest in our International Adoption program. Here is some info to get you started.” I probably signed up for 10 agencies and got all the information and researched every country that anyone has ever adopted from. I made myself sick looking at sweet babies faces on waiting list sites. I poured over adoption blogs read over the process. I remember begging God for it to be our turn. We moved to Oklahoma June of 2012. In July 2013 a sweet little bundle of energy came into this world named Selah Grace. And now our little cookie cutter lives looked perfect. A boy and a girl and we’re done…..not hardly.

I had always wanted a big family, but two babies were hard and I really really did not enjoy pregnancy. After the dust settled of having two babies I began to pray about adoption and all the hows/whens/wheres. When Selah Grace was a year old Michael shocked me by telling me he was ready for another. Another? I had to sweetly nag him for a year for the other two and boom he’s ready for another. And this began a really tough discussion for us. Have another? Adopt? I really was not in love with pregnancy and really just wanted to adopt the next one. And I was worried if we had another adoption would never happen. But we prayed about it a lot and couldn’t shake the feeling that we were supposed to have one more biological child.

If you have been reading this blog you know what happened next. In March 23 of 2015 we found out of unborn child in my belly would be born with a cleft lip and palate. This brought a whole new community of people, doctors and vocabulary in our lives. This brought a tougher, stronger faith into our lives. This made the power of prayer so real in our lives. And this put a whole new love in our lives: babies with cleft lip and palates. On August 5, 2015 Shane Mark entered the world screaming his little head off (and side note he didn’t stop screaming that little head off for 10 months).

Life with three was hard ya’ll. Still is. They are everywhere. And talk so much. And all like want to eat and stuff. It has been a juggling act like never before and I constantly feel like I am dropping the ball. But the still soft voice of my heart kept bringing adoption in my heart. It seemed crazy and illogical. But God placed the desire to bring an orphan into my family 24 years before and he was not letting a little thing like a mountain of medical bills from Shane, or my overwhelmed heart get in the way. In March of 2016 we moved our family to a new church. We bought our first house (I think we were handed our grown up cards then) and decided to dabble in this very easy and relaxing task of remodeling the entire house whilst living in it with a 6, 3, and 1 year old in it. That summer Michael laid a bomb on me- he knew we were supposed to adopt a little boy. And one with a cleft lip and palate.

Now let me tell you- I majored in special education and taught special ed for awhile before coming to work for the circus, I mean becoming a stay at home mom. I had brought up special needs adoption a million times before and it was always met with a deer in headlights look and a “I don’t know C.” But after we walked the road with Shane, God laid it on Michael’s heart this was something he had for us. I began researching (of course) and over and over again we kept seeing China every time we looked at “special needs adoption.” To us the fact that cleft lip and palate is considered a special need is crazy, but it is. The more we looked the more we realized this was God’s plan for our family. We began to pray for God to give us direction. We continued to remodel the house and finish that up (my husband is superman ya’ll) and started looking at agencies. We talked to trusted friends who had adopted from China or were currently in the process and began researching agencies. Around Thanksgiving 2016 I talked to CCAI, an amazing agency in CO that is the #1 agency according to China (or something like that) and fell in love with them. We knew this was the plan for our family and began to pray fervently that God woulds show us how in the world with 3 kids, me staying home, and us just remodeling this house we would afford this adoption. We placed our faith in the Lord to provide and set a goal to have in the bank before we even applied. (I will write a whole post on this later, but all I can say is our God is mighty and amazing and a miracle worker.) The number looked impossible, but through hard core budgeting and cutting back, selling stuff and my funny little peg dolls shop Dancing Waffles in March 2017 we hit our goal.

And on March 22, 2017 we sent in our application for a little boy with a cleft lip and palate. This is exciting and a miracle in itself. But its a story only our amazing God could weave together. On March 23, 2015 we were delivered the DEVASTATING news that our unborn child had a cleft lip and palate. on March 22, 2017 we turned in an application to adopt a boy with a cleft lip and palate. Before I sat down to write this I did not even realize that. My mother in law said it perfectly. “Going from fear of Shane’s issues to choosing to walk the path with another little one.”

We are so overwhelmingly excited to announce that we have officially began the adoption process to bring home our SON from China. This is a very long and tough process, so we covet your prayers. We are what you call “paper pregnant.” This means we have about 6 months worth of paper work, home studies, appointments and various other things to do before we can be matched to our son. This blog will be our way of keeping people updated and we hope you will join us as we take this journey. Thank you to everyone who has already encouraged and supported us as we take this giant leap of faith. God is so good!