Miranda's Adoption Story
Miranda was adopted in 1990 at only 3 days old in Lancaster, Ohio. She grew up with adoptive parents who loved and cherished every moment of her life. Miranda also has an older sister who was adopted as an infant. Miranda has lived firsthand the life of an adoptee and adoption has always had a special place in her heart.
Our Adoption Story
Before Miranda and Matthew got married (in 2013), they discussed future plans on how many children they wanted to have. Miranda's immediate response was "have one and then adopt one!". Matthew agreed. In 2015 they decided it was time to start trying for their first baby! Miranda's first pregnancy was in March of 2015, and ended May of 2015. The loss experienced was heartbreaking. They took some time off from trying to conceive to focus on their jobs and education and moved to Jacksonville, FL.
2019 was a BIG year. After many years of success in both their careers, Miranda and Matt purchased their first home! It was then they decided they were ready to try and conceive again. Miranda got pregnant in May 2020! She made the hurdle of 8 weeks and was able to hear the baby's heartbeat. Due to COVID-19 Restrictions, Matt was not able to attend but was able to hear and see via facetime. Miranda then had her 16-week check-up. She was so excited to see how much the baby had grown. However, instead of receiving news of a healthy baby, she was told the baby had, unfortunately, passes away at 10 weeks, and she was experiencing a missed-miscarriage. The amount of emotional and physical loss Miranda and Matt experienced is indescribable. It was not until another 4 weeks had passed that Miranda experienced her miscarriage. She did not even want to think about trying again for another year.
In January 2021 after a lot of prayers from God, Miranda was blessed with another baby. This pregnancy was short-lived at only 8 weeks and only 1 day before their first ultrasound. By this point in time, Miranda was upset and confused. She would ask herself "Why does this keep happening to me?". They decided not to wait long before trying again. They were unsuccessful all year.
In December of 2021, they decided to go get testing done by their OBGYN. Miranda was informed that she had severe endometriosis and a large cyst and needed to undergo surgery immediately. Her surgery had some minor complications: not all of the endometriosis was removed due to its location. Her doctor informed her that without additional surgeries, getting pregnant would be more difficult. After a VERY long recovery, Miranda and Matt decided they wanted to try for one more year before they looked at other options.
That brings their story to the present time. It has now been over a year since trying to conceive with zero success. Miranda told Matt that they could keep trying but in the meantime wanted to pursue adoption. We are beyond excited and are doing everything we can to be prepared to welcome a beautiful new life into our home.
Our Crowdfunding Campaign
As part of our adoption process, we have started a crowdfunding campaign. It may surprise you to hear that adoption-related costs can easily total up to $80,000 or more. This is why we have set a goal of $75,000 to help ease the financial burden that often overwhelms adoptive parents.
We believe that adoption is very special to God's heart and He calls us to support adoptions in some way, whether that's by adopting ourselves, financially supporting adoptions, or partnering in prayer with adoptive families and birth mothers. We hope that by inviting you into this process, you will see yourself as part of the community we hope to build around our child as he/she grows up. Ultimately, we know our God will provide how He sees fit and we have full faith that He will do that in His timing.
If you are unable to donate financially, we would be so grateful if y'all would partner with us in prayer, praying that God's name would be lifted up in this process, and that our child's birth mother would feel loved and comforted by God in this incredibly tough decision, and that we would trust His loving faithfulness and He would prepare us for what is coming.
We hope you feel our gratitude and thankfulness for every prayer, donation, and encouraging word. God has used our sweet family, friends, community, and even strangers to be a means for His provision, and we are overwhelmed with thankfulness. Thank you for your time and for reading, praying, donating, and sharing! Such a gift to us.
On 8/11/2023 we received a phone call that there was a newborn baby waiting to be adopted in Tampa! We were the only family presented and were chosen that same day!
We did not know Addison was a preemie or in NICU when we got the call about being matched. We simply picked up our bags and traveled from St. Augustine to Tampa, FL thinking we would pick her up from the hospital that same day. When we arrived, that was when we got the news that she was on a feeding tube in the NICU. We got to speak to the birth mother before seeing “Hope” and signing for placement.
We fell in love instantly, but we needed to make the hard decision if we wanted to take the risk because of her current state of health. We spoke with the social worker and asked her the important question: “If we do not accept placement, what would happen to Hope?”. The social worker informed us that the baby was currently in state care and if we did not go through with placement, Hope would continue to be in foster care until she was adopted. It was then and there that we looked at each other and knew we could not let that happen. We told her we would accept placement, even though Hope’s health outcome was unknown at that time.
Addison was in the NICU for 7 days. The first few days were rough as she was still not eating or swallowing on her own. We stayed in the NICU all day and all night, holding her, reading her books, and doing skin to skin contact so she felt warm and loved. Beginning day 3, Addison began to start swallowing and eating very little from the bottle. By day 5, she was eating much better but was still not gaining much weight. Magically on day 6 and 7, she stated eating like a champ. She was discharged on day 7 weighing in at 4lbs 11oz.
Today 9-28-23 Addison is 7 weeks old, weighing in at 7lbs 11oz and is achieving many milestones! She is SO strong, just like her birth mother. We are so proud of Addie and are looking forward to seeing who she grows up to be.
On 8/11/2023 we received a phone call that there was a newborn baby waiting to be adopted in Tampa! We were the only family presented and were chosen that same day!
We did not know Addison was a preemie or in NICU when we got the call about being matched. We simply picked up our bags and traveled from St. Augustine to Tampa, FL thinking we would pick her up from the hospital that same day. When we arrived, that was when we got the news that she was on a feeding tube in the NICU. We got to speak to the birth mother before seeing “Hope” and signing for placement.
We fell in love instantly, but we needed to make the hard decision if we wanted to take the risk because of her current state of health. We spoke with the social worker and asked her the important question: “If we do not accept placement, what would happen to Hope?”. The social worker informed us that the baby was currently in state care and if we did not go through with placement, Hope would continue to be in foster care until she was adopted. It was then and there that we looked at each other and knew we could not let that happen. We told her we would accept placement, even though Hope’s health outcome was unknown at that time.
Addison was in the NICU for 7 days. The first few days were rough as she was still not eating or swallowing on her own. We stayed in the NICU all day and all night, holding her, reading her books, and doing skin to skin contact so she felt warm and loved. Beginning day 3, Addison began to start swallowing and eating very little from the bottle. By day 5, she was eating much better but was still not gaining much weight. Magically on day 6 and 7, she stated eating like a champ. She was discharged on day 7 weighing in at 4lbs 11oz.
Today 9-28-23 Addison is 7 weeks old, weighing in at 7lbs 11oz and is achieving many milestones! She is SO strong, just like her birth mother. We are so proud of Addie and are looking forward to seeing who she grows up to be.
We matched with a birth momma due on July 23! We are over the moon 🌙 excited 🤩 The gender is unknown at this time but we will be excited for either 💙💜 What is your guess?! With the adoption costing us a lot of money, we will only be hosting a very small in-person baby shower, but if you would like to contribute we made an Amazon Baby Registry amzn.to/3N74OB4 .
THANK YOU to everyone who has supported us through this amazing journey of infant adoption.
Matthew and I are officially ready to apply to adoption cases! The last steps were to secure our adoption lines of credit and receive our profile book which are both now complete!
Next few steps
1. Apply to cases that are presented to us ✍️
2. Wait to be matched with an expectant mama 🤰
3. When matched, apply to as many grants as possible 🙏
4. Continue to fundraise! 💰
Grants are not guaranteed and cost $$ money to apply for. This is why we will be continuing to fundraise through our adoption finalization!
Greeting Friends and Family,
We have two very quick updates for you.
1. Medical Update- Miranda was in bad pain a few weeks ago and we got the unfortunate news that her endometriosis is now Stage IV and the specialists are recommending a full hysterectomy. This means that both ovaries and the uterus will be removed and will give Miranda zero possibility of conceiving her own child in the future. While this is very upsetting to us both, Miranda feels like it will be the best long term decision for her health. She will go into surgery with the anticipation that everything will be removed, however, the surgeon will do the best they can to keep as much as they can.
2. Loan Update- Matthew and I applied for an Adoption Line of Credit in the amount of 65k, however, we were only approved for 35k. This is slightly concerning for us as this means we will have to either apply for a high interest variable HELOC OR wait much longer and try to fundraise the rest to pay in cash. The downside of waiting is that we can't apply to ANY cases without proof of funds :( So we are leaning towards a combination of HELOC and fundraising. This means that donations matter more than ever now. If you could please share our fundraiser with your friends and family that would mean so much to us.
