Congrats to this sweet family on the birth of their son, Macklin Benjamin!

I absolutely love this sweet family. They have the most open heart for adoption, and they were an absolute JOY to work with.

Ben and Mindy began working with me in January of this year. They quickly completed their Home Study, I finished up their profile and they began applying to agencies. They heard “No” many times, but they never faltered in their belief that God had a plan. I kept reminding them that they were not going to miss the baby God had for them.

Mindy wrote about their journey below-?

 

“Adoption began stirring in our hearts around September of 2016 after a series of let downs and

failures of our own attempts to start our family. The Lord had closed doors that devastated us

and left us with questions of why?? but we were never left hanging. We knew there was a

reason and we knew that if we let go of control, we would see the story unfold far better than

we imagined. After praying about our next step and researching online, I found CAC and we

were both pretty decided that was the way we needed to go. We began with CAC in January of

2017 after meeting with Elizabeth and allowing her to ease our minds and answer all of our

burning questions. She was so supportive from day one and we knew we needed that support

in this unknown journey. After signing on with CAC in January, we were home study ready by

the end of February. The following months proved to be much tougher and more spiritually

challenging than I ever anticipated. In March we decided to present to our first situation. No

after no after no followed as we continued to present and birth mothers chose other families.

I’m sorry, but she selected another family? seemed to haunt me in my sleep. 13 times we

presented and heard a no every time. I don’t count that number to be negative, I count it

because it reminds me that through the heart ache and numerous closed doors, The Lord held

my heart and softly reminded me that there would be victory on the other end of the pain. I’d

be lying if I said the enemy didn’t get in our heads after hearing every no. What is wrong with

our profile? Did we say something wrong? Is our house too small? Do we not look like a good

family?? I always believed that the Lord was and is good, but I had to continuously remind

myself that he wanted good for us too!! He wanted something better for us? something he had

already selected for us. Little did we know, every singleno? happened because our baby was

being formed in his mother’s womb and he just wasn’t ready for us yet.

It was June 15 th when we first heard about an expectant mother due in the next few weeks. Her

one desire was for the adoptive family to followers of Christ and raise her baby that way. We

wanted to present but due to various timing reasons out of our control, it just wasn’t going to

work out. The next day was presentation day and we both decided that morning that the timing

wasn’t going to work in our favor and we would have to say no to presenting. We were

bummed, but our minds were made up. However, all morning I stressed that we were making

the wrong decision. I thought about this expectant mother and her baby all morning! My heart

felt so unsettled. Finally, I emailed the agency and explained our dilemma and they wanted to

go ahead and present us anyways. We were shocked and excited that things seemed to be

playing out even when we thought there wasn’t a chance! We heard a few hours later that the

birth mother wanted to set up a time to speak with us on the phone. We were beyond thrilled!

This was the closest we had ever come to being matched. The phone call was set up for that

Monday. Monday came and the agency called to let us know that the expectant mother was

not returning their calls and the call was going to have to be rescheduled. Tuesday came and

the she agreed to the call again. However, when the time came, she was unreachable.

Wednesday came and I received another call from the agency. I expected to answer and hear

about another rescheduling of the call. However, much to my surprise, I was told that the

expectant mother was in labor! We would have to wait until probably the next day to see if she

still wanted to have a phone call with us. All night I laid awake in bed wondering if this baby had

been born yet and if he would be ours or not. A sweet, healthy baby boy was born that night

while I laid in bed thinking and praying for him.

The next day, we were able to talk to the birth mother on the phone. We got off the phone

unsure if she liked us and unsure if we would be chosen. Hours dragged on as we waited for an

answer. Finally, late in the afternoon on June 22 nd , we heard that we had been matched!! The

hours that followed were a complete scramble! Phone calls of joy, phones blowing up with

texts as the word got out, a tornado of rushed paperwork, flights booked, plans on where

to stay, pack like maniacs, oh and…. we needed to sleep to be ready to fly across the

country the next day. HA! Sleep.. yeah right! We laid in the dark for a while, but that’s

about it!It was amazing to watch our plans fall into place with absolute ease in such a

short period of time. Everything from the money, to our accommodations, to the people

we met, can only point to how The Lord had us absolutely covered the entire time. When

we arrived, we were able to meet the birth mother and spend some really special quality

time with her. We learned about her, prayed for her, cried with her, and did everything we

could to ease her worries and take care of her in the little amount of time that we had with

her. That same day, our lives were changed forever. The moment felt surreal as we walked

into a dark NICU and a nurse handed us our baby boy for the first time. I looked into his

eyes and felt as though nothing else in the world even existed. We cried, laughed, stared in

disbelief, studied his every feature, and praised God for his absolute goodness. The next

few days were spent with him for hours on end in the NICU. Each day, we arrived when

they opened for day shift, and stayed until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer.

While the NICU days were hard, it gave us time to just be a family of 3. No visitors, no

cuddles with anyone else except us, and time to bond and learn our touch, voices, and

smells. 72 hours after birth, papers were signed to make us the parents of that precious

little baby boy. MacklinMack? Benjamin became ours at 11:09am on June 25th and all the

years of waiting and pain seemed to disappear in an instant.

This journey has reminded us time and time again that our God is sovereign, he is

steadfast, and he will complete what he has promised. Our story hasn’t gone the way that

we had planned. However, as promised, he wanted good for us! What we thought was

good for us, just wasn’t quite as great as what our God wanted for us! Mack has brought us

joy and peace that we could never put into words. The Lord wrote this story packed tightly

with every amazing detail and we are so thankful that we get to point all the glory to God for

years and years to come!”

Welcome to the world, Mack!