June 5th

June 5th

June 5th 2018. this day will forever be etched in my mind as the most miraculous day ever. I still shake my head in wonder when I recall it…..

part of my journal entry–Today may perhaps have been the best day of all our lives as a family. The day that we found out, after exactly 5 years of waiting, that we are PREGNANT!!!! and that, after 2 years of having the boys in our home, the twins’ mom ‘signed papers’ to surrender her rights and give the boys to us for through adoption!!!! So, not only one, but we will be adding three to our family! It feels completely surreal. And I KNOW it is not from us doing anything in particular to make this happen, but 100% the works and Hand of God. It feels like such an incredible break-thru! SO MANY MIRACLES! Seriously, it felt like an out of body experience…like I was living some kind of dream. But all I could say all day was THANK YOU Jesus. You are amazing! Your works are awesome! Psalm 92:4-5. [so many people say, oh yeah, you adopted then God rewarded you with getting pregnant. Here is why I don’t like that comment: All three of our boys are equal miracles and blessings straight from God, one is not a reward for ‘taking in’ the others. They are all a reward and blessing from God for saying YES to Him in utter abandon, trusting Him and putting our hope in Him and not in ‘our doings’.

The night before I thought to myself, hmm, I should take a pregnancy test, I am a few days late. But decided to wait until my husband left for work so that I could deal with whatever feelings I have and then candidly tell him later. As soon as I heard him leave @5am, I took that test, laid it on the counter, went and made my coffee. After a little while I went back in to check on it, and the first time in my life I saw an unmistakable second line. Say whaat?!! I got so shaky I had to sit down. I was completely stunned and speechless. After a bit all I could say was, ‘Thank-you Jesus’! I took a selfie with the test because I though maybe I will send it to my husband and I definitely won’t be sharing that picture. I look like a frightened ghost! lol! I did have to take a few more tests and still I wasn’t sure if it was for real?! I decided against texting him because I wanted to see his reaction and I knew that he wouldn’t believe any ‘fancy way’ of telling him the news. I hid my phone, set up on video and showed him the test when he came home around lunchtime. He reacted about the same way as I did. Completely stunned and speechless, shaky and in shock for a little while! He had absolutely no clue that I was even going to take a test! —Then he was like, “Are you pregnant? Are you serious? Wow. I don’t believe it. Wow. I don’t know what to say. Thank you Jesus.” One of my favorite videos, complete with the one of the boys singing Hallelujah in the background! I’ll be honest that we hardly talked about it much those first few days, because we were like, let’s just go to a Dr. and see if it is actually legitimate before we get too excited.

He had to come home at lunchtime because we had court at 1pm for the twins… there had been talk of their biological mom possibly surrendering her rights and signing them over to us, but you never know what will happen until it actually happens when you are in foster care. Things had been dragging on n on…. And don’t you know. She signed those papers and were in even MORE shock! We were so so thrilled, and kept asking ourselves, Is this even real?! Our cups are waay tooo full and overflowing. It’s too much goodness all in one day!?

SHOCK SHOCK SHOCK, it took a good 3 months before we weren’t still in shock, and many many more until we truly believed it. Up until the day of the adoption and the day the baby was born, we kept asking each other, “Is this actually happening?!” Even though we knew it’s true, we could hardly wrap our minds around it as a reality! Even in the hard times we would proclaim and know it to be true, that GOD IS GOOD, no matter what. Now, getting overwhelmed with tangible blessings–WOW!

Two days after June 5th my best friend told me she was pregnant- being pregnant together was totally a dream we had both longed for! Kenton & Keyondre became Hostetlers on July 27th 2018. December 2018 we moved into our very own home- how that all came about was a complete God-script as well. Jenson was born on February 14th 2019.

2020 We are living our dream come true!

It’s A Miracle!

It’s A Miracle!

disclaimer: written in 2018 when I found out all this good news. AND be prepared for a series of belated updates I want to actually post on here for my own ‘recording it’ benefit.

I cannot believe I’m actually writing this post. Is it really true? I’ve dreamed of the day and dreamed of how I would share the news….but now that my dream is a reality, I’m speechless! I feel like I’m in a daze and wonder when I will wake up. I am truly pregnant.

When did you find out? The morning of June 5th, 2018 I decided to take a pregnancy test because I was a few days late and even though I was pretty sure it probably was gonna be a negative, I knew we had a big week ahead and I just wanted to know! I laid it up on the counter like I usually do and about 10 minutes late I checked on it. I saw 2 lines for the first time EVER and I literally got so faint I had to sit back down on the toilet. I could feel all the color had drained from my face and I was shaking and in complete utter disbelief! I took another brand test I had and it also showed positive..all I could say n think was, is this for real? And breathing Thank-you Jesus!! I took a selfie in case I wanted to text my husband but I looked completely terrified! Plus I knew I wanted to see my husband’s face and he wouldn’t believe me without seeing a pregnancy test, so I waited until he came home. Which, he came home in the forenoon because we had court for our twin boys that day. I managed to hide my phone and start video so that I could capture his response and I pulled out the positive test and showed it to him and he just stood there, stunned. After a bit he goes, Are you serious? I don’t think I ever saw him so shocked in his life. He had no clue I was gonna take a test. And I will spare you the rest of the details, but it took months for it to really soak in!! And yes, I took a few more tests and went to the Dr. to confirm it before I actually allowed myself to believe that there was truly a baby forming inside.

Now let me finish the rest of the story, we quick got ready and headed to court for our twin boys. We knew there was a chance that a decision would be made about us being able to adopt them, but there had been many ‘chances’ before. BUT guess what?! That very same day we found out we will be able to adopt them, not just a maybe, their Mom signed the papers!! Surrendering her rights. She wanted to make sure we will adopt them and OF COURSE there was no question about that. God answered so many prayers…

That day was completely insane (shocking). People were so happy and excited for us about the adoption and of course we were too. But inside we were just bursting with, “YOU ONLY THE HALF. God has completely blown us away!!!” Later I found out my best friend was pregnant as well (5 wks apart) and we’d dreamed of being pregnant together. I was 30, and crossing over that threshold was a huge deal to my heart about becoming/not becoming pregnant. There were more details I had prayed for that came to fruition and I kept saying, Ok God, my cup is not just full now, IT’S OVERFLOWING! Like can there be any bigger harvest than this?! We had been praying for a forever family and a forever home to call our own for years.. and now suddenly in the year 2018 we got not 1 but 3 forever children and we also bought our dream place. (story to come soon).

So the first few pictures was how we announced it to family and then we had fun photoshoot with Mary Kate Paschall Photography. And she gave me the copyright to print, so that is why you will see it on the pictures, but she gets all the credit! I couldn’t just pick a few, so… photo overload!

Words really seem inadequate to describe how we feel with all of this. Very overwhelmed, humbled, grateful and in utter awe. I actually struggled a bit being so happy and saying ‘God is good’. Because He is GOOD no matter what our circumstances are and that is something I would say again and again in the midst of our trials.. But NOW I was actually, literally, seeing and tasting another layer of that GOOD! He delights in making His children happy and this is definitely one of those times and I’m going to do all I can to make Him look as good as He is, and overflowing with JOY right now is totally appropriate! 🙂

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