The Joy and Pain of Adoption

November is National Adoption Awareness Month.

To be honest, this subject feels a little heavy for us.  We have had the privilege of being a family built and shaped through adoption for 18 years now and it's been a journey marked with so much joy and gratitude for the gifts that our children are to our family.  I love our big, bustling crew and how our home is filled with laughter and how we get to celebrate the unique diversity and beauty of each of our children as well as their beautiful birth cultures.  It is such an honor to embrace all of it and something that we deeply cherish together.

That being said, while adoption is abundantly beautiful, it always starts with loss.  In the perfect world there would be no need for adoption and children would never be separated from their birth families.  Every adoptee will have their own journey and unique feelings and way of processing through their story.  Most adoptees will tell you that there's a considerable amount of grieving that happens at various stages of their life.  To not acknowledge the trauma that many of our children have walked through and the impact that it has on them would not honor them.  And so while we celebrate the gift that a month like this is, we also recognize the loss that our children had to endure before coming into our home.  Everyone deals with pain in their own way and our goal is to always be as supportive as possible while honoring each of our kids' stories which is private to them and sacred to us.

And so we hold the tension of two truths at the same time - that adoption is both beautiful and redemptive and full of goodness and joy and also that adoption is costly and painful at times.  Sending our love and support to all who walk this path, both adoptees and their adoptive families.  May you sense the overwhelming love and peace of God towards you and sense His nearness in every season of your life.  We are so grateful for this community here and the way we are able to encourage and support each other on our unique journeys.

Make It Happen

There are moments in life where you can't overthink your reaction. 

All you can do is pivot and make it happen.

Take for instance the adoption of our youngest: Alysia Hope.

Adoption wasn't even on our minds. 

We thought our family was complete with four kiddo's and a wiener dog to boot.

Isn't it funny how life interrupts our perfectly-laid plans?

That's when we got the phone call out of the blue: The birthmother of our one-year-old son, Levi, had just given birth to a baby girl -- Would we be willing to adopt her?

"Yes" escaped our mouths before our brains had a chance to catch up with what our ears were hearing.

We committed to a major life-change and significant price tag in a matter of 15 seconds.

Suddenly we were responsible for coming up with over $20,000 in 7 days plus preparing our home for a newborn.

We had to make it happen.

I didn't panic, I ran to the internets and did what any good daddy would do: I started a telethon to raise 20 grand!

Every hour on the hour we went live with stupid human tricks, lip-sync battles, and improv games. 

The goal was to pay for our unexpected adoption in cash and bring Baby Girl home.

We had to make it happen.

Here's the thing:

When you boldly declare what you want, multiply that with grit + hustle, and then seek help with compassion, empathy prevails and magic happens.

Together with friends and strangers on the internet, we made it happen.

What giant obstacle are you facing today?

What if you leaned in toward the challenge and fearlessly declared what you wanted to do?

How might people around you rally around your cause?

Today let's all dare to make it happen!

We Are Team Herron

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Our five month journey through an unexpected adoption has come in for a landing.

Alysia Hope is now officially, legally, forever a part of Team Herron!

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Unexpected Adoption

Our story began five months ago with a phone call out of the blue.

That led to a frantic online telethon and a little baby girl.

And now, she is ours!

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