17 Adoption Stories That Will Warm Your Heart

"I met my sons at the Child Protective Services office. Three brothers that CPS wanted to keep together. Moises came over and sat next to me. We talked about the three of them, about school, and then went to McDonald's. Angel gave me a hug when it was time to leave. Alex shook my hand, then gave in and gave me a hug. I cried the whole way home. They came to live with me one month later."

—stephanieh485f72c6b

"My husband and I adopted both of our boys. We met our older son's birth mom when she was about 4 months pregnant. It gave us some time to develop our relationship with her, and she ended up deciding that she wanted us at the hospital when she gave birth. Fast forward to the day and we waited in the waiting room while she was giving birth. There was no one else giving birth at that time, so we actually heard his first cry from the waiting room. Her mother immediately came and got us and the birth mom insisted that we be the first to hold him. It was amazing."

—nickp40a84c1c9

"My husband and I spent over a year looking at profiles and meeting kids in the foster care system. It was heartbreaking. There are so many kids who need families. We challenged ourselves on what we wanted and what we felt we could handle. We saw picture after picture. Finally our adoption worker sent us a paragraph about two boys. One paragraph, no picture, but we knew they were our boys. We set up a first visit. We got to the door and there was our oldest, his eyes wide and big smile as he opened the door. It was like he knew. He had just turned 2. And our youngest, then a little over a year old, was sitting on the floor. I thought, 'My baby, we found each other.' That was over five years ago. We are so amazingly blessed!"

—kimberlyk498b0e96a

"Our son arrived at our home the day after my 28th birthday. Our agency, DePelchin's Children Center, had contacted us earlier that afternoon to let us know we'd been matched with a child that had entered the foster system the day before. My husband and I were every shade of emotion: excited, anxious, elated, and, unsurprisingly, fearful and worried. We'd been certified to become foster parents a few weeks prior and understood all foster children entered the system for a reason. We let our agency know we were ready and they reached out to Child Protective Services to confirm the placement. We were told a CPS investigator would reach out when he was on his way and asked to run out and purchase whatever we thought we may need for a 2-year-old boy. It feels a little silly typing it out, but I still have the receipt we got from Target that afternoon.

"While driving back home to unpack and prepare, we received an email from our neighbor. There was no message, but the subject line read: 'Hi your baby is there!' The Investigator never called to let us know he was on his way! We rushed home and noticed our little boy as soon as we approached our neighbor's house. The first thing we saw was his beautifully wild hair bobbing along behind a row of bushes that led up her driveway. The second thing I noticed was his size. He was so, so small. That he was out and about with people he'd never before met really hurt. My husband got out of the car and was approached by the investigator immediately. As they began talking, I approached our son and — this I remember quite vividly — reached down to carefully pick him up. I will never, ever forget the look in his eyes as they met and stared into mine. He was calm, curious, and when I smiled, he smiled (something he does to this day). I held him for as long as I could (even while signing documents for CPS) and only passed him over to my husband after the investigator left. That first moment we looked into each other's eyes remains one of the most magical experiences of my life.

"Our family had an intense and difficult road to adoption, but we eventually became one of the first gay couples to adopt a child *jointly* in Houston, Texas. Last year's SCOTUS ruling in favor of same-sex marriage and the UNBELIEVABLE dedication of a few brilliant and special folks tied directly to our son's case made our dream the best possibly reality."

—danielr40770b6e3

"I have six kids through adoption. For my daughters, we got a phone call and met their birth mom a few hours later at a rest stop south of Chicago. The babies were ages 2 and 10 months, and the whole drive back home, I kept staring at them in shock. It all happened so fast! One year later we finalized their adoption.

"For my sons, we finished our paperwork to adopt again and were told it would be about three months until we traveled to bring them home from Uganda. It took just under a year before we traveled. I will never forget waiting in the front room at the orphanage for our sons to be brought to us. In walked this tiny 3-year-old followed by a slightly bigger 4-year-old boy. They were uncertain of us but both charming as hell. When another child at the orphanage called me mama, my then 4-year-old son got mad and corrected her by loudly proclaiming, 'My mama! No you!'

"Three years later we adopted another little boy from the same orphanage. We met him at a hotel in Arkansas and he was both confused and excited. When the time came for us to pick him up and walk away, he firmly told us 'no' in his squeaky little baby voice. I was charmed by his sweet face and immediately wanted to baby him, but it took time for him to warm up to the idea. We both had to be incredibly patient and incredibly intentional with physical affection until he was comfortable.

"When we got the call about our last baby girl, it was phrased as being temporary respite care for another foster family. I picked up a 4-month-old eight-pound baby girl from the other foster family's home and it was immediate love. She was just so tiny but had such a huge personality that we couldn't help but love her. My five older kids couldn't get enough of her. Ten months later she is still our missing piece and has brought tremendous healing and love to our family. Six kids is no joke, but they are all such miracles that we just try to enjoy the chaos."

—Kait Kettmann

"My husband and I had been foster parents for about a month and a half when we got a call saying a 2-day-old little boy needed a home, and it would likely be a permanent placement. Only hours later, the caseworker carried my son up the stairs and I was so overwhelmed and scared and awed by this tiny creature that I almost forgot to let her in my front door. The baby I had prayed for for seven years was finally here!"

—k439e74132

"It was Mother's Day in the United States, but I was halfway around the world, in blazing hot China, sitting in a hotel conference room about to become a mother for the very first time.

"Finally, they called my name from the doorway and I stumbled, as if in a dream, across the hot, humid room. I reached out and grabbed the tiniest, most perfect dark-haired baby girl, and I became a Mama. I had seen her face eight months before on my computer screen and I had fallen in love with her then, but those feelings were nothing compared to what hit me the moment I took her into my arms. She was everything I ever dreamed of, that little girl from a faraway land. Every second of all that waiting was worth it. She was with us for about six years before she started insisting on a sibling, so it wasn't too long before we obliged and I found myself back in China, in another room, waiting to meet another child, this time a son. Adoption has blessed me with two of the most wonderful children."

—michald42bcd5436

"She was born to our eldest living daughter. At the time she was a month premature, blind and deaf, and had the same medical conditions as our eldest daughter did when she passed away as an infant. We knew at once we had to take her in. She stayed with us, we raised her, and the adoption became final on her fifth birthday. She was our little miracle."

—abbiechrissie

—laneykate2005