Nick and I always knew adoption would be part of our story, but we had no idea just how deeply God would weave it into every detail of our lives.
Not in our timing. Not in our way. And certainly not in a way we could have ever imagined.
We are high school sweethearts, and early in our marriage we felt the Lord calling us to adoption. In 2020, with two little girls at home (ages 2 and 4), we stepped forward in obedience and began the process. Full of hope, but also stepping into the unknown.
In the years that followed, jogging became my space to think, pray, and be alone with God. I would put in my earbuds, step outside, and enter into my own little world. In the summer of 2022, two songs kept playing during my runs: “Gratitude” and “Lion.”
Every single time they came on, something stirred in my heart. I would find myself praying for our future child, longing for him or her, even though I didn’t know who he or she was yet.
One day, I asked Nick,
“If we’re placed with a baby boy… would you ever consider naming him Lion?”
Nick, who loves traditional names, immediately said, “No way.”
And that seemed to be the end of that.
But the songs didn’t stop. Every run, I heard them. And every time I heard them, my heart longed deeper and deeper for our future baby.
Not long after, I entered a really hard season.
During that time, we were actually matched with a different birth mom. For a week, we began to step into what we thought was our story. We prayed for her, prayed for her baby and began to prepare our hearts.
But after that week, she made the decision to parent her child.
We grieved. It was a real loss, and it hurt deeply. And at the same time, we were genuinely joyful for her, grateful that she felt empowered and able to parent her baby. Both things were true at once: heartbreak and joy, grief and peace.
That experience deepened the weight of the waiting and the emotional complexity of adoption in a way we hadn’t yet experienced.
The waiting felt unbearable. The unknown felt overwhelming. I found myself on an emotional and spiritual rollercoaster, full of doubt, fear, and questions.
Is this ever going to happen?
Did we hear God wrong?
Is this really what He wants for us?
Some days it felt like it was. Some days it felt like it wasn’t.
In the middle of that season, a friend gave me a gift at church for our future baby. When I opened it, I pulled out a lion lovey and a three-piece set of lion-themed onesies.
She had no idea what God had been stirring in my heart with the “lion”.
To me, it felt like a sign of hope, to keep trusting, to keep moving forward.
But if I’m honest… it still wasn’t enough.
I needed to hear from the Lord. I needed Him to show me that He was with me, that adoption was truly what He wanted for us.
One morning, while driving my daughters to school, I prayed a very specific prayer:
“Lord, if adoption is what You have truly called us to, then give me a sign through the radio. Let ‘Gratitude’ or ‘Lion’ come on.”
At that point, I had never heard either of those songs on the radio, only on my music app.
I dropped one daughter off. Nothing.
Dropped the other off. Nothing.
Drove to the grocery store. Nothing.
After loading my groceries into the car, I opened the driver’s door, turned the key, and immediately heard:
“Rooooar, rooooar… hail, hail Lion of Judah, let the Lion roar…”
I froze.
And then the tears came.
God had answered my prayer in the exact way I had asked Him to.
What a kind Father, to meet me like that, even in my doubt. Even when my faith felt shaky, He still pursued me.
And the “lion” didn’t stop there.
It kept showing up, again and again.
On billboards while driving down the highway.
In the book series I was reading at the time, The Mark of the Lion.
Even at the Austin CAP10K, where out of thousands of people, the man standing directly in front of us wore a shirt about being courageous like a lion.
And then one morning, my mom called me early, which she never does.
“Did you tell Morgan about the lion?” she asked.
My heart started pounding. “No… why?”
She read me a text Morgan had just sent her. Her kids had been talking about baby names for us, and their vote?
“Lion, because he will be a gift from the Lion of Judah.”
Morgan knew nothing about any of this.
At that point, it was undeniable. God wasn’t just asking me to trust Him, He was showing me that He saw me. That I wasn’t forgotten. That He was in every detail of our story.
Then on April 27, 2023, I had a dream.
In the dream, our case worker told us we had been chosen by two birth moms and had to choose between two baby boys. I asked for pictures. In one of them, a baby boy was wearing a onesie with a lion on it.
I knew instantly, that was our son.
From that day on, I could feel it in my heart: a call was coming. The Holy Spirit was preparing me. I kept my phone close at all times.
On the morning of May 16, 2023, I woke up already feeling defeated.
One of my daughters and I had a hard morning, it turned into a full-on battle. By the end of it, I felt completely drained. Lies flooded my mind: that I was a terrible mother, that I wasn’t enough, that I didn’t deserve to be a mom… much less adopt a child.
It was heavy spiritual warfare.
That afternoon, after school, the girls were playing sweetly together inside. I stepped outside alone and sat on the swing under our big, beautiful tree in the front yard.
And I prayed.
I prayed for our adoption.
I prayed for the other waiting families.
I prayed for our future birth mom.
And then I prayed specifically:
“Lord, bring us our baby. Bring us a son. Bring us Lion.”
Three and a half hours later, as I was getting the girls ready for bed, Nick called me. He had been in a meeting from 6–8pm.
I could barely focus, trying to wrangle bedtime chaos, but then I heard him say:
“Kelsey… Sharla just called. We’ve been matched with a baby.”
Everything in me stopped.
I knew it.
God had been preparing me for that call for weeks. Even that very afternoon, while I sat under that tree praying for a son, He was already answering.
The enemy may have tried to attack me that morning but nothing can stop the will of God.
Our son, our little Lion, was on his way.
Nine days later, we drove to Dallas to meet Mikayla.
We were nervous and excited. It honestly felt like preparing for a blind first date. Sitting in the car before going in, we held hands and prayed. We asked God to be with all of us, to bless our conversation, and to fill the room with peace.
When she walked in, I felt it immediately:
This is her.
We spent hours together, talking, laughing, crying. Our connection was natural and deep. At one point, I forgot our case worker was even sitting there with us.
Over time, that connection grew into a relationship.
When Shepherd was born, Mikayla gave us gifts we will never be able to fully put into words.
She welcomed us into her labor and delivery room after her epidural so we could sit and talk together. She allowed us to wait in the hospital waiting room while he was born.
And just 45 minutes after his birth, she welcomed us into her room to meet him.
She let me give him his very first bottle.
She even requested that we have a hospital room right next to hers, so Shepherd could go back and forth between us, bonding with both of us in those first sacred hours.
Those 48 hours were filled with moments I will carry forever.
We sat together talking, laughing, eating takeout, and passing Shepherd around. We watched his first bath together. We dressed him in tiny outfits just because we could. We marveled at how beautiful he was.
At one point, Mikayla’s dad gathered all of us together. We stood in a circle around Mikayla and Shepherd as he prayed over all of us.
It was sacred. Holy. A moment none of us will ever forget.
But alongside the beauty was deep, gut-wrenching pain.
Watching Mikayla walk through the reality of placing her baby into our arms… it was heartbreaking. The courage, the love, the sacrifice, it is forever etched into my heart.
Adoption is both beautiful and broken at the same time.
And yet, God was in every part of it.
When it was time to leave the hospital, we all walked out together.
Nick had already brought the car to the front. He carried Shepherd in his car seat while Mikayla and I walked closely beside each other, her parents just behind us.
It was the longest, hardest walk of my life.
There wasn’t much talking. There didn’t need to be.
At the car, she handed me a bag of gifts for Shepherd. Her and her family kissed him goodbye and watched as we placed him into the car.
Before we had left the hospital I had made her a promise, one I meant with everything in me:
“This is not the end. This is just the beginning.”
Today, nearly three years later, that promise still stands.
We call ourselves “The Big Fam.”
What once felt broken and uncertain has been restored, renewed, and redeemed. We were once two families who didn’t know each other and now we are one.
Mikayla is like a little sister to me and truly one of my closest friends. I am protective over her and love her deeply. She stays with us at our house for days at a time, texts often, and FaceTimes regularly, especially now that Shepherd is old enough to ask for those calls himself.
She shows up for everything: birthdays, soccer games, dance recitals, and even the small, ordinary moments that matter just as much. She is incredibly intentional with our girls, making sure they feel seen, loved, and important, not just as Shepherd’s sisters, but as children she cares deeply about too. She has taken them on special outings, like one-on-one ice cream dates, simply because she wants a relationship with them too.
We celebrate life together, not just milestones, but everyday moments. Every year, we gather for “Big Fam Christmas,” bringing both of our families together under one roof.
And our relationship goes even beyond that. We have now taken two summer vacations together, and we are planning our third this summer. What once would have seemed unlikely, or even impossible, has become part of our normal. We travel together, make memories together, and continue building a life that reflects the love and connection God has created through adoption.
This is what open adoption looks like for us.
It’s not always easy. It requires trust, communication, grace, and a willingness to lean into both the beauty and the hard. It means honoring Shepherd’s full story and the people who are part of it. It means choosing love, over and over again.
But it is also one of the greatest gifts of our lives.
Adoption is not simple. It is complex, emotional, and at times incredibly hard.
But it is also beautiful.
And through it all, we have seen God’s faithfulness again and again.
Shepherd is deeply loved. And through him, God has written a story far greater than we could have imagined. A story of redemption, connection, and a family built by love.
