MARIE & ELDON'S STORY
Updated: 5 days ago
“What I didn’t realize that I’d be getting was truly someone to walk through this entire experience—every part of it—with me.” — Marie, California
We live in California, and with the help of our RG Adoption Consulting consultant, Jamie Sorensen, we adopted our son Max from Houston, Texas through Heart to Heart Adoptions.
Our journey to him included an experience that, at the time, left us wondering how we would keep moving forward.
Just weeks before matching with Max’s birth mother, my husband and I experienced a painful adoption fall-through.
We had developed what we believed was a wonderful relationship with an expectant mother. She had invited us to be present for the birth, so we flew to Dallas for her scheduled induction.
But when we arrived, everything changed.
Communication stopped, the adoption agency was also shut out, and we were left without answers.
We were devastated.
Very shortly afterward, we received another adoption situation.
On paper, the situation shared several similarities with the one we had just experienced. The expectant mother lived in the same state, was the same age, and was already parenting other children.
I was reluctant to present our adoption profile.
The similarities made me nervous, and the pain of our previous experience was still very fresh. But everything about the situation otherwise felt right.
With Jamie’s guidance, we decided to take a leap of faith.
We presented.
We matched.
And everything happened very quickly.
From the beginning, Max’s birth mother was incredibly caring toward me.
She invited me to be present for Max’s birth by C-section. As she prepared to receive her epidural, she was understandably nervous. We held hands, and then she looked at me and asked if I was okay.
She reassured me that everything was going to be okay—that we would be fine.
Even during such a vulnerable moment in her own life, she was taking care of me.
We shared an incredible bonding experience as we watched Max come into the world. Then, we spent his first three days together in the hospital before he and I were discharged.
After the pain and uncertainty we had experienced only weeks earlier, those moments were more meaningful than I could have imagined.
We are now learning how to navigate our open adoption relationship and determine what closeness looks like for each of us.
Every open adoption develops differently, but Max’s birth mother has made it very easy to feel close to her.
Our bond began during those deeply personal moments surrounding Max’s birth, and we will continue allowing the relationship to grow in a way that honors everyone involved—especially Max.
When we first signed with RG Adoption Consulting, I thought we were primarily paying for expertise.
I expected our adoption consultant to help us evaluate the different situations and adoption profiles shared with us so we could make thoughtful, informed decisions.
We absolutely received that guidance.
What I didn’t anticipate was the breadth of experience RG would share with us throughout the entire adoption process—or how meaningful it would be to have people walking beside me through every part of the journey.
Jamie supported us through the heartbreak of our fall-through, the fear of presenting again, our quick match, and the experience of welcoming Max.
That kind of support was more valuable than I knew it would be when we started.
I like to joke, “I’d still be in Dallas crying if it weren’t for Jamie.”
Over the last year, I have learned that the adoption process requires you to let go of control.
There are parts you cannot predict, explain, or manage. There may be difficult experiences along the way, and you may have to choose to keep moving even when you don’t know what will happen next.
This journey taught me to handle difficult moments with grace, release the illusion of control, and remain open to what might still be ahead.
If I could speak to someone just beginning the domestic infant adoption process, I would tell them:
“Your baby will find you, even if you have challenges along the way. And truly, it will be so much better than you can even imagine.”
Our path to Max was not easy or predictable.
But taking one more leap of faith led us to him.
