The Newell Family

 
Mike and I were married in 1994 and always wanted a large family. After 3 years of infertility, we discussed adoption. However, he was genuinely worried about his capacity to love a child that wasn’t our biological child. God had His plan and surprised us with our first pregnancy, a boy, followed by 2 boys and a girl (within 5 ½ years!). A BIG family! So, we didn’t talk about adoption for a long time. However, my desire never waned and I continued to pray and leave the rest up to God. As our youngest was heading to Kindergarten, I brought it up to Mike again. This time, he was willing to discuss it. I was hopeful but reserved. We became passionate with China after reading about the Steven Curtis Chapman family, an inspirational family to us. I found an agency and started the paperwork process. Shortly after, Mike asked to switch agencies to America World Adoption. At first all I could think of was all the additional paperwork, but quickly realized his feelings were strong. We left our old agency on October 15, 2008 and started with AWA on October 18th. By April, all our paperwork was over to China (DTC) and we were logged in (LID). We received a referral shortly thereafter, a little girl with a certain special need. After much prayer and discussion with Doctors we decided we could not adopt her. The needs were more than we could handle with the activity level of a family with 4 healthy children. It was very difficult to let her go, but we trusted God and heard she was adopted by another family soon after! God showed us how deeply we could fall in love with a little girl that we’d never held. It was an answer to prayer.