Caroline's story

At our church’s first Adoption Sunday in 2013 I talked to the church about the need for adopters.

I shared about my job as a social worker, working in adoption, and the thousands of children waiting for their home for good. As I was speaking, I felt God saying to me that adoption was His plan for us. My husband and I had wanted to have children, but had not conceived over a few years. We began the formal adoption process early in 2014 and we had our first training day at the same time Zoe was born – if we'd waited and continued to try for birth children then we wouldn't be all be together now.

God answered my prayers for a baby when we had Zoe. She is a lovely, happy, gorgeous little girl. I feel so blessed to be her mother. She has made the transition into parenthood very easy for us. A lot of adopters struggle, even after having children, and mourn the sense of loss about not having experienced pregnancy. I feel blessed that I don't feel any desire to be pregnant or have birth children - Zoe is my child, and I love her exactly the same.

But there have been challenges. She has a delay in her development, and I find it hard to not compare her to other children. God has been teaching me that He created Zoe and knew her even before she was born. He brought good out of a sad situation by bringing Zoe into our family through adoption, and He will continue to do good things in her life. He made Zoe unique, and He knows how and when she will grow and develop. I need to be patient and trust in Him and how He made her, not wishing time away or comparing her to other children. Zoe is perfect as she is.

There will be other challenges ahead of us as parents as Zoe starts to test boundaries and needs help to understand her life story. We are hopeful that the adoption of Zoe's sister Rachel will proceed in the coming months, and we know that this won't be easy for us as we adjust to having two children under the age of two, juggling their differing needs, and helping them get to know each other and us more and more.

I'm incredibly grateful for God’s provision of our supportive family and friends. Our church has four adoptive families, and six of the 30 children in our church have been adopted. We are particularly grateful for our church family – of their love and support, and acceptance of Zoe. We know they are standing with us and will help us on our journey as adoptive parents. We are encouraged through the work of Home for Good and pray for more adopters and foster carers to come forward.