“For seven years my husband, Adam, and I have battled the infertility war. We started our family back in 2007 when our first child, Owynn, was born. We always wanted at least two children. I grew up in a very large, tight-knit family. I had 14 siblings, so I knew how important a sibling would be to Owynn. But after five miscarriages and unsuccessful in vitro, we surrendered our journey to God!

We thought we would try and do foster care. Owynn was asking for a sibling, adding it to his Christmas list to Santa, and asking a lot of questions. He and I had a lot of deep conversations about how sometimes God doesn’t always answer our prayers exactly how we intend him to. After my husband and I took an introduction to foster care class we knew foster care was not a good fit for our family at that time.

We knew that the purpose of fostering was to reunite that child with his or her family, but our hearts were too tender for that, and we knew that portion would be incredibly difficult for our family. My son was devastated. We were introduced to a lovely young woman, Kendra, in June by the grace of God, who wanted to place her baby for adoption.

We thought there was a one-in-a-million chance she’d choose us, but our prayers were heard. We kept the whole situation hidden from our 10-year-old son, knowing that the birth mother could change her mind at any time. We already knew how he felt about being a sibling, and we knew we couldn’t raise his hopes only to break his heart again. I was present at her birth and was able to witness everything.

Adam and some of Kendra’s family waited outside. When Adam came in to meet Naylee for the first time I saw his eyes light up, something I had only seen one other time — when Owynn was born. We stayed in the hospital with Naylee and didn’t leave her side until Kendra gave us permission to take her home.

On December 8 we got to bring our little girl home to her forever big brother! I was excited when Kendra asked if she could be there when we surprised Owynn, and I knew that was important for her, and for us, to have her there.