My Ebenezer Stone

James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27 doesn't make sense without recognizing that God adopted us into his family. He adopted us out of death and into His Kingdom of everlasting love and life, the greatest form of adoption there ever was. Worship in it's purest form is caring for orphans in the eyes of the Lord. Adoption shouldn't be our plan B if natural fertility doesn't work...we weren't God's plan B. Our Heavenly Father delights in our adoption of those orphans in widows, we are displaying the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I wrote the words above on my blog on November 1st, 2012. I sat in church on Orphan Sunday convicted by the Holy Spirit in a way I had never felt His presence. We had been married a year and a half and on the drive home from church, my husband and I looked at each other and knew that adoption would be a part of our story and how we grew our family. Two weeks later we got pregnant with our first son and when he was a year old, we got pregnant with our daughter. Over those combined two years, I prayed a confusing prayer. God did you really call us to adoption? Did I hear that incorrectly? We wanted to be obedient not only to what we are called to as believers but what we felt God call our family specifically to. And what did God tell us? Be patient. Trust me. Keep praying, I am not finished with your story. I remember it clearly. I heard a song where the lyrics read "You had a purpose, a rescue plan for me to move from orphan, to move from enemy, adopted in your blessed royalty." (My King Forever by Jimmy McNeal). I stared down at my 4 month old daughter while my 2 year old son toddled around. It was time. 

Through research and prayer, my husband and I signed on with Christian Adoption Consultants to start the journey of bringing home our third baby through adoption. We spent months preparing our home study, curating our family profile book that would be shown to expectant mamas looking to place their babies with an adoptive families, and praying. The world thought we were crazy, expanding our family with two young children, but we knew God was faithful. I quickly realized how little control I had over this process and felt like God was using this time to strip me of my control idol. My deep desire and need to know exactly what is happening and how it will ultimately unfold (parenting in general has done such a great job of slowly chipping away at idol!). One thing I have to remind hopeful/future adoptive parents and even the everyday person is that adoption comes out of sin and brokenness. We saw things and learned things that we can never unsee. Things that most of the world is sheltered from and ignorant to. A bold prayer we had prayed at the beginning of the process was being answered. God break our hearts for what breaks yours. 

July 5th, 2016 we got the call. We had been matched with an expectant mama, who I will call M, who was pregnant with a baby girl due November 10th. We were overjoyed! A sister for my daughter. We spent the next 4 months preparing our home and hearts for another baby and loving on M. One thing that no one ever talks about in adoption is expectant moms. They are scared, vulnerable, brave, emotional....loving on M was easy but foreign. There isn't any other relationship I had to compare it to but I made it my goal to love her well and show her who Jesus was. It was the first time since we started our adoption that it wasn't about the baby. It was about the mama. The woman who was carrying what could be our daughter, hundreds of miles away from where we lived. And it was beautiful. We Skyped, texted, talked on the phone, got to know each other, laughed when we compared how similar our sassy daughters were, prayed together, and we made plans to be family. I loved, and still love M so hard. 

The week before baby girl was due, I knew something was going on when I hadn't heard from M for a few days. I reached out to our social worker who hadn't heard from her either. Friday November 4th at 12:30pm is when we got the call. M had birthed a beautiful and healthy baby girl the night before and couldn't place her for adoption. My knees buckled and I started heaving. I had never known devastation and heartbreak like this and it was one of the only times I've ever seen my husband cry too. I felt sad, alone, and so fragile but never angry. Those next 2 days were a blur. We had a slew of friends and family come over to drop off meals, pray with us, pickup our kiddos, and with each new face I saw, the whimpering tears would start flowing. We never saw it coming, our social worker kept telling us this was "the best case scenario" and she knew M would go through with the plan. We didn't protect our hearts and loved with reckless abandon and I am so glad we did. I talked to M two days after we got the call and she couldn't stop telling me she was sorry. I felt so much peace and calmness talking with her. This was not my baby, it was hers. There had been a plan but nothing was promised. This was always her choice to make, never mine. I had so much joy that this beautiful baby girl would not experience the trauma of leaving her biological mother. She would grow up with biological siblings and parents who loved her so much that they couldn't do what everyone thought she should do. My joy, my peace, and my delight was not of my own conjuring. It was the power of Christ in me. "This wasn't supposed to happen". Yes Ruthie it was. This was your story all along. Those 4 months were predestined by God for me to tell M about Jesus! To pray for her heart and for her salvation and that she trusts in her Creator, our God. And she did! That conversation I had with her, 3 days after her daughter was born, she told me something that continues to be the biggest source of encouragement to me in my walk with the Lord. It was that my husband and I reminded her who God was and that He was for her. We had never exchanged last names before and I told her what we had planned on naming the baby girl, Penny Grace Hart, and she said, "Ruthie you are not going to believe this! Can I send you a picture of baby girl?". I cried tears of joy when I looked at M's daughter and immediately noticed the large heart shaped birth mark on her leg, dark and 100% visible. The Hart family was always meant to be a part of this little girl's story. 

The next day, November 7th, 2016, I posted this on social media, asking for prayers and privacy with the announcement of our failed adoption. I had an overwhelming sense of peace that Monday morning and could feel the Lord helping me pickup the pieces of my heart and put them back together. I could smile knowing that He is sovereign, He is good, and His ways our higher than mine. 

That evening I had a group of girlfriends come over to cheer me up with chocolate and girl talk. There were lots of tears but so many laughs and I told them that once we start back up the adoption process, I wanted to get a call that a baby had already been born. I couldn't bear the thought of going through 4 months of waiting in limbo or another failed adoption. Oh and I was sure it would be a boy because right upstairs I had spent the past 4 months decorating an adorable room for our daughter. God is just funny like that, right? Little did I know what God was up to that very evening. 

Tuesday November 8th, 2016 at 2pm. My kiddos were napping and a call from our social worker popped up and I instantly started the word vomit. I don't think I ever took a breath explaining to her how I felt the Lord healing me in such a miraculous way. I felt Him near me and inside of me. Psalm 103 tells us that God has compassion for us and those few days it was overwhelming how strongly I felt it. The moment I finally stopped talking she asked me, "Ruthie are you sitting down?" which of course the answer was no, I was pacing around, excited at the thought of feeling whole again. She told me to go get Jon who happened to be working from home downstairs and the next few hours were again, a blur. 

"There was a baby born last night"

"It is a boy"

"Biracial"

"Are you interested?"

"Can you Skype with the birth mom?"

And the tears were flowing. Not the same tears we had cried 4 days before but tears of elation and of truth. God promised He wouldn't leave us, He is making all things new. That evening we wrote a letter to this boy's birth mom and she was shown our family profile scrapbook. Thursday she chose us to be her son's parents. Friday she signed relinquishment and we were on an airplane to get our baby. 7 days. God created the world in 7 days and in 7 days we lost a daughter and gained a son. This was all a part of His plan. The broken road to lead us to our son. Jesus you sit at the right hand side of God on your throne and are King of Kings. You are powerful, glorious, and worthy of all praise. You are a God who suffers with us. A God who came down to earth, took on human flesh, lived the perfect life, and died the perfect death. You suffered in a way that I can't seem to wrap my head around and you did it for me. And for my son, and for M and her daughter. You died so you can walk alongside of me in my suffering because you have been there. I will never again underestimate your power and what you can accomplish through your people. Sometimes you do greater things through people than with people. You told me 3 times to name our son Gideon. A strong and mighty warrior. Gideon Aaron, you are my Ebenezer stone. 

Here is a video we put together about the whirlwind journey to our son Gideon...

Ruthie Hart

@ruthiehart1

www.ruthiehart.com

Our Journey To Gideon Video

I finally sat down to compile all of the photos and videos from our whirlwind of a journey to Gideon. Not a day goes by that I don't break down in tears in awe of the story God is writing for us. We serve such a kind, personal, generous Father who adopted me out of sin and darkness when I deserved death. Thank you Jesus for salvation and thank you for Gideon Aaron.

Gideon's Name

I have had so many people ask me about Gideon's name and I finally sat down and wrote it down. The Lord is really cool you guys and my current prayer is that I can go forward living with as much reckless abandon and surrender as I have in the past few weeks. Exactly a month ago today is when our world was turned upside down...

Friday November 4th we got the news that 'M' had baby girl and couldn't place her for adoption, and we were absolutely devastated. My two friends from church immediately came over to cry and pray with me. My friend Heidi is a mom of 4 and told me the whole drive over the Lord put story of Gideon on her heart to share with him. He was faithful, asking for wisdom, brave, and obedient to what God was calling him to. He freed his people from idolatry and defeated the Midianites with only 300 soldiers and the Lord by his side. I wasn't really familiar with the story but once she shared it and we prayed I thought 'Okay God, please show me a sign that you're still with me like you did with Gideon. Give me faith and wisdom.' The very next morning another friend of mind Lindsay sent me this text "Woke up with judges 6:12 in my head. Praying that over y'all". Judges 6:12 reads "When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” God you are with me, you've never left my side. 2 days later, Ford and I are watching a kids movie on Netflix and one of the characters is named Gideon. I thought to myself 'this is weird, I'd never really known anything about Gideon and now his name/story keeps coming up. 3 times in 4 days". Also in that 4 days I told so many friends that when we got back into the adoption game, I just wanted to get a call that a baby had already been born. And that I'm sure it would be a boy. My heart couldn't take a long match again. That next afternoon, Tuesday November 8th, is when we got a call from our social worker Amanda that there was a baby born on Monday and it was a boy. It was in that moment that I told Jon I feel like God had been preparing us for a son and his name was to be Gideon.

The next day, Wednesday, we Skyped with his first mom 'R', Thursday she officially chose us, relinquishment was signed on Friday, we flew to Las Vegas on Friday evening, and we met Gideon that next day. His middle name is also incredibly meaningful. Aaron was chosen by his first mom and she told us she chose it from the Bible. In the Bible, Aaron is Moses' older brother and the first high priest of the Israelites. He was instrumental in helping Moses lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.

We believe that our Gideon is a strong and mighty warrior who is being used by God already. #GideonAaronHart #hartlittlesadopt#adoptionisbeautiful

The story of Gideon is in the book of Judges and here is a good site detailing it.

Bringing Gideon Home

Gideon was born in Las Vegas, Nevada and since we live in Texas, that makes things a little more complicated. We got custody of him on Tuesday November 15th (which was World Adoption Day, so cool!) and the next day, ICPC was submitted. ICPC stands for the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children and is paperwork submitted from the adopting state to the home state. It can take 7-10 business days and with Thanksgiving being the next week, we were praying we could be home before Thanksgiving! We stayed with my girlfriend Katie in Las Vegas (more on that later, the biggest blessing!) and Jon flew home on Sunday November 20th to get the kids back home and settled from Mimi and Papa's. Only one parent has to stay through ICPC and I figured that if I had to be in Vegas for Thanksgiving, at least Jon would be home with Ford and Lucy. Tuesday November 22nd I woke up from a long night alone with G and we were having a lazy morning on the couch... okay all of our mornings/days in Vegas were lazy on the couch. My phone rang and my heart leapt when I saw our social services workers name pop up and she told me I could go home!! Because it was a holiday week, I had booked a flight just in case on Tuesday and Wednesday nights but they didn't leave until 9pm PST, 11pm CST. I quickly hopped online and found a flight leaving Vegas in 3 hours!! I quickly changed my flight (thank you Southwest), threw everything into my suitcase and got on the road. I managed to fill up the rental car, return the rental car at the offsite location, take the shuttle, check in, go through security, and get lunch with an hour to spare. Phew. I can't tell you how many random people helped me and commented on how cute G was. Flying with a 2 week old was surprisingly never on my bucket list! We made a quick touch down in Phoenix but didn't get off of the plane and arrived in Austin at 7pm. Gideon did SO great! He ate, slept, and cuddled. Jon came up to meet me right outside security and we rode the escalator together to see my entire family waiting for us with signs and balloons. I instantly started bawling and ran down to see my babies! I will let the pictures do the talking, there is also a video!

#WorldAdoptionDay

You all will never believe the story the Lord has been writing for us. Today, on #WorldAdoptionDay, we'd like to introduce you to our SON, Gideon Aaron Hart. A strong and mighty warrior. Born November 7th, 2016 at 6:10pm. 8lbs3oz of pure redemption and beauty from God. 4 days after receiving the devastating news that our adoption had failed, we received a call about a baby born in Las Vegas. It was a boy. 4 days later he was ours and we were on a plane to meet our son. Jesus you didn't have to but you did. All blessing and honor and glory and power and praise, to Your Name. #GideonAaronHart #hartlittlesadopt#adoptionisbeautiful #adoptionrocks

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!" -Psalm 30:11-12

Adoption is Hard

This is not a post I ever thought I'd write and I'm not sure how I'll put my thoughts into words. We are saddened to share that we will not be bringing baby girl into our family. She was born last week, healthy and beautiful, and her sweet mama decided she could not place her for adoption. We have loved this baby girl and her mama for 18 weeks and are grieving deeply but trust that the Lord is sovereign, good, and faithful (was, is, and will be). We believe this is just the beginning of a beautiful story He is writing, for our good but ultimately His glory. Our house can flood and our adoption can fail but our hope in you Jesus will not be shaken. 

We are asking for prayers and also privacy as we start the healing process and navigate what is next for us. #hartlittlesadopt #adoptionisbeautiful #adoptionishard

Bringing Her Home

I came across Lucy's coming home from the hospital outfit a couple of weeks ago and oh man my heart was a mess. How could she have ever been that tiny? Lucy wore the most beautiful jumper, bonnet, and booties from Baby Beau and Belle home from the hospital and I pray that she has a daughter one day who will do the same. Since we are having our 2nd girl, you'd think she would get stuck in all hand me downs but we are running into a huge problem. Baby girl will be born in the total opposite season as her big sister Lucy so anything besides jammies won't really work (which you don't really have to tell me twice to go shopping for tiny little newborn girl clothes). I am ALL for hand me downs and borrowing because cliche... they grow so fast... but I wanted our sweet 2nd daughter to have a beautiful coming home outfit that will become a family heirloom for her. The thought of bringing her home (and yes she has a name but we decided not to share it until she's ours) is very emotional. I know she will beautiful and I want what she is wearing on the day she becomes ours to be beautiful, special, and sacred. To semi-match her sister (because I can't get enough of matching sisters), we chose the Clementine Jumper and set from Baby Beau and Belle. Y'all I can't even describe the beauty and quality of this collection and how much I love this company. The lace is so beautiful and intricate, even the tiny newborn booties are so detailed and unique. Baby Beau and Belle collections make the perfect outfit for baptisms, christenings, sip and sees, weddings, and holidays. And sizing is not just for babies, they have boys and girls collections and gifts as well. I cannot wait to see my daughter in this gorgeous outfit, knowing she is mine forever!

Shop Baby Beau and Belle

If you aren't familiar with adoption... I will explain how things will work. We have talked tentative plans but you know babies... they come when they want, sometimes with no warning, sometimes they have to be booted out so we are flexible and just so excited for the time to come! When our expectant mama goes into labor she will call our case worker. Our case worker will call us to give us the low down and meet our EM at the hospital. Once it is confirmed that our EM is truly in labor (dang false alarms), we will hop on an airplane to start the journey of picking up our daughter. As amazing as it would be to be at the hospital when the baby is born, we are praying that the labor and delivery for our EM is short, safe, and easy. Luckily there are a few daily direct flights from Austin to Las Vegas on Southwest and we have a gaggle of miles so hopefully we'll be able to get on a flight asap! We will head to the hospital where we will get tagged with parent bands and get unlimited access to our girl. The hospital our EM is giving birth at is extremely adoption friendly (makes me sad that there are hospitals that are not) and give adoptive parents lots of support. The required period before birth parent relinquishment is 72 hours in the state of Nevada so then we wait. And pray and get to know our baby girl. We won't get custody of her until relinquishment is signed. If there is room in the hospital, baby will stay there for 72 hours/or until relinquishment but if the hospital needs beds and baby is ready for discharge, our agency has a cradle care family that will care for our baby. Cradle care is temporary foster care and this family is so gracious to offer their home and loving services to families waiting to get custody of their fresh newborns. Once relinquishment is signed by the birth family, baby is ours, irrevocable in court. At this time, the state of Nevada will submit an ICPC (Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children) to the state of Texas and we must remain in the state of Nevada until we are approved to come home. Basically it is one state saying "This baby was born and the adoptive parents are from your state, can they come home" with lots and lots of legal paperwork. We are told to expect it to take 7-10 business days so Las Vegas will be our home for the first few weeks of a family of 5. I've had friends who it has taken 4 days to be approved and others 2 weeks so again... everything is up in the air. We've decided that my parents will fly up to Vegas with Ford and Lucy once we get custody of our daughter, I would be able to do 4 days but can't imagine 2 weeks without my babes. We don't have to stay in Vegas specifically, just the state of Nevada while we wait. We found out that part of the Grand Canyon is in Nevada and 3 hours away from Vegas so we may go there for a few days... not knowing what life will be with 3 kids, 3 and under. Once ICPC gets approved, we head home as a family of 5 and let the fun begin. Hopefully all of the people on our flight back from Vegas will be too hungover to be annoyed with our crew... 2 lap children and a 3 year old. YOLO.

Will we have a Halloween baby? Will we spend Thanksgiving at a casino buffet in Las Vegas? It probably sounds stressful to most people the thought of not knowing when and where you'll be for up to 2 weeks with a newborn but that's what makes this even more exciting. God HAS provided and He WILL provide.

We will finalize her adoption 6-8 months after she is born. What does that mean? We will have physical custody of hers and she will be OURS, but our agency will have "official custody" of her until we finalize. I put that in quotes because I am not sure what it is called. She will be our daughter, on our insurance, we can fly where we want, do what we want, so there is nothing to worry about. We will have a few visits from our social worker from the time we get home with her until finalization but nothing should stop finalization. And that will happen over the phone for us since we are out of state.

Phew that was a lot of information! Sorry for the overload but I realize that very few people know how the adoption process works. If you have more questions, feel free to email me!

Our Adoption Family Profile Book

Thank you all for your love, support, congratulations, prayers, comments, messages, and pure excitement from the recent post on our adoption! It still very surreal that we are bringing home our baby girl in a little over 2 months. Unless you've adopted before or have someone close to you that did, the process is all unknown... like it was to us just a couple of months ago. Today I am going to share our family profile book with you, the thing our birth family got to see and chose us based on. I want to give you a little back info on how this all works so you can follow along.

Once we were home study approved (the long process of paperwork, clearances, finger prints, interviews, references, home visits with a licensed social worker), we started working on our family profile book. It is basically a snapshot scrapbook into our family life and what is shown to birth families when they are choosing an adoptive family for their child. We were emailed cases by our adoption consultant and were able to review information such as pregnancy records/info, family, medical history, interviews with social workers, costs of the adoption etc. The amount of information varied by agency (we worked with multiple agencies through Christian Adoption Consultants) so sometimes it was really detailed information and maybe even a picture of the expectant mama and sometimes it was just basic information. So from there, we decided whether or not we wanted to present our family profile book to this expectant mama. We probably saw 25+ cases in the 5 months we waited but said no to a lot of them based on the due date of the babies (we were out of the country in July). On average, an expectant mother/family will see 3-5 profile books that fit any criteria she had (maybe she wanted a family with no kids in their home already, a certain religion/faith affiliation, a certain state, certain race, etc). Along with our family profile book, we wrote a personal letter to the birth mama each time we presented. I am still in shock that we only presented our profile twice before getting matched on our third time. And when I say present, I don't mean that we are face to face with the birth parents. There is no contact until a family is matched and the adoption case worker is the one who walks with the birth family during her pregnancy and shows her the profile books. 

If you ask any of my family or friends to describe me, they would all use the word creative. I live to craft, create, design, and use my hands so making our book was so much fun! I wanted to share our entire book with you guys because I found it SO helpful to read other family's books as we were creating ours. To say I spent a lot of time on it would be an understatement. It consumed me for a few weeks but in a good way. I got to dig through old pictures of me and Jon pre babies (wow we look so energized and refreshed), take pictures of our home, and we jointly wrote out the blurbs on each page. Thank God for Pinterest because I was able to find some awesome adoption blogs that shared their family profile books and gave tips and recommendations. Crazy enough, Pinterest is where I found this tutorial on creating a family profile book by Susan our adoption consultant. I stayed up one night reading every single post on her blog, emailed her, and signed on with Christian Adoption Consultants within 2 weeks.  I also have a few friends who have adopted in the past 1-2 years that shared their books with me. I do not know how we would have gotten this far without having people go before us and that is exactly what I want to do for the friends who will go after us. 

Family profile books are typically no more than 20 pages long. Ours is 8x11 and we ordered soft cover because we needed 20+. Soft cover made it easier to mail as well. Sometimes agencies require specific details to be included in your family profile book so if you are an adoptive family, be sure to confirm with your agency first. I partnered with Shutterfly to create our books and I can't begin to tell you how our partnership has blessed our family throughout our adoption. The Shutterfly interface is so incredibly easy and user friendly, I made probably 300 edits over the month it took me to create and had absolutely no issues. I am already up to date on our 2016 family yearbook in Shutterfly and can't wait to create birth announcements for our sweet baby girl this fall!

I still say to myself multiple times a day, I can't believe she chose us. I know the text is small so if you are needing further guidance on creating a profile book (or want to talk adoption/have questions), email me! Without further adieu, here is our family profile book.