The Chapman Family Story | An Adoption Story

[Music] [Applause] thank you well Chris and I have met a long time ago we were actually yeah we were friends for nine years before we started dating and so by the time we started dating we were older we knew very much we wanted to be parents but we also knew that being older it might not be the easiest thing in the world of course before we got married I'm like visiting napro doctors and having hormone tests done and getting on all the supplements because I want to hit the ground running we got married and you know a month went by two months three months and when you're older and trying to get pregnant every month feels like a year because you only know you know you have such a limited amount of time like the whole time I was trying to get pregnant I was beating my head against the wall beating my head against well beating my head against the wall and the most piece I felt was when we stopped I was like all right I'm not doing any more home runs I'm gonna go drink my Martini I'm like eating all the gluten I want I'm just gonna do what I want to do and I felt so much and then when we decided to open the window to adoption God's like here's baby here's a baby here's the baby like he made it very clear we're at our friend's house who had adopted two boys and so we were we were over there for dinner just to talk it out and say you know what were your experiences and Emily got the phone call while we were at the dinner and she's like well can I take this and so she went downstairs for like 45 minutes lo and behold we we had a fairly concrete situation when she came back up from downstairs but I thought it was crazy because we had we didn't have a home study we didn't have the finances we were flat broke because our house was like everything possible that could be going wrong with an old house renovation was going wrong and I was like I don't know that I told the situation to him and he's like well yeah I was like what he was like well you never we don't say no to a baby I was like oh and don't say anything you know you never say no to a baby so it turns out um six months later our son was born [Music] so that was that was amazing we had Toby we were so excited about that uh and we thought we would never ever be able to afford to adopt again and I came up with an idea for a fundraiser since I'm a writer I was like oh I'll write a cookbook and then everyone who contributes to fundraiser gets a free cookbook filled with essays by me and that ended up being enormously successful we became a waiting family for four months during during covid [Music] so we were sitting on the front porch on the swing playing with Toby eight feet from where we're sitting right now yeah talking about what we're gonna have for dinner July 20th 20th that's right yeah so Beck had already been born we got more than 24 hours later and it was about what 4 30 4 24 p.m so we got the call on in within five minutes we were packing up to drive to Dallas [Music] so we drove you know past Cincinnati stayed overnight and drove the next 900 miles to Dallas you know we debated his name all the way down and I mean so yeah I mean it's very it was pretty dramatic and Toby's along for the ride and we met Becca and NICU all amidst kovid you know so wearing masks and foreign [Music] had brought us dinner and he came back in and goes and it was our adoption attorney he said Toby's birth parents are pregnant again um they want you to adopt and I thought he was punking me I was like no stop it like it's not funny I'm exhausted I'm tired so we were like racing across the country in this giant spider van while one of my best friends was with Ellie's birth mom take helping take care of her and then taking care of Ellie after Ellie was born and so then we got a second NICU stay in eight months times and so um we brought home our third child uh it's seven months after that [Music] going far from God you know marriage is an adventure you know life is an adventure and children are Adventure you know whether they're biological child or whether you bring them into your family through foster care and adoption and just you know we didn't know how that was gonna unfold and it was it was an adventure you know the spiritual you know reality of bringing a real child into your family and then imparting life to them by loving them and you know giving of yourself you know every day and holding them and you know caring for them when they're sick and teaching them and laughing with them and praying with them you know that's it's no less real you know it does come in you know through a different avenue but you know it's real and so when I think of my children I mean it's not it's I don't even dwell on it I mean they're just my children [Music] there's still this part of me as we went into adoption that didn't feel like I could really be a woman unless I'd given birth and if you had told me then that I would now say like I have no regrets about not being pregnant or not giving birth I would have thought you were out of your mind like how could I not have no regrets about such an important fundamental experience but it was so full and so graced and I am so glad I got to do it because if I hadn't I wouldn't be back at an Ellie and Toby's mom and so they're my babies I gave birth to them in a very unique spiritual way and yeah I have total peace about that which I couldn't have imagined a few years ago [Music] understand [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] thank you foreign

Channel: Springs of Love Catholic Foster &Adoption Stories

Views: 19,885

Keywords: Springs of Love, Springs of Love Stories, adoption, Catholic adoption, Catholic, adoption story, fostering, fostering story, Emily Stimpson Chapman, family story

Id: vZ8xieOLBGM

Length: 7min 7sec (427 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023