Husband Adopts Baby From Birthmother, Realizes His Mistake

Life Throws You Curve Balls

Everyone knows that life throws curve balls to test our resilience, and one of the ways we have managed to cope with them is by making goals. It is our way of keeping track.

But what happens when one of these curve balls gets in the way of those goals? Possibly even smashing them to pieces? We have no choice but to get back up and alter our course. However, one man from Arkansas would regret not doing so sooner.

Picturing His Perfect Future

As a child, he had enjoyed walking the grounds of his family’s property. He often wondered about what he would be when he grew up and spent hours daydreaming about his future. It wasn’t long before he knew what he wanted his perfect future to entail.

He had made a list of plans to help him get there but had forgotten something important that would make all his plans crumble.

Starting From A Young Age

Walt’s parents owned a 100-acre property in Arkansas, which he had grown to love considering he had lived there all his life. He was never one for indoors, and he hardly watched TV. He much preferred getting his feet dirty outdoors and spending time with nature.

By the time he was 12 years old, he knew exactly what he wanted his future to look like. He was determined to make it happen and would allow nothing to sway him.

An Exciting Vision

Walt’s parents knew that their son was serious about his future. One night, he came to his parents with an excited expression. “God just sent me a vision!” he exclaimed. “I was standing outside on the property and swinging a little girl in my arms. It felt so real!”

He explained to them that the girl had dark skin and dark eyes. His parents didn’t know what to think when he told them that she was his future daughter and that she would be named Chloe.

The Start Of His Plan

Every plan needs to start somewhere, and Walt knew that his began with a woman worthy of giving his heart to. He needed to choose carefully because this woman would one day become his wife and someone who would mother his child – his Chloe.

Things turned out to be a lot easier than Walt anticipated. Their neighbors had a daughter named Annie who, unbeknownst to Walt, had taken a liking to him for several years.

Years Later

Walt and Annie went to college and spent much of their time together, locked in conversation. In one of their conversations, she confided in Walt about something important to her. She told him that she dreamed of having children one day.

She surprised him by telling him that she knew she was meant to have a little girl. What intrigued him was her saying that she already knew what she would name her daughter.

A Decision Made Out Of Love

His jaw dropped when he heard the name Chloe come from her mouth. He was utterly stunned, and his mind spun. He couldn’t help the feelings building up within him.

However, there was one problem. The little girl he had seen in his vision had dark eyes and olive skin, whereas Annie had none of those features. He decided he cared for Annie too much just to let her go and committed himself to her. It wasn’t long before he proposed to her, and they were married, excitedly waiting to become parents to Chloe.

Time To Focus On Their Dream

It was a while before the couple could settle down. They had spent years working with missionary and humanitarian companies. When they completed what needed to be done, they set their focus on what they both dreamed of having: a baby.

They tried for four years without any success, and they were growing frustrated. Why were they struggling like this? The dream that they shared had seemed so simple and had now grown into one of their biggest obstacles yet.

Difficult Feelings

Walt spent many days thinking about the vision he had those many years ago. “I still believed that God would deliver on his promise,” he said. “But he works in his own time, and I had to learn to be patient.”

However, Annie was just as upset as he was, if not more. His wife had become overwhelmed with what they were dealing with and seemed to have difficulty processing them.

Becoming Desperate

Annie admitted that the times had felt so rough that she started questioning God and the plans he had promised them. “It felt awful, and I started questioning if the visions we had been promised were true,” she said.

By that point, she felt heartbroken. She longed for a daughter with all her might, and they hadn’t gotten anywhere over the four years. She couldn’t help wondering if there was something wrong with them and what they could do to fix it. The pair had become desperate, so much so that they began to argue.

Great Divide

Their lack of success sat between them like a barbed-wire fence. There was no way to deal with it without painful feelings. 

Things worsened to the point where not only were their marriage and relationship suffering but so too was Walt’s faith. Had he believed in a lie all his life? Had he wasted all those years hoping for something that would never come true?

Painful Reminders

Every time any of their friends or acquaintances announced a pregnancy, the couple were happy for them but felt slighted due to their own failure. They felt humiliated. Why could everyone have kids but not them?

“We’re just fools,” Walt thought. “We’re just fools who want kids, and it’s never going to happen.” The happy couple became truly miserable and despondent.

Growing Stronger

Despite the pain, troubles, and disappointment, the couple’s desire for a family never waned. In fact, it only grew stronger. In time, Annie suggested that they could adopt a baby instead. 

Walt, however, refused and adamantly insisted that they would never adopt. Ever. What about his vision? What about the dream the two of them used to share of having their own kid?

Reasoning 

“I had this thought,” Walt explained, “I don’t want, I called it a ‘Band-Aid Baby.’ We are struggling. We are hurting. I didn’t want just a fix. I didn’t want just some kid. I wanted the kid that we were supposed to have.” 

For a while, Walt didn’t want to hear anything about the topic. In time, however, Walt would change his tune.

Giving In

In time, Walt came to accept the idea and decided that whether or not the child was his biologically, he would have the baby he had always dreamed of. 

So the couple set to work and dealt with the mountains of paperwork and red tape. Then, it was time for them to wait, hoping to be chosen.

All Done

“We had gone through all the paperwork. Annie had done so much work, and I supported her in that. But I still wasn’t convinced that adoption was right,” Walt recalls.

However, it was done. Now, the process was unstoppable. And one day, all of a sudden, they received an email that would change both of their lives forever.

An Email

“I remember one night we were at Walt’s sister’s house. I was checking my email. There was an email that came in, and it said, ‘it’s a girl!’” remembers Annie with a smile on her face.

“I clicked on it, and I realized it was from the adoption agency. They said, ‘we just want to let you know that a birth mother has chosen you guys, and you’re going to be parents’”.

Unbelievable

“I just sat there looking at the email like, ‘oh my gosh, I can’t believe this,” she said. However, Walt’s reaction was sort of different.

“Annie gets this email, she’s super excited, and I’m just like, ‘alright, I’m going to wait and see.’ Because… I don’t know, you know?” he recalls. He wasn’t aware that he was in for the biggest surprise of his entire life.

February Or March

The adoption agency told them their baby girl would be born in late February or early March. The couple, and particularly Annie, was as excited as they could be.

However, there had been something on their minds for some time. They talked about it, and they finally reached a conclusion. Just a few months ago, nothing could have ever made them think that they would change their minds like that.

A Change Of Mind

They decided they no longer wanted to call their girl “Chloe.” In Annie’s words: “we had decided ‘oh, that was just a fluke thing, that it was a coincidence that we both liked that name.’”

“So we had even talked about a different name.” However, there was something to be done before that decision. One day, they received a phone call from a social worker.

Alison

The social worker told them that the baby’s mother, a young woman named Alison, wanted to meet them before giving up her girl for adoption.

The couple was more than happy to do that. So they got in the car and drove all the way to Wichita, where the young woman lived. Little did they know that they were about to experience the most shocking episode of their lives.

Going To Her House

The woman lived on the outskirts of Wichita, close to the countryside. “We went to the house where she was living, and we knocked on the door,” recounts Annie. 

Then, they waited for a few seconds. But nobody came out. And that wasn’t all. There was something else about the scene that made them feel somewhat uneasy.

Silence

Not a peep could be heard from inside the house. Maybe they got the wrong address? Did anyone even live there, or was the house abandoned?

But suddenly, as they were standing on the front porch, looking around and feeling confused, they heard a creek. It was the door opening. When Walt saw the person who opened it, he felt his stomach drop to his knees.

Spitting Image

“She opens the door, and it looks like a grown-up version of this little girl in my head that was from the past,” Walt recalls, teary-eyed.

Alison was the spitting image of the girl in Walt’s vision! When he first saw her, he couldn’t believe his eyes. “So, in a second, the name ‘Chloe’ was back on the table”

The Name

“We went up to this room, and we sat on the table and talked for like 3 hours,” Annie recalls about the episode.

“The social worker says, ‘let’s talk about a name. Have you thought of one?’ She said, ‘yeah, well, ever since I got pregnant, even before I knew it was a girl, I’ve been calling this baby Chloe.”

Tears In Their Eyes

“And both Walt and I… I mean, I don’t even remember what we did exactly, I just know that I was ugly crying,” remembers Annie.

“We were weeping, and she was like, ‘oh, you hate the name.’ And we were like, ‘oh my goodness, no, we love the name. God has spoken, he’s told us that name,” says Walt, close to choking up and with a wide smile.

Resolution

“All those doubts about having the band-aid baby were just completely out of the window. It felt like… I just had full-body shivers. It was like the Holy Spirit was just right there.”

“When the birth mom said the name Chloe, you know, in an instant, I had become a father. Even before she was born, I was her dad.”

Presence Of God

“The surreal presence of God was just all around us, and I felt Him saying to me: ‘see how much I love you? Do you see this? Do you see what I have done?”

Just a few months later, the big day finally came. The couple was relaxing at their flat one morning when they suddenly received a call: Alison had just gone into labor. Quickly, they rushed to Wichita, to the hospital where she was staying.

Big Day

“Yeah, I was just crazy nervous that morning,” recalls Annie. “I remember going to the hospital, and then all of a sudden it was happening, all of a sudden the doctor came in, and he was like ‘OK, she’s ready, you’re gonna have a baby now.’”

“And there was all this moving and bustling around, and then Chloe was there. I was looking at this baby, my baby.”

God’s Plan

“So many years anticipating her as a child, and she’s here!” recalls Walt. “She’s been a part of my life for so long, and she’s finally there.”

“There is no mistake, I am the father of this child, just like God had always planned it to be. He just doesn’t leave anything to chance, it’s not random. It’s amazing, it’s a miracle.”

In order to protect the privacy of those depicted, some names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.