Lifestyle Adoption Session: The Woodleys

I knew the Woodley's story was going to be interested when they told me that their daughter's adoption was "domestic, though she is an international child." Hm. What?

Dave and Catherine were both open to the idea of adoption, though she was more interested in waiting until they had biological children before taking that leap - at least, that's how she felt until she saw a picture of the most beautiful little girl in China with a heart condition that needed to be adopted. That moment changed her heart, and they began the process of adoption.

Catherine does such a lovely job telling their story that I'm going to let her share it in her own words:

"Our story is very unique in the fact that we had originally wanted to adopt from China but because of our age, we were not able to. My husband and I then began the process of a domestic adoption knowing that God was calling us to adopt. We began the process on June 9th, 2015 with Bethany Christian Services and the process, though tedious, went very quickly. We were approved to adopt on October 30th, 2015 and began the process of waiting to be chosen.

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, I received a FB message about a little Chinese baby girl that had a very rare metabolic disorder and was in need of immediate adoption. My husband and I prayed about the situation knowing that our original desire had been to adopt a Chinese child, specifically with medical needs. This child was not through our agency and because of that we had a few more paperwork steps to complete. We quickly did paperwork and on November 21st, we met the birthparents of little Cindy, who is now known as Abigail. They are from China and were here in order to have their second child since the one child policy was still in place in China. They had no idea Abigail had anything wrong with her and had planned to take her back to China once she was born. However, after finding out that she had this very rare metabolic disorder and also finding out that there was not the appropriate medical care for her in China, her birthparents made the selfless decision to find a family here in America to become the parents of their child and care for her. And, they chose me and my husband Dave.

On November 30th, we signed papers to adopt Abigail Cindy Woodley into our home and her forever family. We have an open adoption with her birthparents and chat with them and send pictures often. Abby's story is undeniably the hand of God and an amazing story of God's love and faithfulness. We are truly blessed to be Abigail's parents."

I was blessed and honored to spend some time with the Catherine and Dave, and their new baby, Abigail. Thank you, Woodleys, for sharing your story and your daughter with me.