Before we ever had Sophie, Kevin and I both knew that adoption was something that we wanted to have a part of our story as a family. But, like many families we stepped into adoption not as we had planned. As we said goodbye to Dasah, our 2nd daughter we both knew that stepping into another pregnancy, at least for now, was not what God was leading us to. Even as Dasah’s birth approached we were thinking of ways we could honor her life and Sophie’s life as we thought of future children. We knew many people would want to be a part of honoring Dasah’s life so we created a fund, a “Sophie and Dasah’s sibling adoption fund”, in the hopes that there lives would lead us to the next little Dennis baby. Thousands of dollars poured in, so much so that we were able to begin the process of adoption on May 13, 2015, our 3rd wedding anniversary. Our hearts grew in excitement, fear, wonder and anxious waiting as we prepared to welcome our 3rd child into our home through adoption. As many families in the adoption process can attest to, the wait felt like an eternity and God has had much to do in our hearts in the waiting. “Would we ever get to bring home a baby?” was a question I often found myself asking.

Little did we know that 9 months after our hearts would begin to be ready for baby Dennis #3, a courageous birth mother would give birth to a son and choose us to parent him. We have been overwhelmed with joy at this new life that has joined our family and do not take lightly the great sacrifice his birth mother made to allow him to be ours. Here you’ll find the greater story of our journey to Jaden, our hearts for adoption and our future hopes for adoption! Our parenting journey has certainly not been what we had thought it would be, but we continue to be thankful that we are not the authors of our story and that God’s ways are so much higher than our own.