Pam Parish

Many of you know that our lovely youngest daughter, Heather, came to us by the miracle of adoption. Blessings come in many forms and this one is no different. We experienced the miracle of birth 12 years ago when our oldest daughter, Kristan, entered our lives. I remember the feelings of awe and amazement as we held our newborn baby and quickly forgot what life was like before she entered our lives. She has been both a blessing and a joy to us ever since. As happy as we were to be new parents, we soon came to grips with the fact that through a difficult pregnancy and a near-death birth, we were going to be unable to have more children biologically. It was simply too dangerous and a risk that neither of us wanted to take.

In late 2006, we made the decision to pursue adoption. We had considered adoption when Kristan was 5, knowing that we wanted to have more than one child and that Kristan really wanted a sister. After looking into it, we found the cost to be out of our reach at that moment. Shortly after that, our lives took another busy turn with new job opportunities and a move from Tennessee to North Carolina. In 2006 our journey brought us to Atlanta. It was then that our desire to adopt was once again rekindled.

By the summer of 2007 we had completed mountains of paperwork, physicals, classes, more paperwork, background checks, home studies and, yes, more paperwork. At the end of May we had been approved by the state of GA as foster/adoptive parents. We were so excited. We began to work with our new caseworker, Suzanne, to identify possible children out of the Georgia photolisting of children awaiting adoption. It was through the site My Turn Now that I came upon a photo on July 7, 2007 (7/7/07 <<isn’t that so cool?) that would forever change our lives.

The photo was of Heather, Age 11. She was a cute, brunette girl who was described as a good kid with a bubbly personality. We contacted our caseworker and paperwork was exchanged between us and Heather’s caseworker. It was soon apparent that everyone felt we were a good match. We met with both caseworkers in person toward the end of July and our calendar of visitations to meet Heather in person was created.

Here’s the first picture we ever got of her, given to us by her caseworker during that first meeting:

Our first visit with her was to be at the group home where she lived, two hours away from us, on my birthday. It was the best birthday present, ever - we fell in love with her immediately. Soon after that meeting, Steve and I went back and took Heather out for a day trip to spend some one-on-one time with her. We had a great time, we laughed, we joked and we thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent together.

Here’s a picture from that first outing:

It wasn’t long after that we were able to bring Kristan along for a full family day. We spent the day in Chattanooga and had a great time as a family. Here’s one of my favorite pictures of our girls together for the first time:

After many more visits, Heather moved in with us on September 7th and we signed the official placement paperwork on September 11th (Steve’s Birthday). We couldn’t have been happier to have our new daughter in our lives. And, just as with Kristan, we were in amazement and awe at this beautiful new addition to our lives, making it difficult to remember what life was ever like without her in it.

We realized that our “Journey of Hope” in wanting a second child was finally coming to a close, and just as we gave Kristan the middle name of Faith because of the Faith we’d had in God for His blessing of a child, we gave Heather the middle name of Hope to recognize the Hope we’d had in God for His blessing of a second child. Our family scripture is, 1 Corinthians 13:13, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Here are some wonderful pictures from the last 8 months of our lives as a family:

This past Friday, our adoption journey was completed as we attended the finalization hearing at Gwinnett County Courthouse. Although Heather has been our daughter in our hearts and minds from the very beginning, these proceedings made that legally true, too. It is with great joy that we celebrate Heather Hope Parish as our youngest daughter and a precious and delightful gift from God in our lives.

Here are some pictures from the finalization hearing:

Celebrating Hope,