Kristie’s Adoption Story

miscarriage | Fibroids | infertility treatments | Early Menopause

Grant funds would go towards attorney fees & ICPC travel expenses.

My name is Kristie. I’m single black female with no kids but having children to love has always been my dream and I am excited about the possibility of starting my family through adoption.  

My desire is to raise and nurture my children to be happy, confident, healthy, and responsible. I hope to encourage a child to live their truest and most authentic self and hope that they feel protected and blessed. I promise to be as supportive and involved in their lives as my parents were in mine, and that faith and family will be our foundation.  

Professionally, I discovered my love for fashion with my first sewing class in school as it gives me a way to use my creativity through the clothes I design and make, and I can’t wait to share my passion.  I studied fashion in college, earned a master’s degree, and have been working in the fashion industry since 1998. I thought I would grow my family biologically first then adopt, but my infertility journey changed those plans.  

Infertility has been a difficult and emotional journey for me starting with my miscarriage at 14 weeks. After college I moved back in with my parents, I found out that I was pregnant. It was hard but easy for me to tell them I was expecting because I knew what their reaction; my mom would cry, and my dad would leave.  

From that day on we hardly spoke to each other until they found out the doctors couldn’t hear the baby’s heartbeat and had to schedule a D&C. I think when my dad walked over to hug me all hurt left at once: the hurt from their shame, the hurt from the father not believing and the hurt from the loss. I’d seen most of my friends get pregnant in high school and here I was a college grad who couldn’t even carry a baby to term.  

Then for years I suffered in silence with abdominal pain thinking it was pay back from the miscarriage, I was diagnosed with fibroids and had them surgically removed. My doctor ran tests that showed my egg count was very low, I felt defeated and broken and decided not to pursue any fertility treatments.  

Deep down I really felt like my uterus was a graveyard and I just didn’t want that risk. Soon after I went into early menopause which has exhausted all my options for biological children. But I allowed myself to grieve that I would not give birth to my children and began to trust God’s plan for my family.  

Kristie with her mother

Adoption is very familiar to me. My godmother, my pastor, my cousins, my god-sister, and one of my coworkers have all adopted. I even know friends who have supported family unity by adopting other family members and keeping sibling groups together. I always admired the relationship within each family – the love, the respect, and the connection.

I feel confident that now is the time to start my adoption journey. I want to offer love and opportunity to a child, so I moved from Brooklyn, New York to my hometown in Georgia and in with my mother.  

My hometown is more like an extended family than a community and love is unconditional. I had the opportunity to give back to my community in college by volunteering as a Big Sister hoping to make a positive impact in a young girl’s life and we developed a meaningful relationship that lasted well after my college graduation.

With $1500 already spent on infertility, I started my adoption journey in 2021 and after 14 months without any adoption prospects, I switched adoption consultant once my contract was over.  

In less than 2 months, I began to see situations and was matched with an expected mother who was due within 3 weeks. I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare but my family, friends, coworkers, and church friends were supportive and excited for me.  

The baby girl was born a couple of days early in late February 2023, so my mom and I rushed to travel out of state. The hospital had an available room and expectant mom gave us the opportunity to spend the first night with baby to bond.  

But everything changed after that first night, the birth mom stopped texting me, wanting to be with her baby all day and was asking her attorney and social worker lots of questions.  

I was numb the first two days of not knowing because she had not surrendered her rights. Even though the baby had tested positive for drugs, I was still committed to the process.  

Baby was finally discharged to me from the hospital temporary until the revocation period was over. In that time, I had the privilege of taking her to her first doctor’s appointment. I facetimed my niece and nephews, my friends from Brooklyn. I text my friends and coworkers videos and pictures of my and the baby.  

Then a gut punch hit me, on the 4th day of the revocation period, I had a disruption and in a split second she was taken away. She had decided she wanted to parent.  

It felt like another miscarriage but this time I got to hold and love on the baby; I was heartbroken, lifeless. I started questioning the birth mother’s motives. Was I scammed?

For this match I was out of pocket for $18,000 spent and couple of months later we received a call that the birth mom had reconsidered her adoption plans. I retained both attorneys again and the paperwork began. Then, the mother stopped communicating the day before she was supposed to sign over her parental rights and I lost $1500 in attorney fees during this process.  

My adoption journey has been a road full of emotions but with patience I’ve recently been matched with another expected mom who’s expecting a baby girl on September 8th in Louisiana. This match is with a nonprofit 501(c)3 agency and the cost is projected at $53,700.  

I have already paid $21,600; I am saving $2000 each month; my mom will loan me $5,000. I am requesting this grant to help with the out-of-pocket the additional attorney fees and travel cost for this match. With all the emotional and financial risks, I am committed to this process and fulfilling my dream of becoming a mother. My hope is that I will receive grants for the remaining 1/3 of what I need.