Justin: Adoption means the fulfillment of a desire and burden that we have been carrying for 10 years. Adoption has recently been a source of hope as we have been walking through this process. We find ourselves talking often about what it would be like to have another child, and adoption opens up that possibility to our family.
Tara: We know that life brings challenges and circumstances that are not always planned for. As much as we would love for every family and mother to be able to provide a good home for their children, we know that not everyone is in a place in life that they can do that without help. We want to be available to those courageous and loving mothers that bring their babies into this world and provide a parenting plan for their child through adoption. Justin and I love children, and having children of our own has not come easily, but we both have made it our goal to provide a home filled with peace, joy and love for our children to grow and thrive and become all that God has for them to be. We feel the Lord has gifted us with a heart and desire to adopt and we are excited about the journey.
We have felt strongly that the Lord has another baby waiting to join us through adoption for some time, but we just did not know how or when. We began our adoption journey 3 years into our marriage when we pursued foster care. We took the required classes to be foster care certified and began our home study. We bought all the necessities: the crib, the car seat, the rocking chair (we had no children of our own yet). Then, to our happy surprise, we became pregnant before we even finished our home study. Our adoption plans were temporarily put on hold when we moved to Colorado shortly after having Lyla, our first, and within 6 months of our move, found out we were expecting again! But this time our joy and great expectation of having another baby girl was overtaken by sadness. Our second daughter, Harper Rose, had Edwards Syndrome. We were told this after the 20-week ultrasound. The doctor said, “Edwards Syndrome was not compatible with life.”
Though many many people joined us in our prayers and pleas for healing over our baby girl, she was born into the arms of Jesus at 30 weeks gestation. Our lives were forever changed. The pain of losing a child is not something that can be put into words, but we know that the Lord never left our side in all of it! He brought us through. It was not what we expected to happen as we grew our family, but then so much of what takes place in this life is not what we plan. God can and has used it for good. And we look forward to meeting our baby girl again in heaven!
Grief is a tricky thing though. It touches every part of us. I didn’t realize, for a few years, that it had a profound effect on me physically. We had a hard time getting pregnant again after losing Harper. We tried for 2 years. In that time we had a flicker of hope when we saw the “+” sign on the pregnancy test, but our hope was soon dashed when we had an early miscarriage and lost baby #3. After 2 years, the Lord reminded us of our early desire to adopt. For the first time in a long time, we felt real excitement and peace about having another child. We signed up with Christian Adoption Consultants to begin the process. But sure enough, right after we signed up, we discovered we were pregnant once more! There was a lot more fear this time around. We battled thoughts of tragedy happening again.
Our 20 week ultrasound only confirmed those fears, showing that our baby had enlarged ventricles in his brain. After already having had a baby with a genetic abnormality, we knew that this could be one of the signs of a genetic abnormality. We almost had no strength to hope as we pressed in through prayer and called on others to join us. We rushed to Denver to see a specialist. They did another in-depth ultrasound, and to our absolute amazement, found nothing wrong with him! To this day, every time we look at our baby boy, we are overwhelmed with thankfulness, celebrating that the Lord healed him and kept him healthy and without complications. The rest of the pregnancy flowed smoothly, however, ten days after giving birth to Garrett, I had a massive hemorrhage and was rushed to Durango for emergency surgery. I was put on a ventilator for almost 3 days post-surgery, as it was touch and go for a while because I had lost so much blood. Justin stayed at my bedside with our newborn son day and night. Once again through the prayers of our friends and family the Lord miraculously broke in and brought me through and we are so grateful!
Justin: Along with multiple losses and even coming close to death, pregnancy has been extremely difficult for Tara. She gets so sick that she has to have IV’s for fluid and medication every pregnancy. We have to rely a lot on family, as Tara is not able to able to care for Lyla and can barely get herself from one room to the next without getting extremely nauseous. We believe it is best for our whole family that we no longer try for more biological children. The doctors also explained that there could be multiple risks if Tara were to become pregnant again.
We are confident that now is the time that the Lord has for us to begin the adoption process and are currently beginning our home study. We are so excited about the little one the Lord has to bring into our family! We have remained connected with Christian Adoption Consultants, who have put us in touch with multiple adoption agencies throughout the United States, that are in need of adoptive families for newborn babies.
Justin and I both have made it our goal to provide a home filled with peace, joy and love for our children to grow and thrive and become all that God has for them to be. We feel the Lord has gifted us with a heart and desire to adopt and we are excited about the journey.
Tara
Hi, my name is Tara Frie. I am a wife to an amazing man and my best friend, mother to two wonderful children that cause my heart to overflow with thankfulness, and an RN at our local Pagosa Springs Medical Center, where I work with a great team of medical staff to care for the sick and hurting. I’m a midwestern girl that loves the mountains and living in Colorado. I love being outside with my kids and husband, playing in the river or hiking through the woods, or just enjoying the sunshine. My relationship with my Lord Jesus Christ is the most important thing in my life. It is because of Him that I live and breath and have meaning. He is my strength, my hope, my peace and my ultimate joy. It’s incredible the way God has made himself known to both myself and my husband, and the way we already see Him at work in the heart of our daughter Lyla. As a pastor’s wife, I am incredibly blessed to be a part of an amazing church family. The friendships we have made within our church and in our little mountain community have made Pagosa Springs home for us and our kids.
Justin
I am 35 years old and grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and was raised mostly by my dad and stepmother.I have always had a desire and passion for farming and a ranching-type lifestyle, and I have provided for my family by working as a farrier for the last 13 years.I love the outdoors, hunting and fishing and have recently developed a love for the cross-fit physical fitness methodology.I am extroverted and thrive in challenging environments and wearing a lot of different hats.I met the Lord Jesus when I was 21 and became a Christian.A year later I started working as a youth pastor in a small church in Northern Wisconsin and met my wife Tara shortly after.After attending bible school in Kansas City, MO, we moved to Pagosa Springs where I resumed doing full-time farrier work.I became very involved in leading prayer and worship meetings in the city and pioneered a community prayer room downtown.About 3 years ago the elders of our church approached Tara and I inquiring if we would consider myself becoming the lead pastor.We felt like it was what the Lord was leading us into so in August of 2015 I became lead pastor of Restoration Fellowship Church.It has been a wonderful transition and I enjoy teaching and leading our church family.I still do some part time farrier work because I also enjoy that as well.
Our Family
Justin and I are 35 years old. We met eleven and a half years ago. We’ve been married 10 years. Justin is the man I didn’t know I always needed. When I first met him, he was so different then most of the guys I had met and gone out on a date with. Right from the beginning his passion and love for the Lord were extremely evident. He was confident, in that he really didn’t seem to care what I thought about him or anyone else, but not in an arrogant way. He just knew what he wanted and he didn’t play games. He was strong but so kind. Watching him lead his church’s youth group, I had never seen teenagers respond with such intensity to a leaders teaching. Their hearts were sold out for God and I could see that he cared so much about these kids. He didn’t sugar coat Christianity for them, rather He helped them encounter the heart of God through prayer and worship and bible study. I loved him even more as I knew he would not only be an amazing spiritual leader but a wonderful father one day.
The Lord has blessed Justin and I with 2 precious biological children, 6 year-old Lyla, and 1.5 year-old Garrett. They are awesome! We can’t imagine our lives without them. It’s so amazing to see these sweet babies grow into such abundant and vibrant personalities.
Every family has it’s own family culture – the things that we do together, value, talk about and listen to. For our family, our relationship with Jesus Christ is central. It affects all areas of our life. Even at a young age our kids are being moved and touched by the Lord and are learning to hear His voice. We also love community. We do regular play dates, get togethers, outside activities with friends. We love the outdoors, physical activity and playing with our pets (dog and horses). We also have a heart and a desire to adopt. Justin and I have shared this desire since we were married 10 years ago, but Lyla also has really embraced the idea of adoption. She prays for, thinks about, and often asks about her soon to-be-adopted sister with much anticipation.
Feb
11
We’ve been matched!!!
We are so excited to share that we got the call last week, letting us know that we have officially been matched with a birth mom!! We’ve known for a long time that we’ve wanted to grow our family through adoption, and as we’ve been moving through this process our hearts have grown in longing and anticipation for this day. We’ve shown our profile to 8 birth mom’s in just less than a year, and Jenna was the one who picked us as the family for her child. We are so so grateful, beyond what words can express! Jenna has chosen an open adoption and we are so looking forward to walking out this journey with her and growing in relationship with her. We can’t wait to bring our little one home in July, most likely, as that is the due date. Please continue to pray for Jenna and baby and our family. Thank you so much for your love and support as we get ready to grow our family through adoption!!
Also, we don’t know yet if baby is a boy or a girl, but we hope to find out sometime in the next few weeks. 🙂
Mar
28
Home Study Completed!
Our first big step is completed! We have our home study completed and our family profile ready to go! Thank you to all of the kind staff members at Hope’s Promise, especially Liz and Rachel, as they have been so incredibly helpful in answering all of our questions. Thank you also to our adoption consultant, Susan, for all her help with the family profile.
When we started this process, I (Tara) had this idea that somehow everything with this process would flow into my perfect time line. I am gradually learning that there is no perfect time line when it comes to adoption. And though I thought we’d be further along in this process by now, Justin and I both have a real sense that we are right where we need to be as we are moving forward.
Now that we have our home study and family profile done, we can officially apply to the adoption agencies. We have contacted 5 so far, and we have a few others we may contact soon as well. We’ve been told that this will increase our possibility of being matched, hopefully a little sooner, then if we just went through one agency.
Please continue to pray for us and the baby that the Lord has for us, as we wait patiently on His timing. Pray that we listen well to what the Lord is speaking, as we are contacted about different expecting mother’s and their situations, that we would know which mother to present our profile to. Please also pray for our baby’s birth mother, that she would be well loved and taken care of through this whole process and after; that she would be kept safe and healthy; that she would know God’s love for her; and that she would have peace in her plan for adoption for her baby. Pray for the baby; that they would also be strong and healthy; and that they to would be comforted and feel tremendous love even as they experience loss through the separation from their birth mother.
