How the Holy Spirit guided our adoption story

In our 36 years of marriage, the best decision we made together was agreeing to adopt our son Hayden, now an 8th grader at Sacred Heart Middle School in Fargo. However, agreeing to bring this miracle into our lives wasn’t a cut-and-dry formality, and we firmly believe it took the intervention of the Holy Spirit to help us to realize it was time to be a family.

When we started our married life together, I was in the U.S. Air Force and we spent three years overseas. After I left the service, we moved from city to city as I pursued a career in television broadcasting and Mary in music education and church music ministry. Starting a family was not a high priority at first, but that soon changed.

In 1998 we were living in Bismarck, and it was then we decided to get serious about starting a family. We rejoiced over the news that Mary had conceived, and were so ready to bring this precious life into our lives. But God had other plans for us. We suffered a miscarriage in Mary’s first trimester (the second one we had suffered), and we were devastated. So much so that I decided in my mind that, after two miscarriages, God did not ordain for us to have a family. Mary had frequently mentioned her desire to adopt, but I always selfishly rejected the idea. I took the phrase from our marriage vows literally… will you accept children lovingly from God. I wrongly interpreted that to mean children only through our holy bond. Through the years, Mary had been praying earnestly for me to accept the idea of adoption, but I was having none of it. How wrong I was!

Fast-forward to early March 2008. We are living in Canyon, Texas. My mother called me to say she knew of a young girl who was pregnant and considering adoption. For reasons unknown, I blurted out “Mom, that’s our baby!” I don’t know why I suddenly changed my mind after years of resistance. It just felt right and comfortable to suddenly say yes to the idea of adopting a child.

After getting off the phone with my mother, I immediately called Mary. She was attending the retirement reception of Bishop John Yanta in Amarillo, Texas that evening. I must have called a dozen times, but she never answered the phone. When she arrived home, she asked me why I was trying to call her so many times. I told her about the conversation with my mother, and she said, “Paul, that’s our baby!” I told her I had said the same thing, and she looked at me in mild shock and with some tears. We agreed together at that moment that we would pursue this adoption. We were both amazed that my resistance to adopting a child had finally been broken.

Mary then looked at her phone, saw my messages, and asked me what time my mother called with the news. I told her, and she became silent for a moment. She said it at was at that time that the bishop pulled her aside at the reception and told her he would like to give her the blessing of St. Gerard, the patron saint of fertility, expectant mothers, mothers, women in childbirth, and unborn children. He had no idea of our heartaches and longing to have children, but he gave her this blessing anyway. We are convinced that, through the intercession of this beloved saint, the Holy Spirit gave me the heart and wisdom to finally agree with Mary’s desires and prayers that we needed to bring a child into our lives through adoption.

Hayden was born later that summer and was placed in our arms two hours after his birth. We have never looked back as a family. We will always be eternally grateful to Hayden’s birth mother and father for choosing life, to the bishop for his blessing, to the kindness of St. Gerard for his intercession, and especially to the Holy Spirit for guiding this exceptional young man to us.