ADOPTION NOW

Rodney and Mary Leah are both attorneys in Alabama. For ten years, they walked the journey of infertility before welcoming twins, Dalton and Mary Elizabeth, through Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program. 

They also serve on the board of Carrywell, a non-profit that helps couples walking through infertility, miscarriage and infant loss through groups and grants. They are passionate about helping families through grief and healing as couples explore other options into parenthood. This episode is so inspiring for those interested and wanting to learn more about how the embryo adoption process works. 

Aida Phillips and her husband longed to be parents but found that conceiving naturally was not possible for them. They began infertility treatments, which ultimately proved unsuccessful and took a significant toll on Aida both mentally and physically.

She started looking into adoption, but her husband was hesitant, and EVEN MORE so when they met with a crooked adoption attorney in Miami!  

It was a journey to be matched to their daughter, but they did not give up. 

Aida is from Mexico and Jewish. In this episode we hear how that added to the obstacles of being matched to the right birth family who would accept the child to be raised Jewish. Despite these challenges, their resilience led them to a successful match.

Just wait until you hear about the day when they met their new baby daughter and the joy that filled their family! This profound experience inspired Aida to start a non-profit organization, “Born From Our Souls,” to support the Hispanic community in the adoption process. Her organization aims to hold the hearts and hands of those pursing adoption. 

After Michael and Naomi’s unsuccessful attempts to start a family, they were led to a fertility clinic where they were diagnosed with male-factor infertility. They were told IVF would be the only real option. The couple experienced a lot of grief and started praying about what to do to become parents.

They started to research their options when God opened the door to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee!! 

This is where Michael and Naomi began their life-changing journey of becoming pregnant with two adopted boys through embryo adoption and the real twist of the story is the twins are NOT biologically related. What a MIRACLE STORY!!!

In this episode, they want to encourage other couples facing infertility that what feels like God’s “NO” in your life (infertility, loss, etc.) may actually be leading you face-to-face with His beautiful and perfect “YES” for your family. 

Adoption doesn’t always have to be a daunting task! Jordan Moreno’s story tells us that the timeline might be faster than you think! Jose and Jordan have a beautiful adoption story, as they all are, but this one had an ease about it that will make anyone who is nervous feel at peace that everything can fall perfectly into place and QUICKLY!!! They announced to their family in November that they had plans to adopt, finished their home study in February, matched in June and their daughter was born July 2nd!!! After experiencing secondary infertility for 5 years after their son was born, the family was so grateful to be able to expand their family through adoption and want to encourage others in this journey!

Brady and Andrea Murray are the proud parents of eleven children, seven of which are adopted. After having a biological child diagnosed with Down Syndrome, the couple started RODS Heroes, which was founded in 2013. RODS Heroes inspires families to answer the call to adopt a child with Down Syndrome or other unique circumstances. As they were helping other families, they went to China to bring home their son, Cooper, who has become the baseball star you see on Instagram @bradymurray21. The couple went on to adopt two daughters from foster-care and then said yes to another international adoption, this time from Colombia. They just recently traveled and brought home a sibling group of 4 to join the family!  Listen to this episode to hear about adopting special needs children from China, how to start your process adopting from Colombia and how adopting through the foster care system might be the right path for you! 

Jenell M. Jones is the author of “Shattered,” a book that shares her experience as an adoptive mother. Last week we heard her story on adopting Mercy from the foster care system. Mercy joined the family of 6 children and had many mental and physical traumas that affected her day-to-day life. On part two, Jenell talks about how the system is set up to help children but often fails to provide resources to help foster children heal and be able to thrive in a family. On this episode she shares about the next level of trauma that vulnerable children could face. How does adoption and foster care play into human trafficking? What is being done to protect our children?

Jenell M. Jones is the author of “Shattered,” a book that shares her experience as an adoptive mother. Jenell is currently operating multiple early learning centers, which specialize in providing high quality learning experiences to children who experience trauma in low-income areas, while also raising 7 children! When she brought home Mercy she found out that her expectations about adoption were shattered. 

Her passion is helping foster parents and adoptive parents ask the right questions on this journey. In this episode we get very real about the day-to-day challenges of raising children with mental and physical trauma. She gives advice to parents (and soon to be parents) on what they need to hear most about the foster care system. What questions do you ask social workers? What do you need to be prepared for when bringing home an older child? What do you need to know about trauma and loss? 

This episode helps us understand how important it is that children find healing and what resources Jenell had to use to hopefully lead her daughter to find truth and peace in her story.

President & CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has joined ADOPTION NOW for an incredible interview. Rita Soronen has worked on behalf of abused, neglected and vulnerable children for more than 30 years.  As the leader of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, a national nonprofit public charity, her mission is to dramatically increase the number of adoptions from foster care. They are working hard to find permanent families for the more than 140,000 waiting children in the United States foster care system. The non-profit was inspired by Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s fast-food restaurant chain, who was adopted himself! Rita shares his story, as well as her own journey in working with families and children. If you are interested in adopting an older child from the foster care system, this episode is for you!

Author Sarah D. Shearer joins ADOPTION NOW to talk about her adoption story.  In her words, her story started off with little hope, “I was born with various medical needs and was left in a Russian hospital where nuns helped to keep me alive until I was transferred to an orphanage.” The Russian orphanage was convinced that no one would want her, but a family in Thomasville, GA saw her picture and fell in love. This is an uplifting story filled with gratitude and grace towards adoption. Sarah has written a memoir called “Extra Ordinary” to share her positive perspective. She says, “no one can speak to adoption more than an adoptee.” Listen to this episode and check out her book on

PART 2!! As we heard on the last episode, Jacob and Jessica already had 2 biological children when they adopted a baby boy while being filmed on the Oxygen show “I am Having Their Baby.” The family of 5 soon became a family of 6, as they went on to adopt a little boy with clubfoot. On this week’s episode Jessica shares how their journey was not over after 2 adoptions! As they waited on the agency’s adoption list, a situation came up that involved drug exposure to the unborn baby. The couple had to make a quick decision if they wanted to keep moving forward and say yes. Listen to hear the rest of the J Family's story!