19 Nov My Adoption Story

With it being National Adoption Awareness month, I have the honor of sharing a bit of my story with you. My name is Emmie Fouche, and I was born in Dallas, Georgia.

I was adopted when I was two weeks old and grew up in Madison County, Georgia. To most people on the outside looking in, they see a child that needed a home and a nice couple that decided to take her in; however, in reality, my adoption was not planned.

In my family, my three siblings and I are adopted. My family is multiracial and none of us are blood-related. We each have our own unique story on how we got to the same place and living in the same household, but to us, all of these things are simply facts. We grew up together and as far as we are all concerned, all we see is family. My older two siblings were both planned adoptions. When I say planned adoptions, I mean my parents both knew they were going to adopt them before they were born. As for my younger brother and I, that was not the case.

“‘We grew up together and as far as we are all concerned, all we see is family.”

Growing up, my parents were always honest with us about our stories. Naturally, as we got older, asking questions about how we came to be one big family arose, and my parents, I believe, did and have done a good job with communicating with all of us the truth in the most appropriate way.

As far as the start of my story, this is what my parents have shared with me: My birthmother, back in the day, was eighteen years old when she had me. She had just had a little girl close to a year old. She was living with her aunt, and since she had just had her first child, she was unaware that she was pregnant with me until the day I was born. She believed that I was just the after-effects of her first child. Because of this, I was born at home where she was by herself. I’m not sure how long I stayed with her in that two-week span but soon after being born, I was placed in the care of a couple who are actually cousins of mine.

Somehow, through a string of connections, my cousin knew another family who went to school with my adoptive parents. This family knew that my adoptive parents had taken in two other children, so they gave them a call one afternoon. The wife explained the situation and asked if they would like to adopt another child; the minute my mom got off the phone, my parents agreed that I was their child and they needed to come get me. A few days later, they got in the car and headed across Georgia to meet me. In short, they went home, made a place for me, and came back to get me permanently the next week.

“The wife explained the situation and asked if they would like to adopt another child; the minute my mom got off the phone, my parents agreed that I was their child and they needed to come get me.”

Two years later, my parents adopted my younger brother. From that point on, I have lived my life with many questions that I have come to believe I might never have answers for. “What is my birthmother like? Who do I look like? Who is my birthfather? What does he look like? How many other siblings do I share a parent with?” Especially when I was younger, having more serious questions such as, “Why did things turn out the way they did?” However, at this point in my life, though it took time to get here, I am alright with some unknowns. So many aspects of my story could have gone differently—I could still be living in Dallas, Georgia and I could have an entirely different family and different friends, even parents who aren’t believers like mine are.

It takes time, but after learning my story of adoption, as well as knowing the stories of my sibling’s and many other families who have adopted, it has been easier to understand God’s sovereignty and his love for all of us. Life has definitely not been perfect, but even as I type this, I am overwhelmed with how grateful and thankful I am that my God brought my family and me together. I love my family more than anyone will ever know, even though it took me a long time to realize I didn’t need all the answers to those questions.

“Life has definitely not been perfect, but even as I type this, I am overwhelmed with how grateful and thankful I am that my God brought my family and me together.”

God has given me just what I needed, and I simply cannot imagine it any other way. We might think we have our lives all planned out and believe we know what’s going to happen next, but God is the planner over all things and works all things out the way they should be. I thank him for being in control, giving me life, and giving me an amazing group of people to share it with.

-Emmie Fouche, Pelham Road Campus