The adoption story of baby Briggs
Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” God has planned each and every day of every single human being ever conceived—including children like Briggs. Briggs’ birth parents, Evie and Steven, visited Prestonwood Pregnancy Center’s Southwest Dallas location last year in a moment of extreme crisis. Health issues, homelessness, unemployment, and unimaginable loss were all a part of their story. The couple felt hopeless and were struggling to survive. Prestonwood Pregnancy Center partners with adoption agencies for situations just like Evie and Steven’s. And on the day of their office visit, adoption began to sound like the best possible option when a representative from Lifeline Children’s Services was called in to meet with them. During their time together, our staff ministered to and shared the Gospel with Evie and Steven, who’d been in survival mode for as long as they could remember. Thankfully, the couple chose the life-giving option of adoption for their baby that day… and they soon began the process of deciding who the adoptive family would be.
Noel and Bryan, members of Prestonwood Baptist Church, are supporters of the pregnancy center. Their parenting journey took a challenging turn when Noel received a stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis a few years ago. As part of her treatment, she underwent a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy. She was so grateful that God had already given them a daughter, Everly, but Noel couldn’t shake the feeling that their family was incomplete. “Giving up on our dream for more kids was the hardest part of having cancer,” Noel shares today. “But God had a plan. He knew all along how He was going to complete our family.”
“We’d just started giving to the pregnancy center, so in my heart I knew that I wanted a pregnancy center baby,” shares Noel. “But what I wanted most was to see God in our story.”
Knowing the pregnancy center didn’t arrange adoptions, Noel and Bryan were referred to Lifeline Children’s Services by a close friend, and they soon began the process of adoption. It’s called a process because it can take years for a family to be matched with a baby.
When Evie reached a certain point in her pregnancy, Lifeline gave her and Steven profile books about potential adoptive parents to review. Noel and Bryan just so happened to be among this stack of hopeful families. Evie had initially said that she’d prefer a couple with no biological children of their own—until she saw a photo of Noel and Bryan’s daughter. In that moment Evie was drawn to that family because of the joy on Everly’s face and said, “I want my baby to be that happy.”
As part of the adoption process, selection by birth parents and adoptive parents has to be mutual. And with Evie and Steven’s complicated past, they could have passed on the opportunity. But Noel and Bryan felt God calling them to meet with Evie, not knowing she was a pregnancy center client. At their lunch meeting, Noel discovered the connection, and that’s when she knew this was the baby God had chosen for their family!
On January 31, 2023, Noel and Bryan got the phone call they’d been waiting for: Evie had given birth to a baby boy. The adoptive parents tell the story in total awe of how God orchestrated all of it perfectly, and the many hurdles they endured before finally bringing Briggs home two days later.
Noel says she and her family are so grateful for Prestonwood Pregnancy Center, and how the center connects women facing a crisis pregnancy to Gospel-centered adoption agencies. “Adoption gives birth moms like Evie choices when they can’t care for a child themselves, and it gives families like us hope and an opportunity to serve others. Adoption really is a ministry in itself.
Further reading from this month’s newsletter:
You’re Making the Ministry of Adoption Possible
