- Crowley, Texas. Old, quiet, rundown house. No way to pass the inspection.
“We were in the process of trying to save up and then COVID hit, and we realized, with everything going on, we’re not gonna be able to have kids in our home,” Biology and AP Environmental Science teacher Ms. Morgan Harrell said. “So we paused the adoption process.”
Five years ago, Ms. Harrell and her husband, Chris, started the adoption process because of her immunocompromisation medication that would disturb the development of a naturally-concepted fetus.
“We held out hope that eventually I could get off the meds for a long time, but I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to happen and we would have to find another way,” Ms. Harrell said. “We prayed on it, and I went through a very long grieving period. We decided that adoption was the only way it was going to happen for us.”
With no one to help them through the adoption process, the couple researched nearby adoption centers, landing on the Gladney Center for Adoption, a well-known organization close to them.
“It started way back in the day, they would take orphaned kids in from the train station in Fort Worth, when adoption agencies weren’t a thing, which is a crazy story,” Ms. Harrell said. “We love the company though, they’ve been so great to work with.”
At the beginning of the process, the Harrell’s lived in Crowley, Texas in a house that wouldn’t pass inspection from the adoption agency. To get a solid foundation under them, they took a break from the approval process and focused on their living situation.
“It was hard to see my sister have to keep stopping and starting the process,” Ms. Harrell’s sister, Madison Rogers, said. “She has always wanted to be a mother and it made her really sad to put it on hold. Seeing her go through that and unable to help her was very difficult for me.”
Her parents wanted to help them out of the situation, so they found a place in Joshua to move to and gave Ms. Harrell and her husband an acre of the new land. The Harrell’s sold their house at the end of 2020 and then started to build their dream home. They restarted the paperwork and interviews at the end of 2023.
“My parents had this idea that we should move closer to them, so they could help us with kids, but they lived here in Mansfield. We couldn’t build on their property,” Ms. Harrell said. “Now, that we live on a family property has been super helpful through this whole process, I don’t know what we would have done otherwise.”
Keeping an optimistic view of the situation was challenging for the Harrells during interviews and educational sessions.
“When you’re in all the trainings and everything, you hear about all these ideal situational families that are like, ‘Oh, I can be a stay-at-home mom and home school my children.’ And you feel so inadequate sometimes because you’re like, we can’t afford to do that,” Ms. Harrell said. “But we still want to have kids, are we okay? So you just kind of have to learn not to compare yourself to other people through that process.”
Past the logistics and the legal procedures, the Harrell’s started to select and see potential kids they could’ve adopted through the agency’s website. After a few unsuccessful cases, their agent found three potential kids in the system and sent them in a mass email.
“We actually didn’t see them initially in her email, but she knew us so well that she submitted our name to be selected for them so that when we did find them our names were already in the picking,” Ms. Harrell said. “And when we first saw them, we knew that it would work out if it did happen, that they would be a perfect fit.”
After a few weeks, the Harrell’s attended an update meeting for the case.
“When they came back and had the staffing meeting that said that we were the family selected because we weren’t the only family looking at them, we were really excited and just so giddy, and ready to go,” Ms. Harrell said.
The first meeting with the kids came and an immediate connection was made between the future family.
“After meeting the kids [Chris] really struggled not already having them in his life,” Ms. Rogers said. “I have never seen him emotionally attach so quickly in all the time I have known him, he loved them from the day they got to meet them. Having the kids in his life has made him happier than I thought he could be.”
The pre-teens stayed at the Harrell’s new house for a week-long visit to experience their possible coming life.
“When they came for [the visit], it felt right, it felt like a missing piece,” Ms. Harrell said. “And when they went home the house was so quiet, my husband cried. He said, ‘It just feels like they should be here, so now that they’ve been here, it just feels like it should have always have been that way.’”
Two weeks later, the kids moved their stuffed animals, board games and the rest of their toys into the Harrell’s new home for good.
“My sister and her husband were so happy and so relieved to hear that these kids that they already loved so much had chosen them as well,” Ms. Rogers said. “Now that the kids are in the house I’m getting to see her grow into the mom she was always meant to be, and I don’t think anyone in our family could be happier than we already are that these kids have found their new home with them.”
Although it was difficult to transform the family of two into a family of five, the family is thriving and full of love.
“Throughout all of it, we were just really open to whatever God brought into our life and for us, that was Leah, Thomas and Jasmine,” Ms. Harrell said. “Our home is so full and really loud now, it’s tiring, but it’s so awesome. We love it so much.”
