Ms. Amberly Walker: Forever Family

A picture lights up on the screen with five gleaming faces with the caption, “We are yours!” She looks at her husband as tears stream down her face, and he cries, too, with tears of joy. Those five new faces were hers, theirs now. For once, the hardships of life were defied, and they were granted what nature would not permit: children of their own.

Ms. Amberly Walker, a former English teacher at Legacy, decided to take on the role of motherhood to five children this past summer and even a new position in Waxahachie to be closer to home.

“My husband and I always wanted to have children,” Ms. Walker said. “Biologically, this was not possible, which was a very difficult journey to process as well.”

For the past several years, Ms. Walker and her husband have been searching for a path to parenthood with little to no success. Because of the issues biologically, both were forced to consider the alternative to becoming parents with adoption.

“We became acquainted with people who had adopted from various places, international, domestic, private and through foster care,” Ms. Walker said. “We started praying about how God would grow our family when it seemed for many years this may not be a possibility.”

At the beginning, Ms. Walker and her husband were uneasy at the thought of adoption. Through the help and guidance from fellow friends and church members, the Walker family was able to familiarize themselves with the Straight Adopt Program through the Texas Baptist Home for Children, or TBH, which is how they became matched with their children.

“From the very beginning, we felt like God was steering us to adopt a sibling group,” Ms. Walker said.

Ms. Walker and her husband came from relatively large families and loved growing up with brothers and sisters, and they originally wanted to adopt a sibling group, preferably a group of three children.

“We got scared and almost let fear and judgement from others get in the way,” Ms. Walker said

When they were presented with the chance of adopting a sibling group, they were overjoyed. One of their friends was also an adoption director and revisited the question of how many children they would like to adopt. They had already done so in the past, but the adoption director and the Walker family met up one day in order to see the possibility of considering a sibling group that the adoption director was very familiar with. The adoption director presented the group of five, and the Walkers were a bit overwhelmed by the number and nearly did not adopt them. However, over the course of several weeks and having conversations in which they found out a lot of their friends knew the children, they began to think of the sibling group as children who needed a home with caring parents instead of the large group that they originally thought of them as. That is when they came to realize that this sibling group consisting of three girls aged 10, nine and five and two boys aged six and eight were for them.

“We are just regular, normal people,” Ms. Walker said. “My husband and I are nothing special. We aren’t wealthy. We don’t even have an overly large home, but with God, all things are possible.”

Before the adoption took place, the Walkers did many things in preparation for the arrival of their new children. Many legal processes were required for their adoption license prior to the children’s arrival ranging from having a certain number of fire extinguishers in their household to several background checks to having nearly eight hours of extensive personal interviews. In addition to the legal matters, many of the Walker’s friends and family helped to set up fundraisers for their home study processes and donated at the adoption showers that were hosted for them.

“Life is so different,” Ms. Walker said. “It’s loud and crazy in our home. Even our two furry friends are adjusting, but that’s what it is an adjustments to a wonderful and exciting thing.”

Since the adoption, life for the Walker’s and the children has been changed dramatically. Currently, all of the children are attending school in Waxahachie at the same school until the oldest of the group moves on to junior high school the next school year. The Walkers hope to give their children normal childhood experiences, like travelling, sports or whatever interests their children may have in the future.

“Our families, our church family and my Legacy family have surrounded us with so much encouragement and help,” Ms. Walker said. “It’s been a miracle. [Adoption and adjustments to parenthood] has been the hardest thing, but it’s worth it. We are not alone in this new journey.”