Jessica Frank’s parents were foster parents so she knew the heartache foster children experienced and how they longed to permanently be apart of a family. So, she wanted to adopt a child of her own.
However, her husband Jeremiah was a little hesitant to completely change their lives since they already had a son.
“My husband and I had disagreed on adoption for a couple of years. I was the one pushing for it, my husband was comfortable in our life and didn’t want to change it,” she wrote in a post published on Love What Matters.
But that all changed when he met Shailee, a sweet young girl that her parents were fostering.
“My parents were foster parents and were fostering Shailee. We are a family that likes to hike, and one weekend my parents had invited my husband and me to go hiking with them, my brothers and Shailee. I had met Shailee before this hike, but my husband had not. This was the first time,” Jessica explained. “After the hike, we met up at a restaurant to eat lunch and during that time, my husband struck up a conversation with her. She made mention that she just wanted a family to adopt her.”
At that point, Shailee had melted Jeremiah’s heart.
“That was it. That night, my husband told me that it was time to start our classes to be licensed to foster. That was in March of 2016. By December of 2016, we had moved Shailee into our home with the intent to adopt,” said Jessica. “She didn’t know we wanted to adopt her, she just knew that my parents were closing out their foster license and she was moving in with us.”
But Shailee had no idea that they wanted to adopt her and make her a permanent member of their family, so it was a special moment when they broke the news.
“Once we got approval for the adoption and grew closer to the date, we took Shailee and my son, Skyler, out to have ice cream and we broke the news, which was followed by a lot of tears — happy tears,” Jessica said.
When the Franks found out the exact date of the adoption, they wanted to surprise Shailee again.
“When we finally found out the official adoption date, we told each other we wouldn’t tell the kids. It would be the ultimate surprise. On November 7, 2017, we woke up at 6 a.m., got the kids to school by 7:45 a.m. and played it off like any other day,” Jessica explained. “My husband and I stayed home, got ready and picked the kids up from school about two hours before the adoption was to happen. I was so nervous to break the news. I was so nervous I wouldn’t get the reaction we had been hoping for. I turned my camera on and my worries went out the window.”
This sweet little girl was so overcome with joy and broke down in tears. Her only heart’s desire finally came true.
“Her reaction was more than I ever hoped for. For a kid that had been praying for adoption for years, this was it,” Jessica said. “We are her forever family and we couldn’t be happier to have her in our lives.”
Grab a tissue and watch Shailee’s beautiful reaction to the news of her being adopted below.
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