The Doors God Closes

Another baby? Amber couldn’t believe her ears as the state worker on the phone announced the unexpected birth of her daughters’ biological sibling. Amber and Jack were already parents to five girls, three adopted through foster care. Their hands and home were full. But God had other plans — plans to grow and unite the family in more ways than one. And He would shut every door necessary to lead this family through the one He held open for them.

The Christmas Wish

At 9 years old, Graceyn was the youngest in her family and growing tired of the position. She wanted a baby sibling and with Christmas fast approaching, she decided to take the matter up with Santa. Despite the big man’s reputation for granting wishes, however, he laughed when the wide-eyed girl whispered her request in his ear. “You’ll have to take that up with your parents,” he told her.

Her parents gave her a similarly disappointing answer. Her mom, Amber, reminded Graceyn that she couldn’t have babies. Jack had two teenage daughters from a previous marriage, and the three children he and Amber had together were adopted. Jai'Kayla came from a different birth family while the two youngest, Kylie and Graceyn, were biological sisters. All three had joined the family as either toddlers or infants, and at 42 and 50 years old, Amber and Jack were done raising babies.

Ultimately, Graceyn would have to take her request to God. But unlike Santa, God, who can do all things, had a baby on the way for her already.

The Phone Call

Eight months after Graceyn’s Christmas wish, Amber got a phone call. Barely an hour prior, Kylie and Graceyn’s birth mom had delivered yet another baby. The news came as a shock to Amber who quickly relayed the message to Jack.

“Well, you better hurry down there, because you know that baby’s not being held,” was Jack’s response.

Two hours after the birth, Amber arrived at the hospital where staff ushered her into a room and placed the newborn in her arms — another beautiful little girl, miraculously untouched by the drugs that had affected her two older sisters in utero.

Family History

The baby’s birth mother had a long history of substance abuse and addiction. When her daughter, Kylie, was born 11 years earlier, the baby was removed at just a month old due to parental drug use. Amber and Jack agreed to foster baby Kylie as her birth parents worked toward reunification. Wanting to support the couple, Amber helped the birth dad learn important skills he would need to raise the baby and sometimes drove the birth mom to medical appointments. But just as they were beginning to make progress, both parents disappeared.

Soon after, their parental rights to little Kylie were terminated, paving the way for Amber and Jack to adopt her. Immediately after the adoption was finalized, however, the birth mom reappeared with a surprise — she was pregnant again and due to give birth any day. At that point, Amber and Jack were overwhelmed with two toddlers adopted from foster care, both of whom carried their individual traumas. But when Amber got the call that little Kylie’s biological sister, Graceyn, had been born in Butte, she knew she had to go.

Jack, on the other hand, had serious reservations. With a total of four daughters in the home at that point, he insisted they were not taking another child. But when he reluctantly went with his wife to visit Graceyn again just a few days later, his resolve shattered the moment he set eyes on her. His heart melted, and the couple left the hospital, baby in tow. This time, the birth mom was incarcerated and unable to pursue reunification. Once her rights to Graceyn were also terminated, Amber and Jack gladly adopted what they believed would be the bookend of their family.

But now, nine years later, another baby girl had arrived, born to a mother who was once again incarcerated and mentally shattered by years of hard drug use and life on the streets. The woman, however, was in high spirits when Amber walked into her hospital room holding the new baby. Though she had no interest in the infant, she gratefully accepted Amber’s quiet company as she watched TV.

“Hey, I know you,” the woman blurted out several hours later. “You used to drive me to appointments!”

“Yes,” Amber replied gently, “and I adopted two of your other girls.” The birth mom nodded absently, turning back to the show she’d been watching.

Amber took pity on the woman who’d so clearly lived a life hard enough to rob her of any emotional or cognitive attachment to her children. Amber knew the baby in her arms would soon need a forever family. Her other adopted daughters, now 13, 11 and 9, were already a handful, and she and Jack weren’t getting any younger. So Amber started knocking on doors.

The Doors

She reached out to her brother who had also adopted a child from foster care. Despite their initial enthusiasm at the idea, however, he and his wife soon decided they weren’t ready to adopt again.

With that door shut, Amber reached out to two of her cousins who’d been considering adoption. The day she called, though, one cousin was on her way to her final IVF appointment. With the possibility of triplets on the way, she had to decline. The second cousin and her husband had decided to try for biological children before adopting.

Finally, Amber reached out to Child Bridge hoping to find a local family that would fit the baby’s needs. Her local Parent Coach suggested a family Amber and Jack knew, a couple who had fostered before and had suffered several miscarriages in recent years.

The couple eagerly agreed to take the baby girl, and the two families spent the rest of the summer preparing for the transition. But just when things seemed settled, the baby’s case worker called to inform Amber of a roadblock.

Unexpected Family

The biological grandmother had appeared out of the blue, demanding to take custody of the new baby. The woman had never shown up or taken interest in her other two grandchildren, Kylie and Graceyn. Amber had not been aware of the grandmother’s presence at all, knowing that the woman’s daughter, the baby’s birth mom, had grown up in foster care too.

Angry and frustrated, Amber and Jack couldn’t understand why, after an 11-year absence in her Kylie and Graceyn’s lives, this woman suddenly wanted the baby. A recovering addict herself, the grandmother was already raising four other grandchildren after neglecting her own children. And now she was threatening to shut the one door Amber had managed to pry open for this baby.

Despite their reservations, Amber and Jack knew they needed to bridge the gap and meet the grandmother if they were to sort out the baby’s future. Within two minutes of sitting down to talk, the grandmother began to change her tune and proposed a solution.

She agreed not to fight for custody of the baby if, and only if, Amber and Jack agreed to adopt her. The woman wanted to see the baby grow up with members of her own family and her own Native roots. Theirs was the only adoptive family she would accept. If Amber and Jack wouldn’t keep the baby, she would.

The Right Door

For two weeks, Amber tried to find some other solution, grappling with the decision ahead. Finally, she approached Jack, defeated.

“I think we have to do this,” she told him. “It’s on us.” Jack’s response shocked her.

“I’ve known that for two weeks. I was waiting for you to figure it out,” he said. “Oh, and I get to name her.”

Jack named their newest daughter Ellinor — Elli for short. And she quickly became the light of her big sisters’ lives — especially for Graceyn, whose wish had come true.

“Graceyn can walk in the room and the whole world changes for Elli,” Amber said. “If I put pictures of Graceyn next to Elli at the same age, they’re identical. They’re like soulmates.”

And despite the rocky introduction, Kylie, Graceyn and Elli’s biological grandmother has remained present in their lives. She provides a link to their heritage, sharing stories and pictures of their birth mother as a child. Through her, the sisters get to see their cousins and compare their physical features, interests and talents to those of their relatives. All because of Elli.

“I was fighting so hard to open doors when everyone else kept saying they thought she was supposed to be ours,” Amber said. “The only way God could get my attention was by opening a door that we refused to open ourselves.”

Amber and Jack adopted baby Elli in August 2024, finally completing their family...they think.