They’re on their way to the babysitter’s. He can hear her fussing from her carseat in the back. He can’t tell what she wants. As they get closer to their destination and the sun begins to rise, he sees the problem. Evelyn has her hands folded. She wants to pray. She’s learning to be like her parents, Tim and Tiffany Besse, devoted Catholics who allowed God to show them his plan. A plan that included Evelyn.

THE PROCESS

Tim, currently a math teacher at FHN, and Tiffany, currently an Associate Principal at Pattonville High School, were married in June of 2007. Two years later, they wanted to start a family. During this time, the Besses found out that they were unable to have biological children themselves. They would have to start their family a different way. The Besses began looking into other options. Being devoted to their faith, Tiffany and Tim took what the Catholic Church believes into consideration. They knew that they probably couldn’t do any kind of in vitro fertilization and that some of their other options were limited. However, the couple still wanted to be fairly open to everything.

“We didn’t necessarily close out all of our options to begin with,” Tim said. “We didn’t say, ‘We have to adopt because that’s what the Church says.’ We kind of went through the process, and we prayed a lot and we really tried to figure out what was best for us and what we should do.”

Eventually, Tim and Tiffany felt that God was calling them to adopt. They decided to adopt through domestic agency Good Shepherd Children and Family Services and worked with Infant Adoption Coordinator Mary Ann Hoeynck. Hoeynck helped the Besses through the process and taught them about raising an adopted child.

“They’re just a couple who just seemed ideal to become parents, who really wanted to be parents,” Hoeynck said. “They were like the perfect couple, to be honest with you. They’re both just lovely people, so highly educated. And they were open to learning and they chose to educate themselves on adoption which is something that always pleases me. I saw that, in terms of when they do their parenting and all of that, that they weren’t stagnant. They really really jumped in wholehearted.”

The difficulty of filling out the paperwork weighed heavily on the Besses. They were asked questions about whether they would accept a child of a specific race, a child with disabilities, and other tough questions. They also had to answer questions about the history of the birth mother, such as whether she could have a mental illness or drinking problem. These questions created doubt and made Tim and Tiffany unsure as to whether adoption was the right choice. At one point, the couple stepped back from the adoption process, reconsidering other options.

“It’s so crazy to say, ‘Well sure it’s okay if the mother smokes.’ But if you say no to everything, you limitbasically eliminate almost your options of being able to adopt,” Tim said. “That was hard for us because you have to really keep your options open and say, ‘You know what, we can talk about it.’”

In the end, the Besses concluded that adoption was the right choice.

“We would talk to people, and it was weird we’d meet people that had adopted kids or that had been adopted,” Tim said. “And, like, I don’t know. We’re very around our faith and everything, so it was just kind of weird how things happened, and I think at the end it just seemed like that’s what we were supposed to do.”

The Besses returned to the adoption process. It took a lot of time and was difficult, but Tim and Tiffany believed it was God’s plan. Then, after months of completing paperwork and profiles, the Besses had to sit back and let God do his work. According to Tiffany, waiting was the hardest part.

“It’s kind of like that kid who’s in P.E. class that worries whether or not somebody’s going to pick him for the kickball team,” Tiffany said. “So, you’re kind of just worried that ‘Was what we said good enough?’ Because, we didn’t make anything up, we just told them, ‘Here, this is who we are.’ So, just wondering if you’re good enough to be chosen was probably the hardest part.”

THE HEARTBREAK

Just a few months later, the Besse got the call they’d been waiting for. A mother chose them tobe the adoptive parents of her little boy. Tim and Tiffany met the mother, who seemed ready to release her parental rights. She wanted the Besses at the hospital so they could immediately meet their new son. Excited, the couple bought baby supplies in preparation, readying their house for a son they couldn’t wait to bring home. But hours later, they returned everything.

“We get the call, and she was in labor,” Tim said. “And she didn’t want us there. So at that point, we were like, ‘Uh…okay.’ Which kinda started to make us think, ‘What’s going on?’”

The mother decided to keep her baby boy.

“Initially, I was very angry and upset. I didn’t understand,” Tiffany said. “We had put this baby stuff in our house and we literally took it back to the store the same day because I needed out of my house.”

“Emotionally, we were destroyed,” Tim agreed, “but she was able to keep her own son. I mean, that’s the best thing that you would want to happen, I think. But, you know, it was, like I said, emotionally, it was just so draining, and we didn’t know. I mean, we thought we were there, we thought we were ready to adopt this time and it didn’t happen, so that definitely took some time to heal.”

When the Besses notified their family members, some reacted angrily, upset on behalf of the couple. Tiffany’s mother, Trudy Holman, said it was heart wrenching to see Tim and Tiffany have to go through such a devastating situation. “When we learned about that, that was just heartbreaking,” Holman said. “It was heartbreaking, and it was hard because we had to watch them be so disappointed. I think what kept us going was the fact that we told them, ‘We know this is hard. It’s devastating. It’s like losing a child that you never really had.’ But we just always felt that God had something bigger and better in store for them, that this adoption of the little boy was not quite part of His plan.”

Though Tim and Tiffany were emotionally drained, they trusted in God’s plan. That same night, they witnessed the work of God as they received yet another phone call.

THE HEALING

Not even 24 hours after receiving the news that they were unable to adopt the little boy, another mother wanted to look at the Besses’ profile. It was last minute. The mother had originally chosen other parents, but they chose not to go through with the adoption. Now, she was looking at the Besses. “I really, at that point, didn’t get emotionally involved in the second one as quickly as we did the first,” Tiffany said.

The phone call came a few weeks later. Tiffany was supervising students after school when her phone rang. Hoeynck was on the line with good news. They had been chosen.

“I had to hold it together because I was at work, and I knew I couldn’t tell anybody,” Tiffany said. “So I was outside, and I just remember saying ‘yes’ and ‘okay’ a lot and smiling from ear to ear and then gathering myself and going back inside and going to my office and calling Tim and then being ecstatic on the phone because I couldn’t do anything in front of anybody else.”

At 11:30 p.m. on April 23, 2012, Evelyn was born. The next morning, Tim and Tiffany traveled to the hospital where they were greeted by nurses who took them into a room to see their baby girl.

“I was speechless, which doesn’t happen very often,” Tiffany said. “I was just so thankful that we had been blessed in such an awesome way. It’s like your dreams coming true but not in that fairy tale sense, but in that very real When you trust in God, and that comes, He just shows you how powerful He is when you are obedient and grateful and understanding of his journey for you. That feeling is utterly amazing, to witness His Grace right in front of your eyes. And so, for me, that was just… I don’t even… I don’t even have words. I mean, I was just so overjoyed.”

THE NOW

Evelyn came home on April 25, 2012. Since then, the Besses’ lives have changed drastically. “I don’t even know how you explain,” Tim said. “You know, people always tell you, and you’re like, ‘Well, you know, you can explain it.’ It’s like, no, you really can’t. Especially with everything that Tiff and I went through to even get to this point to be able to adopt. I don’t know if it makes it more special, but I think to us it does because we didn’t know if we were going to be able to have kids at all anyways, and then to be able to adopt her, I think it’s just absolutely amazing.”

Their little blessing is now almost 20 months old and loves to be independent. Rather than riding in her Radio Flyer wagon, Evelyn likes to pull it herself. She smiles and laughs and blows kisses. Though she isn’t biologically related to Tim and Tiffany, she is 100 percent their daughter. The love in their faces proves it.

“We work in education, so I work with other people’s kids all day, every day. To have Evelyn and watch her grow up, knowing that we have a role in what she’s doing and what she’s learning, to see that in your own house is so much different than when you see it when you’re working,” Tiffany said.“When I come home, I want to be with her and I want to be with Mr. Besse because that’s what I want to do. Before, Mr. Besse and I both worked from home. We hung out and graded papers or did whatever together, and now we don’t want to do that. We just want to spend time with our family.”