Hi there! I’m Lydia, one of the Adoption Case Managers here at Gateway Woods. My husband, Brock, also works at Gateway and we have been married for four years. Together we have two beautiful daughters, Bristol and Nora. In our free time we enjoy working on our hobby homestead and spending time with our friends and family.

Working in adoption for Gateway Woods has been a very long and winding journey for me. I grew up in on a farm in central Illinois. During my childhood, I was always a part of our church and knew about the Bible and God’s love. When I went to college, however, I rebelled and ran from God. During this time I had an unexpected pregnancy. This was a very scary and confusing time in my life. I considered having an abortion, and even had the procedure scheduled. 

My story of adoption begins with a still small voice...

One of my favorite passages in scripture is a story about Elijah, found in the book of Kings, chapter 19. In it, the prophet Elijah is crying out to the Lord in desperation - everything has gone wrong, and he is fleeing for his life. The Lord tells Elijah to stand on the mountain to experience the presence of the Lord when He passes by. Elijah waited in expectation as the wind tore through the mountains, shattering the rocks as it went. But the Lord wasn’t in the wind. And after the wind was an earthquake and then a blazing fire! But the Lord wasn’t in those either. The passage then describes how after the fire came a still small voice...

Supporting the Adoption Triad

 At Gateway Woods, we are a group of Christians who do social work. As an agency, we value family. In adoption, we do this by connecting birth and expectant families with adoptive families. This is why adoption is so important to our mission. 

While we provide a variety of services to children and families, adoption is a unique aspect of Gateway Woods. Starting in 2001, we began writing home studies for families who wanted to adopt. Over the past 20+ years, we have continued to strive to provide the highest quality adoption services to families on their adoption journey.

We also want to provide a caring place for expectant mothers considering adoption. What sets us apart is our quality of care for you. We have never, and will never, pressure someone to create an adoption plan, and we respect the difficulty of this decision. 

As an expectant mom, when you contact Gateway, our goal is to ensure the child’s best interests are in mind for every decision made. If you want to parent your child, we want to provide help and resources to make that a reality. If you make the difficult decision to create an adoption plan, we will work with you to create an adoption plan that works for you. This includes giving you the ability to choose an adoptive family, create a hospital plan, and discuss the relationship you would like to have with the adoptive family.  We will walk through every aspect to ensure you are as prepared and comfortable as possible.

We understand that choosing adoption for your child is the most difficult decision you will ever make as a parent. With this in mind, we want to provide the emotional support you will need before, during, and after the adoption. We have many resources to help you through the grieving process and are always available to help in any way we can. As an expectant/birth parent, you should not have to go through this alone, and we will be with you every step of the way.

As part of our adoption process, we encourage open adoptions when it is the best option for a child. This means that we want to support a relationship between the adoptive family and the birth family. Studies show that most kids who have been adopted are curious about their birth family and many desire to have some relationship with them. By supporting this relationship, Gateway Woods is able to help kids better understand their own adoption story. While it is not always possible to have an open adoption, we believe that it should be explored with each adoption so that the best interests of the child are always served.

Adoption can be beautiful, and it comes with a lot of heartache and grief. We want to serve expectant/birth families, adoptive families, and adoptees with compassion and empathy, all while ensuring we do what is best for the child.