Aaron and Rachel Halbert firmly believe that ʀᴀᴄɪᴀʟ ᴅɪsᴄʀɪᴍɪɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ cannot stand in the way of a child finding a loving home. The couple from the southern United States tried to get pregnant for years, but when they were unsuccessful, they eventually decided to adopt.
A little boy and a little girl were adopted, both of them colored, and the parents could not have been more proud. “We knew that a white couple who didn’t have white children was causing a myriad of different reactions, especially in the south,” Aaron explained. “There will always be older white women in the supermarket staring at us with sheer ᴅɪsɢᴜsᴛ, or African-American mothers looking at us shaking their heads.”
But they love their family and wouldn’t change anything. As a missionary in Honduras, the Christian couple longed to provide a loving home for even more children.
Not long after, they heard about the possibility of ᴇᴍʙʀʏᴏ adoption. This means that ᴇᴍʙʀʏᴏs that have been frozen for years are implanted in the ᴡᴏᴍʙs of adoptive mothers, giving babies a better chance at life. In the case of Aaron and Rachel, the frozen ᴇᴍʙʀʏᴏs have been waiting for 15 years.
“If Christians – or anyone else – really believe that life begins at conception, it follows that we need to support the adoption of the ᴇᴍʙʀʏᴏ and take our share of it,” Aaron said.
Rachel and Aaron decided to break the ʀᴀᴄɪᴀʟ sᴛɪɢᴍᴀ, so they chose colored ᴇᴍʙʀʏᴏs, making them look more like their siblings than their white parents.
Although they knew they would receive a lot of ᴄʀɪᴛɪᴄɪsᴍ for this controversial and culturally not fully accepted decision, they knew they were doing the right thing.
Two frozen African American ᴇᴍʙʀʏᴏs were implanted in Rachel’s ᴜᴛᴇʀᴜs, but not long after one of the implanted eggs parted, and the couple learned they were expecting triplets.
The triplets, three girls, were born in April. According to Aaron, Rachel and she had not planned such a family 12 years ago when they started dating, but they are grateful that God has entrusted these very children to their care.
“It was reassuring to see that virtually all of our friends and relatives expressed overwhelming support for our family and for the unusual way we built our family. We live the life we dreamed of. This dream may not look like the average family, but we are grateful that it has all come true, given the history of our country,” Aaron said.
“I remember a friend of mine who went through the adoption procedure said she had always wanted her family to look like a little UN. As I look at my growing family, I would go one step further and I hope our family is like a little piece of heaven,” said the proud father.
Despite the negative comments, Aaron and Rachel are very happy that they made that decision, and so Rachel was able to experience the pregnancy she had always wanted. At the same time, the seven-member Halbert family is a great example of what faith and love mean.
“We believe when you look into any human’s eyes, you look into the face of an image-bearer of God – into the eyes of a person whose soul is eternal. While this is true for all of humanity, it does not mean that racial differences are insignificant. We believe that physical differences between people are wonderful proof of God’s creative greatness,” Aaron explained.
