“Fixer to Fabulous” stars Jenny and Dave Marrs were put through an emotional roller coaster throughout their adoption process with daughter Sylvie. While all worked out in the end and they were able to bring the baby girl home from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, the mother of five still remembers the “unimaginably hard time.”
Adoption Memories
The HGTV star shared a throwback photo of Sylvie, her 14-year-old daughter whom she shares with husband Dave.
“Yesterday, my phone reminded me of our time preparing to visit Sylvie in the Congo 13 years ago,” she wrote. “Back then, we would FaceTime her as often as cell service allowed and each time was a miraculous gift. She’s alive! She’s looking healthy! We’re coming baby girl!”
She added, “We were preparing the boys for our time away. They’d be staying with my parents in Florida while we visited Sylvie and we would often look at the big map in their room to help them visualize where she lives and where we live (and where reindeers live – spoiler alert- Australia 😂). It was an emotional, wonderful, sweet, unimaginably hard time. My heart lived on two continents and my prayers were desperate. The situation seemed impossible at times. Would she ever be allowed to come home? Would the government ever lift the ban keeping us apart?”
In addition to the FaceTime screenshot of Sylvie, and a clip of her son studying a map, Jenny shared a photo of a Bible verse.
“Today, as I read 2 Chronicles 14, I came across a note in the margin from that season. It simply said “DGM” and the date. (DGM is the Congolese government authority that was keeping our girl from coming home). We know the battle was bigger – it was spiritual – and the people at DGM were simply a part of a much larger story being written,” she wrote.”Here, this verse is a desperate prayer from King Asa (King David’s great-great grandson) when the army against his people was vast and the situation seemed hopeless by human standards. Back then, I felt that same way. I prayed King Asa’s words in desperation, ‘O Lord, no one but you can help the powerless against the mighty! Help us, O Lord our God, for we trust in you alone.'”
Adoption Journey
Jenny often opens up about their emotional adoption journey to bring daughter Sylvie home. Earlier this summer, the design pro reflected on the day that changed their family.
“I wasn’t there on the day she entered this world. I wasn’t privy to the miracles that took place that day half a world away. I don’t know what her first days and months and years looked like,” she reminisced via Instagram. “There is so much I just don’t know. Looming, gaping holes from her earliest, most formative years are painful reminders of all I have missed. Yet, what I DO know is on this day, 12 years ago, I bore witness to a miracle. An honest to goodness God-sized, Red-Sea-parting kind of miracle.”
