Imagine planning no tree or festivities for Christmas, only to find yourself less than a week later surrounded by the warmth of lights, with your smiling family, holding a baby you never knew would be yours.

That's just what happened for one local family almost nine years ago.

It's Adoption Awareness Month in the province, which means it's a time for celebrating Saskatchewan's adoptive families. The Loustels shared their unique adoption story, complete with the element of surprise and a level of destiny some only read about in books.

Jordan and Lisa Loustel were in the paperwork part of the process to adopt a baby from Haiti, when they found out they were expecting. Their daughter Iyanna, however, sadly passed away at birth, in summer 2009.

But on December 20, 2010, something unexpected happened that changed their family forever.

"I went to work, just a regular day, I got a phone call from Linda Rudachyk saying that there was a baby that was born, and he needed a family," explained Lisa Loustel. "We were told to get to the hospital to meet the baby."

She said Rudachyk, who had been working at the Family Place in Weyburn when the Loustels lost their daughter and had bonded with them, also knew the family of this baby didn't want him to go into foster care.

"It seemed like the longest day ever, I feel like that day took 100 hours, and it wasn't just 5 hours," she shared. "So when my husband and I got to the hospital, we were told what room to go to and went there and saw him and we're like, 'yeah, that's him'."

Loustel noted that since they hadn't continued the adoption process, they were back at square one.

"We weren't on a waiting list or anything like that, but we still had to go through the whole process," she said. "Social Services had to meet with us and we had to have a Criminal Record Check done, get a home study, and go see a psychologist."

Of course, Social Services at the very least required proof that he had a caring home.

"They were saying, 'we can't just let you take this baby home. We need to know that he has somewhere to sleep, and that he has clothes, and that you have a car seat, and that he has all of that stuff,' and I was like, 'Well, it just turns out he does have all this stuff', because we had a nursery still set up from our daughter that had passed away a year and a half previous to that, so we had everything," Loustel explained.

She said the Home Study was likely to throw the biggest wrench into the plan, being so close to Christmas.

"It just happened to be that whoever does home studies just happened to be in Weyburn that day and went and did a quick home study at our house," Loustel said.

They were able to bring their new baby home to Weyburn on December 22nd.

"We didn't even have a tree set up or anything, because I was not going through another Christmas without my family that I'm supposed to have," she shared. "So before we got home from the hospital, a couple of my friends, and my parents and Jordan's parents went to the house, put a tree up and decorated it, and it was great, it was probably like one of the best Christmases ever."

Loustel noted how much the soon-to-be nine-year-old Asher James fits in, as though he was hand-picked for their family.

"He's the only grandchild, so he's pretty spoiled, and very active," she expressed. "We can see he's competitive like my husband, he likes sports like my husband, and even though he's not our blood, he's just taken on so many traits of ours, so he is a Loustel."

While some families wait years for a match, for the Loustels it was certainly a series of meaningful coincidences that made their adoption story unique. But for them, it's their son who makes their story complete.

The Loustels this year.