Missionary to India returns to U.S. with unexpected 'gift'

Our take: Becky Morlock didn't intend to stay in India for four years when she went there for a mission trip. However, her plans changed drastically when she received a call from an Indian hospital asking her to adopt a newborn boy whose mother was unwed. After she agreed, Morlock, who was single herself, spent the next four years trying to legally adopt her son, Kyle, and returned to the U.S. a different person than when she left.

When Becky Morlock was asked to adopt a son from India, she said a prayer. Then she hired a lawyer.

More than four years and a long legal battle later, the one-time missionary has returned to the U.S. as a mom with her son Kyle, who was given to her as a newborn. He was just two days old when his birth mother surrendered him as she was discharged from a hospital in the foothills of the Himalayas.

That was the only time Kyle's two mothers met, and their meeting likely saved his life. It also tested adoption laws in two countries half a world apart.

International adoptions have become more difficult and less frequent with tightening laws aimed to curb child trafficking and adoption fraud. In the last eight years, numbers have dropped from a high of 22,991 in 2004 to 9,319 last year, according the U.S. State Department.

Read more about Becky Morlock on The Huffington Post.