Surprise! After Infertility and Heartbreak, California Parents Film the Moment They Reveal Adoption News to Family

"Both sides had been praying for so long for us, they had no idea!" Lacey Banks says of her family

Photo: Megan Gentry

Following years of infertility and one miscarriage, Lacey and Banks Farris decided to surprise their loved ones with some special news – they adopted a baby girl!

Banks filmed the heartwarming moment he showed up unannounced at the houses of various family members, with Lacey holding 1-month-old Finley.

“Our entire family was overjoyed for us!” Lacey, 28, tells PEOPLE. “Both sides had been praying for so long for us, they had no idea!”

In fact, Banks’ 78-year-old grandmother was so shocked, she had to sit down.

“Oh my word, I’m going to pass out!” she exclaims in the video.

The North Hollywood, California, couple had tried to get pregnant for 15 months in 2012 before receiving good news – Lacey was going to have a girl.

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“I was so envious of all of my friends who were pregnant, I just wanted to be a mother,” says Lacey. “It’s hard seeing everyone you know posting pregnancy pictures and being happy.”

Lacey had been carrying the baby – who she called Poppy – for 20 weeks when her water broke.

Poppy died at birth.

“It was the hardest thing we’ve had to go through,” Lacey says of her and Banks, 29. “I held Poppy, and I’m grateful for that. It put a face to my grief.”

Lacey and Banks went through two rounds of intrauterine insemination (foregoing in vitro fertilization due to Lacey’s “incompetent cervix”) in 2015 before seriously considering adoption.

They pursued an open adoption, but the biological mother and father ended up choosing to parent the baby.

“I was hurt, but now I understand the mother made the right decision,” says Lacey. “The questions that came in from my family were hard though. I just didn’t want to talk about it.”

She adds, “I knew that we would pursue adoption again, and that when we did I didn’t want to tell any of our family until we actually had our baby in our home.”

The couple met Finley’s birth mother and father in Georgia through an adoption match website on Christmas Day 2015 – establishing a close relationship with them as they helped the pregnant mother prepare for her mid-April due date.

Ten days after Finley was born on April 18, Lacey and Banks decided to take an unexpected road trip with the newborn to Tennessee, Alabama and Arizona and visit their immediate family members.

“We couldn’t wait for everyone to meet her!” says Lacey.

The happy parents say their new daughter is “absolutely amazing and so, so beautiful.”

“Banks is so in love with her,” says Lacey. “She pulls the emotions out of him, she pulls at his heartstrings.

“She’s perfect.”