Just Like That ...

I have started and erased this post 18 times.  Words are escaping me.

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The painful reality of an adoption plan is this.  Nothing is for sure.

Somewhere, sometime, for some reason, something has gone awry with our adoption plan.

We are just days away from a due date, but we are back to the beginning.  

We were matched with a birth mom 10 weeks ago today.  But for the last several weeks, no one has been able to reach her.  Today I tried to text her cell phone and got a reply from someone else letting me know that I had the wrong number.  

The social worker has called, sent texts and letters, all with no return. This birth mom has taken herself out of the picture.  We have to assume she is making the choice to parent this child herself.  We have to assume that she is choosing a different path.

I'm a little bit broken, a little bit angry, a little bit hopeless, a little bit sad.

I'm also a little bit OK, a little bit calm, a little bit expectant, and a little bit joyful.

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That could sound totally horrible -- how can I be joyful? How can I be OK? The rug was just literally ripped out from under us!

One word.  Jesus.

I've been here.  I've walked this dark twisty rocky impossible road.  And at the end was Jesus.  He's my constant.  He's my rock.  He's my joy, my peace, my hope, my light.  I can be OK because Jesus is steadfast and is good.  I can be OK because letting go and letting Him hold me is so much better than holding onto the broken, angry, hopeless, sadness.   

It's not easy.  I still want to cry and throw things and eat my entire weight in chocolate followed by my entire weight in peanut butter.  I still want this baby to be mine.  I still ache to feel him in my arms. 

And I'm not oblivious. I know that bad days will come, that I will still feel the pain of loss.  I know that.

But I'm choosing to focus on the good.  It's good that this baby is so loved.  It's good that Jesus spared us from seeing him and holding him before this change of heart took place.  It's good that another opportunity may be just around the corner.  It's good that Kain and I have each other to lean on, to understand the bad days, and to move forward with.  It's good that we are so prepared for the next time.  It's good that there will be a next time.  

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I posted all of these verses on my last Love and Loss post.  And they still ring with truth. 

Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1: 6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

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Please keep praying for us, friends.  Please pray that our dreams of being parents will be fulfilled.  That we will find the right match.  And that we will be able to hold onto joy and calm and hope and OK.

Social Worker Visit

We met with our social worker last night, as I mentioned in this post.

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First of all:

This was our fourth visit with a social worker regarding adoption.  Each one gets a little less scary.  So know that if you are facing the process for the first time, these are people who want to see children placed in loving homes.  They're on your side.  They're an advocate for you!  Don't be intimidated.  Don't freak out.  Your house doesn't have to be perfect (we still have moving boxes sitting in the living room).  Your hair doesn't have to be perfect.  YOU do not have to be perfect.

Rant over, just wanted to put that out there.

If nothing else, maybe I'll re-read that someday when we're going through this again and remember to relax!

****

Last night was great!!

Rachel, our social worker, came in the evening and went over some paperwork, toured our home, asked and answered some questions and then told us that all we have left to do now is send in the hard copies of our profile (our agency asks for 30 copies) with another check and we will be officially-for-real-no-more-hoops "circulating"!!!

Circulating is another way of saying "on the list".

Here's how it works:

Birthmoms considering adoption contact our agency, then the agency spends time with them, counsels them,  learns about their life etc.  Then their situation will be compared with the criteria we provided and the agency will deliver our profile to those where a good match is determined.
{Our criteria is extremely open, there are not many situations we wouldn't consider.  But, for example purposes, maybe a family is uncomfortable adopting a child who is more than 4 weeks premature, their profile would not be shared with a mom who just delivered a 6 week premature baby}
Then the birthmom will review all the profiles that have been presented to her and she will make the overwhelmingly impossible choice about which family seems like the best fit.

It seems like it has taken us a lifetime to get to this point.  We started actively working toward adopting last March (although we've been talking about it for years), then walked the dark road of a failed adoption, which was followed by a few months of emotional recovery.  Then we chose an agency, waited for approval, went to our first classes, put everything on hold while we moved, and now -- we're actually approaching the finish line!

I can't wait to share the next steps with you.  I can't wait to live the next steps!
Please pray for us as we wait.  I have a feeling it will be a difficult part of this journey.

Love and Loss {Part Four}

This four-part series on our failed adoption begins here

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The next few weeks were very hard.  Life had to go on, but I was changed.  I felt so defeated - like the reality of ever being a mom had been pushed back even further.  Again.  I was mad at myself for being naive and optimistic.  I was mad at "C" for changing her mind.  I was mad at God for taking me to a place I had never wanted to go.  I was just mad.  

I stayed home a lot.  I couldn't be around people.  People might be happy, and I wanted nothing to do with happy.  People might have children, and I definitely wanted nothing to do with children.  Kain and I fought constantly.  In my (and his, this was devastating to him too) state of depression we lashed out at one another.  I think that deep inside, we knew we were our own safe place.  Our marriage, built with a foundation on Jesus, could handle the shrapnel.  We could be harsh and we would survive.

I stopped praying.  Stopped cooking dinner.  Stopped cleaning the house.  Stopped caring about much of anything at all.  I packed up the baby clothes we had brought home.  I packed up the bottles.  I put his ultrasound pictures away in a box.  I tried everything to get him out of my mind.  But he was always there.  He's still there.  I still think about him and what he would be doing now.  The week of his due date was especially hard.  I kept thinking to myself, "I'm supposed to be at home right now rocking my new baby, instead here I am.  Hopeless"  

In the first few days, I found an article on failed adoption.  I read it about 100 times.  {Read it here}  It was exactly what I needed to hear.  This failed adoption wasn't our fault.  And "C" wasn't a malicious villain either.  She didn't handle the situation like I would have chosen, but I have to assume that she did the best with the resources she had.  I have to trust that we met "C" and her baby at that time for some reason.  I have to be confident that our omniscient God walked with us through this hard time to prepare us, or to teach us, or demonstrate his faithfulness.  

*****

Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1: 6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

*****

Today I am doing well.  I still feel sad when I think about our baby boy, who wasn't really ours.  I still deeply long to see his face, to know he is healthy and loved.  But I also know that I owe it to our future children to move forward.  I can't let a failed adoption derail our plans forever.  I can't stay stuck in the mire and the pain.  Eventually Kain and I had to pick ourselves up, give each other a big hug and decide that it was time to keep moving. 

We finished our adoption paperwork, had our second meeting with our social worker, and should receive our final approved home study any day now!  We have selected an adoption agency and are preparing our  home, hearts, and finances for completing a domestic newborn adoption sometime soon.  

We recognize that on the road to growing our family, this may happen again.  That reality is hard to swallow, but it's a fact that we have to accept.   Adoptions fall through.  It's painful and devastating, but it's part of the story.  Our story so far has been rocky.  And although we made it through this tough chapter, our story doesn't yet have a happy ending.  One thing that we learned at the Together for Adoption Conference this year is that in the end, adoption makes everything sad become untrue.  Adoption has already and will continue to change our story.  Adoption will change our child's story.  I'm looking forward to sharing all of that with you.

My friend, if you are in a place anything like we were; a failed adoption, infertility, miscarriage, longing for a child that you'll never get to know -- I'm praying for you.  I know that there aren't words that take away the ache.  There aren't words that fill the gaping hole.  But there is hope.  Hope in a Savior who makes all things new (Revelation 21:5), hope in a peace from Him that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7), and a hope that he knows your heart (Matthew 7:7, Psalm 139).  

Choose Hope.

Love and Loss {Part Three}

Read our story of Love and Loss from the beginning here

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"C" and I continued to talk almost every day, she sent me long messages about how she knew that she had made the right choice in selecting us to parent her child, that we came into her life at the exact right moment when she was hopeless and saw no way out.  She gave me parenting advice.  She told me she was reading books to her belly so that the baby would like to read.  She constantly referred to us as her answers to prayer.

A few weeks later, "C" and I went to the doctor's again.  It was time for her second ultrasound.  She let me sit in the dark room with her while the technician poured clear gel on her swollen belly and used that magic wand to show us pictures of the sweet baby growing inside her.  He was perfect.  He was growing just right, developing exactly like he should.  

"C" told the technician of our chance meeting in the waiting room.  She introduced me to everyone at the office as "the baby's mom."  I was floating, a perma-smile plastered across my face.  "C" didn't hesitate to hand me the ultrasound pictures, telling me that they were mine, because he was mine.  I met her Obstetrician, he seemed confused at first but was very supportive once we explained our situation.  

The doctor let me use the Doppler to find baby's heartbeat.  I stepped into the hallway to give "C" some privacy during her exam.  As she was getting dressed, the doctor came out and gave me an update - that everything looked great! Baby was due in early July and things were progressing just as they should.  Because "C" had started her prenatal care a little late, they would monitor her closely but he didn't anticipate any complications.  

Neither did I.

On a Wednesday morning I sent "C" a text to check on her.  This was totally normal, we talked almost every day.  I asked her how she was doing.  Her response was, 

"Not good.  Me and my kids got kicked out of our house and my phone is getting turned off.  We have to find somewhere to go now" 

That was the last time I ever heard from "C".  I sent her message after message asking what she meant, if she was safe, if there was anything I could do.  I wanted to tell her that if she called her adoption attorney, she had access to moneys from us for living expenses.  I wanted to tell her that if nothing else, she and her kids could come over and camp in our living room until she sorted everything out.  I wanted to tell her to please tell the baby I loved him.  I wanted to hear from her.

The next morning was our home study.  I got through the meeting with the thought that maybe her phone had in fact gotten turned off and she would text me again once she had gotten a replacement.  I tried to ignore the nagging gnawing feeling in my belly that said something had gone awry.  

We finished our home study meeting without incident.  Our social worker was sweet and energetic.  She asked us questions, toured our home, and gave us a tree's worth of paperwork to work on.  We would meet again in a few weeks for a second meeting and finalization would happen after that.  Home study, check.

That night I got a message from someone claiming to be "C's" cousin . She told me that "C" had moved to West Virginia to live with her grandma, that she had decided to keep her baby and start a new life with her other kids.  I asked if I could call her? Text her? Contact her in any way?  No.  Grandma's house had no phone and there was no cell service there.  I was cut off.  

It took a few days for it all to settle in.  Our baby was gone and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.  I wept, I threw things, I screamed at God.  I slid into depression, deep and dark and endless.  All I wanted was him.  All I wanted was to see his sweet face.  I carried a picture of him with me, taking it out in private moments to study his features again.  

I had been so sure, I had been so confident.  I had been so foolish.

...

Love and Loss {Part Two}

Missed Part One? Catch up here

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I couldn't believe what just happened.  Had I dreamed this? Had I actually just approached a perfect stranger and offered to adopt their unborn child? Am I crazy? Am I brave? Will I ever see her again?  Will she have me arrested?  Committed?  What is Kain going to say? About 487,000 thoughts raced through my head.

Waiting for the doctor, I sent Kain a text that quickly summed up what had just happened and told him that I was shaking and my heart was racing (perfect for getting your blood pressure checked, right??).  We sent each other a few texts and then I settled in for my appointment.  All that was running through my head was "is this for real? Is this for real?"

While I was getting blood drawn after my appointment I received a text message from the woman in the lobby (let's call her "C").  It said, "Can I call you in like an hour so I can tell you my story and we can go from there?"  I almost died right there in the lab.  I got in the car to head home and just started to pray.  I realized that it was the first time I had stopped to talk to Jesus about what had happened in the last hour.  Humbled, I paused before driving just to apologize for not having Him at the forefront of my mind when my life started to change.  The drive home was spent talking to my Savior.  I thanked him, praised him, expressed my fears, pleaded my desires, and ultimately told him that I wanted to live inside of his will.

That afternoon, "C" called me.  We spoke for maybe 20 minutes.  She told me about her life, her two children, her divorce, her wild lifestyle after her divorce, and her completely unplanned pregnancy.  She told me that she had been on birth control and had only found out that day that she was pregnant, having a baby boy, that she was about five months along, and that my note was an answer to her prayers because she knew that she couldn't take care of a baby right now. She asked if I could meet her at another doctor's appointment the next week so we could talk more in person.  She asked a little about our life and why we were adopting.  We ended our conversation with the promise to speak again soon.  I melted into the couch, overwhelmed by the day.  Kain and I sat in silence for a while.

A few days after "C" and I met, I contacted an adoption attorney to gain some guidance and wisdom.  She was wonderful to work with.  She, herself an adoptive mother, celebrated with me on the phone, saying that our story gave her chills.  She pointed me in the direction of a social worker to get our home study started and told me that she would represent us and would find an attorney for "C". I had a plan.  I felt confident and excited.  Everything was falling into place.

I met "C" at the doctor's office for her second appointment.  When I first got there, she hugged me and gave me the baby's first ultrasound pictures.  I was immediately in love with him.  His perfect profile melted my heart.  I traced the shape of his face with my finger over and over, dreaming of what it would be like to stroke that round soft cheek in real life soon. "C" spoke surely and matter-of-factly.  She knew that adoption was the right choice and she didn't want anyone but me (and maybe Kain) in the delivery room.  It was surreal.  It was perfect.  It was overwhelming.

We spent the next several weeks over the moon.  We talked baby names and nursery themes.  We heard from "C" almost every day.  She would text me, send videos of her baby belly rolling around, call to chat here and there.  She referred to him as our baby, not hers, and always called me his mother.  We scheduled another doctor's appointment when she would have a second ultrasound.  We were falling deep and hard for this baby.  We loved him already, in an inexpiable way.

Slowly, we told our family and friends.  Everyone was amazingly supportive.  It was a dream.  When we told our community group, our closest friends sat in our living room and wept in joy with us.  They lifted us up in prayer, they were as supportive as we could hope. Our families reactions were equally wonderful.  No one had anything but encouragement, optimism, and love to offer us.  We soaked up every moment.

Kain and I had a discussion about being excited.  We knew that we had two choices.  We could either: 1) allow ourselves to fall in love with this baby, be excited, tell everyone, and risk the heartbreak if anything would change.  Or 2) be guarded, optimistic, but guarded.  Ultimately, we decided that we would go with option 1 and allow ourselves to be vulnerable and experience all that this situation had to offer.

At the recommendation of our attorney, we quickly contacted a social worker and scheduled our first home study visit.  We knew that things needed to move quickly, we didn't want to wait around to get the process in order, we didn't want to be scrambling at the last minute.

Life was bliss.  We had a baby on the way, and an unbelievable story about his entrance into our lives.  It was just absolutely above and beyond what we could have imagined.

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Love and Loss {Part One}

At the beginning of 2013, Kain and I challenged ourselves to "get serious" about adoption.  We were ready to be parents.  We knew that adoption was our plan.  We acknowledged that usually, adoptions don't complete themselves.  It was decided that before my 30th birthday (in March) we would complete the application to the agency we had chosen and start moving toward expanding our family.

*****

There is a certain doctor's office that most women visit just once a year. I was there. For that appointment. And I was late. I hate being late. Finding a doctor who will take me on as a patient has been difficult because my condition is very rare; an estimated only 2-5 out of 200,000 births. My current doctor is about 50 miles away from home. Being late is sometimes unavoidable, especially when the highway is under construction. 

In my flustered state, I rushed through the doors and went immediately to the reception desk.  I honestly didn't even see her standing there in front of a row of windows.  It was while I was digging through my purse for my insurance card that I first heard her talking. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop.  That's rude, of course.  But, other than the receptionist, she and I were the only people in the silent room.  Even as I tried not to listen, it was impossible not to hear.

I heard her say something about "five months" and "had no idea." I heard her say that "it wouldn't be fair to her other kids" and that it was "so crazy to be able to see a face already." My heart stopped when I heard her say, "I'm not going to kill it, I just want to find it a family that can love it and take care of it."

I was only getting one side of this conversation, and I had walked into the middle of that as it was. But I knew. I knew she had just found out she was pregnant and she was looking for an adoptive family for her baby. And I couldn't help myself. 

I dug through my purse and found a piece of paper, I borrowed a pen from the receptionist who was oblivious to what was happening as she updated my personal information and added my new insurance to my file. I was shaking so badly that I had to start over, but I managed to scribble out

"My husband and I are hoping to adopt. You should call me. Seriously. 

Kate" 

I wrote my phone number on the paper and took a deep breath. Then I turned around and handed it to her just as the receptionist told me to head back to the exam room. I watched her read the note and she looked up at me and said "Thank you. Thank you very much." I smiled, nodded my head and walked through the door to my appointment. 

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