Hardship Can Be Beautiful

For the last four months, my husband and I have been on a roller coaster ride pursuing a private adoption of twin boys.  Whoa!  Do you need a minute to digest that information?  Through the power of social media, it was brought to our attention that there was a young mother not too far from where we live pursuing placing her twin boys up for adoption.  Without too much thought, we decided to pursue it.  We had been trying to choose an adoption agency and having a really hard time, so when this fell into our laps, I felt it was an answer to prayer as I did not want to go through an agency.  Back and forth with significant lapses of time in between communication, we sent our biographies, were told the birth mother was going to start interviewing couples, did not hear anything for weeks knowing that each day that passed was one closer to the birth, finally met the birth mother during a beautiful 2-hour meeting at a park, started and completed our home study in 3 weeks, five weeks later told we were one of two couples they were deciding between, another visit with the birth mother and then BAM! we were chosen as the adoptive couple with two weeks to prepare for two boys and having nothing other than a pair of yellow socks meant for an infant.  At that point, we started attending a handful of doctors appointments, friends, family and strangers donated items so that we could be prepared for the boys arrival and we did the next appropriate thing, contact our lawyer.  With just days until the scheduled C-section was set to take place and our excitement growing hourly on meeting our sons, we had our lawyer send over the appropriate paperwork for the adoption to take place and for us to obtain temporary POA as one of the boys was going to need extensive medical care.  Well with that move, all communication from the birth mother and grandmother ceased.  Matt was very calm and felt nothing was askew as throughout this whole process, there were many times where we would not hear anything for weeks.  I was not as calm as the boys were due any day as the birth mother has already started experiencing contractions.  On a Friday, as I was preparing for my youngest sister's wedding rehearsal, Matt called with the heart stopping news that we were no longer chosen to adopt the twin boys.  WHAT?!?  I exclaimed into the phone.  He said a text message had been sent to our emails stating that due to the legal paperwork, the birth mother had lost faith in us, our bond of trust was broken and the adoption was off.  Well, as you can probably imagine, we were heart broken.  Lose their trust???  All the paperwork sent over was normal protocol!  This did not make any sense.  Something was going on.  Matt proceeded to call the birth mother, grandmother and text back the number that sent us the email.  No one responded.  Later that Friday night, Matt emailed the birth mother asking for more or an explanation.  Saturday dawned with no answer and with it being Leslie and Andy's wedding day, Matt gave me the pep talk to give this day over to the excitement and festivities that came with a new marriage.  I decided and prayed  to fight hard for my sister's wedding day and to focus on her.  While getting our hair done at the salon, the birth mother called me and left a message.  I did not notice the call until after leaving the salon, which I promptly called Matt five times to have him get the message off my phone so I could focus on my sister.  I was beside myself!  Matt and I finally connected and within a matter of minutes called me back saying that the birth mother had gone into labor on Friday, having never called us as was our plan, and once she saw her children, she decided to keep them.

So, that is our roller coaster ride and we still have not stopped to step off even though we are very dizzy, disheartened and weary.

Would you believe, with all the craziness described above, we still felt incredibly loved and cared for by God through the work, tears, anger, prayers and hugs of our family, friends and strangers?  We were given less than two weeks to plan for the twins and with family and friends shooting off emails and praying, our home became equipped overnight to take on these two bundles.  Once we received the news we were no longer chosen to be their parents, people consistently checked in on us, prayed for us and grieved with us.  I even felt incredibly proud of the birth mother.  She loves her children.  If there is love, comfort and safety in a home, then yes, children should be with their biological parents.  We were even protected financially.  After it was all said and done, the only money we spent included our home study, which you have to spend in ANY adoption situation and an application fee for a FL lawyer who we are still going to pursue.  Do you realize people can spend thousands on a potential adoption, have it fall through and along with heartache are out all that money?  So, as stated above, we are still finding beauty and feeling the love of Christ despite this most recent hardship.  Don't get me wrong, we were and are still very much affected by this most recent difficulty.  We are tired, discouraged, soul weary and fight against lies that pop into our heads.  BUT, we know that we are loved and there is a plan for us.

All these photos above are of all of you, the body of Christ, our family and the community, that loved on us with our most recent adoption adventure.  Thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  You are amazing, have loved us so well AND we love you!  During the mass chaos of prepping our house for the twins, I was not able to document everything.  So, to the person whom I don't even know that left two bags of clothes in our carport, the friends that offered us carseats and gave us "baby needs" lists, the strangers who supplied us with cribs, BUMBO, swings, the friends who mailed up diapers, clothes, bottles, ordered slings and so many other items, friends who offered Matt work space and offered up their homes close to the hospital where we would have been visiting Baby B, to family that supplied us with so many items and gave up their time to prep the playroom and friends that became "point people" and took over organizing so that our heads would not explode...the list goes on and on, I cannot thank you enough.  We appreciate all of you!