Monday, June 11, 2007

Match maker, match maker - Adoption Journey Part 4

Originally posted June 15, 2006:

I left off Part Three with finding out that E had cheated on me.

I should back up half a step.

The week before I found out that E was cheating, we had gone to an adoption agency and met with the Birth Parent Counselor there. She was nice and gentle with us. We decided to go with her agency, basically because my Dr. and the hospital (where I would be delivery) recommended them. We looked through profiles and selected several that we were interested to take home and look through.

We had simple criteria:
Had to be Christian
Had to baptize our child
Could not have another child - this one was huge for me, I wanted Baby to go to a couple that was waiting for their first child, because I wanted to give couples that had been waiting for a while a chance.

That was pretty much it.

We were also sent home with tons and tons of paperwork that we had to fill out and return in the next couple of weeks. We had to detail our medical background and that of our families. We were very honest that there was cancer and downs syndrome in E's family line and there was breast cancer and heart disease in my family line. We understood that there might be couples out there that didn't want a physically or mentally challenged child.

As we started going through this process, I was very open and honest with my friends, family and co-workers. One of my co-workers had a friend whose brother and sister-n-law were dealing with IF and were thinking of adopting. I went to meet them, but they were not right for me. We didn't click. Plus they were not going to raise the Baby in any faith or baptize her...so I chose to pass on them and just look through the agency.

We went through the profiles and selected one couple. That's it. I realized that we were putting all of our eggs in one basket...but I just knew that were the ones. They were the parents of my Baby. I didn't look through them until the weekend, when one of my best friends, Heidi, who was supporting me through the entire pregnancy came over to visit with me. Her and I were looking through the profiles, I kept setting one aside. I read through it...but I just didn't know. I showed it to Heidi, she agreed it was good but we should look through them all. After every profile that I read through, I would pick up the one I had set aside. I was just so drawn to this profile.

I showed it to E and he agreed that we should call the agency and get the phone number of the prospective parents. So the next day I did.

What grabbed me in the profile was that they had lost twin girls five months into their pregnancy and they wanted to give them a "sibling". They weren't trying to replace what they lost, they were just trying to build or re-build their family. They had pictures of their cats (one cat had her paws in men's shoes...it was hysterical), of their family, of their home and of their church.

From the moment that the Lord told me adoption was the route for Baby, I never looked back. I never hesitated, I never stopped. I drew from the strength that the Lord gave me and was dedicated to my decision.

On July 1st, I made the phone call (that was the date, right J?)...the call that changed a families life forever.

**To Be Continued.**

J and B add:
Waiting, Waiting, Waiting.

I don’t do good with uncertainty. That’s why infertility was so devastating to me, but at least I had some control. There were tests we could have done, procedures we could try. I even went through IVF twice at the young age of 23, I was just determined to have a baby. It took losing the twins to let go, but it wasn’t easy. I cried every day right up until we were matched with a birthmother. I always felt incomplete without children. But with the adoption, I knew we had made the right choice, I felt like it was just in God’s plan for us, unfortunately it took a long painful journey to be able to see that plan. So we finished our profile, which was put into a book with other couples hoping to adopt and were told to wait. I had to give up control. The control was in the hands of the birthparents, but I had faith the right one would find us at the right time.

Waiting wasn’t easy. I kept busy with my job at the hospital, and I even took a summer course to keep busy, but I was always wondering, has our child been conceived yet, is a birthmother looking at my profile today? I was told the first month of waiting was the hardest, they were right. I was frustrated after only 6 weeks of waiting. In June 2004 I started seeing an acupuncturist for some back pain from a car accident and he kept saying he could treat my infertility. It was tempting. July 1, 2004 I woke up upset and cried to B that I was thinking of trying to conceive again. He said we would talk about it when he got home from work that day. I was upset all morning, until my cell phone rang at work. I looked at the caller ID… The adoption agency!!! They told me a birthmother was interested in us BUT... she was 28 years old and married but getting a divorce. I was warned in our home study that 1/3 of adoptions the birthparents change their minds, before even talking to them, I was sure that they would reconcile and change their minds, so my excitement dulled a bit. I called B and my mom to share the news. When I got home from work there was a message on our answering machine from Beth, a birthmother who wanted to talk. My heart just pounded….

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MOL_Am_Ris said...
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