We met with a birth mother last September - only weeks after being put on the "waiting family list". It was wonderful! She showed us a photo album full of ultrasound pictures, she asked us a million questions (most of which we expected but several of which surprised us!), and gave us confidence that she wanted to place her baby boy with US. We were going to be parents!
He was due February 18. We spent five months falling deeper and deeper in love with him, with his mom, and with the dream of being his parents. We stocked the nursery closet full of adorable baby clothes, set up the crib, stroller, car seat, and changing table, spent endless hours arguing over baby names, and prepared our work places for what we hoped would come.
It didn't come.
As often happens with adoption, she chose to keep him. We found out at the beginning of last month that we weren't getting "our little boy". We always knew this was a possibility - adoption plans fall through - but our hearts were broken. It was as if we were five months pregnant and then suddenly, we weren't.
We're not angry. We have no hard feelings toward her - moms should want to keep their babies!! For us though, this means we're back on the waiting family list and that we lost five months of our journey. We're back praying for an unknown mother and an unknown child. We're back to jumping every time the phone rings with an unknown number and we're back to dreaming of our some day... It's been a rough couple months and we're not overly thrilled to be back in this place of uncertainty. With that said, we're hopeful for what's yet to come and we're praying relentlessly that it comes SOON. We remain confident in the truth that we're meant to be parents and that God remains good in it all and through it all.
We don't know what our future will bring. We don't know if or when we'll become parents but we do know that we're surrounded by the best support system in the world and we're so thankful for each of you. Thank you for your constant love, support, and prayers. Hopefully next time will be "our time".
Trust us that if and when that time does come, we'll bombard you with copious amounts of adorable baby pictures, birth announcements, giddy statuses and obnoxious picture texts! Something for us ALL to look forward to, right?!
Keep praying our friends. We love you for it.
I'll finish with this: a beautiful and encouraging thought from a beautiful and encouraging friend:
"When it appears from Earth that God is delaying, He is really putting pieces together that you had not thought of. He is engineering circumstances so that His power and glory will be on display. When God builds a waiting period into the course of your affairs, it means that what He is doing requires it. His apparent delays are loving, purposeful, and deliberate."
