One thing I prayed throughout our adoption journey, particularly as the wait got longer and longer, was that God show me all the pieces that came together to bring us to the child He had for our family. Here is what I know so far:
A little over 4 years ago, our family visited Hawaii while my sister and her family were living there. Not long after returning, we decided to pursue adoption. We are now back in Hawaii bringing our dreams of adoption to fruition.
When we built our home, there were no trees on our property. Brad actually wrote a poem about our children comparing them to trees, and that is how we got the name for our blog. We have started planting trees in our yard that represent each of our children. Brandon has begged for years for us to get a palm tree. They will grow in our area but I kept telling him "no," that it just seemed kind of funny to have a palm tree when we didn't live on the beach. Here is the link to the poem and description of each child for the poem: http://our4trees.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-beginning.html
Well, our son was born in Hawaii, and both his parents are Pacific Islanders. Guess what tree grows both places? A palm tree! We told Brandon he is going to get that palm tree after all!
Simon was born March 28. Brad's mom was on a cruise the end of March and beginning of April. Guess where she was: Hawaii!
About 2 years ago, when we were trying to adopt from Ethiopia, we anticipated flying overseas to adopt our child. Once we changed to a domestic adoption, it never occurred to me we would still be flying overseas to bring our son home!
Just over 2 years ago, we started thinking about what we would name our child. We had actually changed our girl name, but we kept our boy name. Some of the reasoning behind the name Simon was discussed here: http://our4trees.blogspot.com/2013_05_01_archive.html
Simon means "hear or listen." One thing we knew about our son before we agreed to present was that he had been discovered to have mild to moderate hearing loss. At the time we selected his name, its meaning didn't have any significance, but now it does. A few months ago, we decided his middle name would be Levi, which means "attached or joined." God has known all along that Simon would be joining our family. Levi was also another name for the apostle Matthew, whose name means "gift of God." He truly is our blessing.
There have been 2 or 3 times in my life that I have felt God speaking to me about something important that I recognized the significance of after the fact. One of those times was in August 2013. I was awakened in the night and was given a date of November 2014 as something significant in our adoption. At the time, we were pursuing international adoption, and I hoped maybe it meant we would get our referral that month. In May 2014 I had another occurrence where I woke in the night and felt something significant was happening in our adoption. I literally held onto that hope for the next 15 months.
Well, in November 2014, we were accepted as new clients of Faithful Adoption Consultants and officially withdrew from the Ethiopia program after receiving discouraging news about the current state of adoptions there. Based on what we have been told, it is likely that Simon's birth mother entered into a relationship with his birth father around May 2014. He was born 10 months later.
I am so grateful to see God's hand in our adoption journey because there have been many times in the past 4 years that I have struggled to keep faith that He would fulfill this call in our lives. I can finally see all the pieces coming together in His timing, even with current things going on in our lives.
Friday, June 26, 2015
We have a son!
It finally happened and when it did, it was fast! Less than 72 hours ago we were still a waiting family and now we have our son in our arms in Honolulu, Hawaii!
So after I posted last, we got 4 more "no's" within about 3 days. I was so frustrated and tired (after almost 4 years of waiting). That was Friday, June 19. The very next morning I woke up to a couple new situations from FAC. We had to let them know ASAP because the babies were already here and they were hoping to present that same day. We agreed to present and spent the rest of the weekend anticipating an answer. Of course, when you are expecting it, it never seems to come. We didn't hear anything all weekend, so Tuesday morning, I texted Courtney to see if she had any information. She said that she had expected to hear something last night. Both situations were in Hawaii, and they are 5 hours behind us so the time difference can make communication there a little more difficult. At almost 10 pm that night, we got an email telling us one of the birth moms had selected another family. We had been told that the second birth mom would be choosing a family after the first one decided (same agency and so probably same adoptive families presenting on both).
I didn't think anything of it when a few minutes later my phone started ringing and it was Courtney. She told us that the fees on the second situation were going to be higher than originally quoted and asked if we were still okay with it. As soon as we told her we still wanted to proceed, she said "Congratulations. He's yours." I was in shock! Really, I had tried to imagine how I would react when we finally got "The Call" but it was truly unexpected!
From there on out, it was pure excitement and chaos. We ran in to tell our kids--they had all just dozed off so we woke them up to tell them they had a brother. Poor Micah had no recall the next morning of us waking her so we had to tell her again the next morning. Because our son was already here, you can imagine all the prep that needed to be done so we could leave as soon as possible. I was making notes of things to remember to do, we had to make flight arrangements as well as find a rental car and place to stay. I needed baby items and needed to make arrangements at work and for our children. We got to speak to our son's foster mom who had been raising him since birth and she sent us our first pictures of him. I stayed up all night that night after unsuccessfully trying twice to fall asleep. I was at Walmart at 5 am buying last minute items. Luckily my work schedule was light the next day and I had help from coworkers, which allowed me to run a couple more errands and make more travel reservations.
I slept about 5 hours Wednesday night. We were up at 4 am to get to the airport for a 6:50 am flight. Our connecting flight left at 10:50 EST and we arrived in Honolulu at about 1:30 pm (6:30 pm CST). We called the adoption attorney, got our rental car, and went to the place we had booked to stay in. We spoke with our son's foster mom and she agreed to bring him over a couple hours later. We made a quick trip to eat dinner and buy some groceries. She arrived around 6:15 pm and we got to meet our precious son for the first time. We were so grateful for the wonderful care he received the first 3 months of his life and his foster mom was so helpful in telling us his schedule and things he liked. More on next post. . .
So after I posted last, we got 4 more "no's" within about 3 days. I was so frustrated and tired (after almost 4 years of waiting). That was Friday, June 19. The very next morning I woke up to a couple new situations from FAC. We had to let them know ASAP because the babies were already here and they were hoping to present that same day. We agreed to present and spent the rest of the weekend anticipating an answer. Of course, when you are expecting it, it never seems to come. We didn't hear anything all weekend, so Tuesday morning, I texted Courtney to see if she had any information. She said that she had expected to hear something last night. Both situations were in Hawaii, and they are 5 hours behind us so the time difference can make communication there a little more difficult. At almost 10 pm that night, we got an email telling us one of the birth moms had selected another family. We had been told that the second birth mom would be choosing a family after the first one decided (same agency and so probably same adoptive families presenting on both).
I didn't think anything of it when a few minutes later my phone started ringing and it was Courtney. She told us that the fees on the second situation were going to be higher than originally quoted and asked if we were still okay with it. As soon as we told her we still wanted to proceed, she said "Congratulations. He's yours." I was in shock! Really, I had tried to imagine how I would react when we finally got "The Call" but it was truly unexpected!
From there on out, it was pure excitement and chaos. We ran in to tell our kids--they had all just dozed off so we woke them up to tell them they had a brother. Poor Micah had no recall the next morning of us waking her so we had to tell her again the next morning. Because our son was already here, you can imagine all the prep that needed to be done so we could leave as soon as possible. I was making notes of things to remember to do, we had to make flight arrangements as well as find a rental car and place to stay. I needed baby items and needed to make arrangements at work and for our children. We got to speak to our son's foster mom who had been raising him since birth and she sent us our first pictures of him. I stayed up all night that night after unsuccessfully trying twice to fall asleep. I was at Walmart at 5 am buying last minute items. Luckily my work schedule was light the next day and I had help from coworkers, which allowed me to run a couple more errands and make more travel reservations.
I slept about 5 hours Wednesday night. We were up at 4 am to get to the airport for a 6:50 am flight. Our connecting flight left at 10:50 EST and we arrived in Honolulu at about 1:30 pm (6:30 pm CST). We called the adoption attorney, got our rental car, and went to the place we had booked to stay in. We spoke with our son's foster mom and she agreed to bring him over a couple hours later. We made a quick trip to eat dinner and buy some groceries. She arrived around 6:15 pm and we got to meet our precious son for the first time. We were so grateful for the wonderful care he received the first 3 months of his life and his foster mom was so helpful in telling us his schedule and things he liked. More on next post. . .
Monday, June 15, 2015
Mid-June 2015 Update
Another month has escaped us. We have been given 11 more situations since I last wrote and have chosen to present on 6 of those. 4 of the ones we chose to present on have come up in the past week and we are currently waiting for the birth mom to make a decision. The baby is already here on 2 of the current situations so IF we were to be chosen, I imagine we would travel immediately.
It is still hard. We go between highs, like now, where we are waiting with hope for the "yes" we have been praying for, and then we have weeks with nothing but silence and doubt if we will ever be picked by a birth mom.
Each time we are told "no" cuts a little deeper. We have had 6 so far, with a couple being especially tough because we were really drawn to the particular situation. I have given up trying to figure out maybe this one is the "one" because the circumstances fit so well. We got one of the tough "nos" last Monday morning while at work, and it made for a hard day. I considered asking our consultant to hold the "no" emails until later in the day so I wouldn't be distracted and upset at work, but I'd rather know as soon as possible than keep holding out hope we got picked. Most of the time, we end up waiting a full week or more from the time we first hear of the situation until we get a response so it is hard enough waiting those 7 days in anticipation. I am a planner by nature and initially I would spend that waiting time thinking about the "what ifs" if we were to get picked with each situation: How much advance notice are we getting? What arrangements will we need to make for our children? What kind of travel (car, airline, car rental, what airport, etc) would be involved? What about a hotel/place to stay? What will we need for this particular baby depending on size and gender (if known)? What kind of funding are we looking at needing? What will we get the birth mom? How involved will we be with the delivery? How involved does the birth family desire to be after placement? What kind of arrangements do we need to make with our jobs? I'm sure all this thinking makes me more emotionally attached so I have been trying not to think much about the situations.
We know one of our biggest disadvantages to adopting domestically is the fact that we have 3 biological children. Birth moms often want childless couples and/or infertile couples. We miss out on many situations because we have children and probably are not considered on many once the birth mom sees we have children. It is a common misconception that an adoptive family will favor biological children over adopted children--if only they knew how much was involved to be eligible to adopt and how expensive it was! I can't imagine anyone going through all this to treat the adopted child like a second class citizen!
Micah 7:7 But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
It is still hard. We go between highs, like now, where we are waiting with hope for the "yes" we have been praying for, and then we have weeks with nothing but silence and doubt if we will ever be picked by a birth mom.
Each time we are told "no" cuts a little deeper. We have had 6 so far, with a couple being especially tough because we were really drawn to the particular situation. I have given up trying to figure out maybe this one is the "one" because the circumstances fit so well. We got one of the tough "nos" last Monday morning while at work, and it made for a hard day. I considered asking our consultant to hold the "no" emails until later in the day so I wouldn't be distracted and upset at work, but I'd rather know as soon as possible than keep holding out hope we got picked. Most of the time, we end up waiting a full week or more from the time we first hear of the situation until we get a response so it is hard enough waiting those 7 days in anticipation. I am a planner by nature and initially I would spend that waiting time thinking about the "what ifs" if we were to get picked with each situation: How much advance notice are we getting? What arrangements will we need to make for our children? What kind of travel (car, airline, car rental, what airport, etc) would be involved? What about a hotel/place to stay? What will we need for this particular baby depending on size and gender (if known)? What kind of funding are we looking at needing? What will we get the birth mom? How involved will we be with the delivery? How involved does the birth family desire to be after placement? What kind of arrangements do we need to make with our jobs? I'm sure all this thinking makes me more emotionally attached so I have been trying not to think much about the situations.
We know one of our biggest disadvantages to adopting domestically is the fact that we have 3 biological children. Birth moms often want childless couples and/or infertile couples. We miss out on many situations because we have children and probably are not considered on many once the birth mom sees we have children. It is a common misconception that an adoptive family will favor biological children over adopted children--if only they knew how much was involved to be eligible to adopt and how expensive it was! I can't imagine anyone going through all this to treat the adopted child like a second class citizen!
Micah 7:7 But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Early May 2015 Update
Here we are mid-May still trudging along. The second half of April through May 1 we were presented with 7 more situations! Due to the circumstances (outside our parameters) we chose to not present on 3 of them. Of the 4 we did decide to present on, 2 chose other families, 1 stopped returning calls from her agency and never picked a family, and the last situation we were told the agency got proof the birth mother did not have intentions to place her baby for adoption so they did not present our profile.
After more than 2 weeks of no situations, we got another one today that we decided to present on. The birth mom will hopefully look at profiles on Monday so maybe we will hear something early in the week.
This waiting never gets easier. I'm not sure if it is harder to wait when we are expecting to hear back from a birth mom who has seen our profile or harder to wait to get a situation to present on. One of our situations the end of April really touched us and we really felt like it was "the one.". It was honestly really tough to find out we were not selected. We had lots of people praying for us and just really were expecting God to do big things for us in this circumstance.
I just completed an online Bible study called "What Happens When Women Walk in Faith" by Lysa TerKeurst. It was really appropriate for me right now in this adoption journey. I love Lysa's books because she has a knack for showing just how applicable even Old Testament stories can be to my life now and she pulls patterns she sees in the Bible to show how consistent God is throughout time.
We are preparing for summer as school ends this week. Another prayer we had was that we would get a baby earlier in the summer so I could be off while the kids are out of school. I've never gotten to be off in the summer, and it would save us money on childcare. That can still happen but is obviously becoming less likely.
I guess that is all for now! We pray we will have some exciting news soon!
After more than 2 weeks of no situations, we got another one today that we decided to present on. The birth mom will hopefully look at profiles on Monday so maybe we will hear something early in the week.
This waiting never gets easier. I'm not sure if it is harder to wait when we are expecting to hear back from a birth mom who has seen our profile or harder to wait to get a situation to present on. One of our situations the end of April really touched us and we really felt like it was "the one.". It was honestly really tough to find out we were not selected. We had lots of people praying for us and just really were expecting God to do big things for us in this circumstance.
I just completed an online Bible study called "What Happens When Women Walk in Faith" by Lysa TerKeurst. It was really appropriate for me right now in this adoption journey. I love Lysa's books because she has a knack for showing just how applicable even Old Testament stories can be to my life now and she pulls patterns she sees in the Bible to show how consistent God is throughout time.
We are preparing for summer as school ends this week. Another prayer we had was that we would get a baby earlier in the summer so I could be off while the kids are out of school. I've never gotten to be off in the summer, and it would save us money on childcare. That can still happen but is obviously becoming less likely.
I guess that is all for now! We pray we will have some exciting news soon!
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Early April 2015
So to update from the last post: we finally got a situation on March 30 within our parameters and were excited to present. We weren't sure how long we should expect to wait before we heard anything because we didn't even know when the birth mom would actually be seeing our profile. Of course I was checking my email about every 5 minutes because that is how we get most information from Courtney. So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday went by with no word. Early Sunday morning (Easter) after church I checked my email (again), and there was another situation from Courtney. This one was technically outside our parameters (including our home study parameters) because it was for a 2.5 year old girl. Brad immediately wanted to go for it. I was more hesitant. I am a planner and have been preparing to bring home a baby, especially since the domestic adoptions our consultant sees are almost all newborns and our home study approves us for 1-2 children up to a year old. Sure, we have been prepared in the past to adopt all age ranges but this time it was supposed to be a baby. After our close call with the birth mom in February, I have an infant car seat, Ergo baby, diaper bag, newborn travel bed, newborn clothes and diapers, and other baby essentials. All this stuff I have purchased and collected would be useless with a toddler.
After church we talked more about this situation and prayed about it. Long ago I told God that I would be obedient to His will, regardless of whether His will matches my expectations or personal wishes. I LOVE babies and my ideal situation would involve being present for the birth of our adopted child. But I decided that if I truly believe our adoption is God's desire for our family, then I needed to step out and trust His plans. So we decided to present.
We had not heard the outcome of our first situation, but Courtney thought she would hear that birth mom's decision before we presented on the toddler's situation. So all day Easter I was checking my email and all day Monday was the same. Finally, at 10:00 pm Monday night, I got an email from Courtney saying that the family who had just adopted the toddler's siblings had changed their mind and decided to pursue adopting her as well. This is obviously the best situation for the toddler because she would be raised with her biological siblings. Within a few minutes, we got another email stating that the birth mom in our first situation had chosen another family.
I was honestly prepared to be turned down. It was only our first time really presenting and the expectant birth mom preferred a family with no children. I think I took it pretty well considering we lost 2 situations in a matter of minutes. But here we are 5 days later and we are just waiting again. Thursday was 4 weeks since we "officially" became active with FAC (though we were given 3 situations prior to that time). The hours feel like days and I am dreading the anticipation that we will likely present many more times before we are chosen. It feels like it will never happen, especially since it has now been 4 years since God first planted the seed of adoption in my heart. It is hard, especially because we can't see what God knows. I guess that is life in general.
I was touched by something Brad told me Tuesday evening when he got home from jail. Ha! No, seriously he helps in the local prison ministry and goes weekly to do a Bible study. He sees a lot of the same men each week. One in particular is in jail due to not paying child support, but has talked to Brad about how he wants to do things differently when he gets out of jail. He asked Brad how our adoption is going and told Brad he is praying daily, often multiple times a day, for our adoption. That is amazing and humbling to me that a man who is incarcerated for not taking care of his children is now praying for our future child. I am so humbled that someone who must have a lot of tough things to deal with in his own life is taking the time to pray for us. I pray that he is truly a changed man through Christ.
Please pray for my patience and faith. The waiting never gets easier.
After church we talked more about this situation and prayed about it. Long ago I told God that I would be obedient to His will, regardless of whether His will matches my expectations or personal wishes. I LOVE babies and my ideal situation would involve being present for the birth of our adopted child. But I decided that if I truly believe our adoption is God's desire for our family, then I needed to step out and trust His plans. So we decided to present.
We had not heard the outcome of our first situation, but Courtney thought she would hear that birth mom's decision before we presented on the toddler's situation. So all day Easter I was checking my email and all day Monday was the same. Finally, at 10:00 pm Monday night, I got an email from Courtney saying that the family who had just adopted the toddler's siblings had changed their mind and decided to pursue adopting her as well. This is obviously the best situation for the toddler because she would be raised with her biological siblings. Within a few minutes, we got another email stating that the birth mom in our first situation had chosen another family.
I was honestly prepared to be turned down. It was only our first time really presenting and the expectant birth mom preferred a family with no children. I think I took it pretty well considering we lost 2 situations in a matter of minutes. But here we are 5 days later and we are just waiting again. Thursday was 4 weeks since we "officially" became active with FAC (though we were given 3 situations prior to that time). The hours feel like days and I am dreading the anticipation that we will likely present many more times before we are chosen. It feels like it will never happen, especially since it has now been 4 years since God first planted the seed of adoption in my heart. It is hard, especially because we can't see what God knows. I guess that is life in general.
I was touched by something Brad told me Tuesday evening when he got home from jail. Ha! No, seriously he helps in the local prison ministry and goes weekly to do a Bible study. He sees a lot of the same men each week. One in particular is in jail due to not paying child support, but has talked to Brad about how he wants to do things differently when he gets out of jail. He asked Brad how our adoption is going and told Brad he is praying daily, often multiple times a day, for our adoption. That is amazing and humbling to me that a man who is incarcerated for not taking care of his children is now praying for our future child. I am so humbled that someone who must have a lot of tough things to deal with in his own life is taking the time to pray for us. I pray that he is truly a changed man through Christ.
Please pray for my patience and faith. The waiting never gets easier.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
March 2015 Update
After our "close call" in February, we were hoping to have some exciting news by now, but we do not. It has been so frustrating but so typical of our journey. First, our home study did not actually GET to FAC until March 14 (after it was signed February 24). Thanks to all the crazy winter weather that caused work and mail delays, it apparently took almost a week for our signed home study to get from Birmingham to Huntsville (to our social worker), and then it took several more days for our social worker to get it into the mail to FAC. Then, it took 6 days to get from Alabama to Georgia! I keep reminding myself that it is all in God's timing and that His timing is the only thing that could explain the delays we've been dealing with the past 2-3 months.
This month we have been presented with 5 birth mom "situations" (March 5, March 10, March 16, March 30 and March 31). 3 of the 5 were outside our parameters, and most had unusually high amounts of money "at risk" (money that we would lose if the birth mom did not choose to place her baby for adoption). None of the situations were really what we were "expecting.". I guess there is really no such thing as "typical" when you are talking about someone's life story, especially situations where a birth family is choosing adoption for their child. When we received the information about the third situation, Brad called Courtney to talk to her. She eased some of our concerns that we were not seeing anything that was within our comfort level. We asked her if our parameters are too restrictive, and she said they were not. She said she evaluates each circumstance and will send some that are outside our parameters in case God moves in us to pursue it. She said she could stop doing that, but we told her to keep sending them. We never know if God will nudge us to pursue something we originally thought was outside our comfort zone. I mean, He's been doing it for 4 years now. . . first with just the idea of adding to our family through adoption. . . .then with considering other race/ethnicities. . . .then opening up to a sibling group. . . then came the financial risk with international and now domestic adoption. He has challenged us and pressed us so much along this journey so we can never predict what will happen next!
I am pleased and excited to report that our 5th situation (which we received tonight) we decided to present on! I think maybe God was just working in us to have more faith in our call to adoption. There are so many risks, but the greatest rewards often demand higher risks. This situation met all the criteria that were most important to us and we are excited to be considered. Though we may find out this is not our baby, we have finally taken the plunge! It at least gives me hope.
Please keep praying for our family, our baby, and the birth family! Hopefully we will have a positive update soon!
This month we have been presented with 5 birth mom "situations" (March 5, March 10, March 16, March 30 and March 31). 3 of the 5 were outside our parameters, and most had unusually high amounts of money "at risk" (money that we would lose if the birth mom did not choose to place her baby for adoption). None of the situations were really what we were "expecting.". I guess there is really no such thing as "typical" when you are talking about someone's life story, especially situations where a birth family is choosing adoption for their child. When we received the information about the third situation, Brad called Courtney to talk to her. She eased some of our concerns that we were not seeing anything that was within our comfort level. We asked her if our parameters are too restrictive, and she said they were not. She said she evaluates each circumstance and will send some that are outside our parameters in case God moves in us to pursue it. She said she could stop doing that, but we told her to keep sending them. We never know if God will nudge us to pursue something we originally thought was outside our comfort zone. I mean, He's been doing it for 4 years now. . . first with just the idea of adding to our family through adoption. . . .then with considering other race/ethnicities. . . .then opening up to a sibling group. . . then came the financial risk with international and now domestic adoption. He has challenged us and pressed us so much along this journey so we can never predict what will happen next!
I am pleased and excited to report that our 5th situation (which we received tonight) we decided to present on! I think maybe God was just working in us to have more faith in our call to adoption. There are so many risks, but the greatest rewards often demand higher risks. This situation met all the criteria that were most important to us and we are excited to be considered. Though we may find out this is not our baby, we have finally taken the plunge! It at least gives me hope.
Please keep praying for our family, our baby, and the birth family! Hopefully we will have a positive update soon!
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Whirlwind Weekend
We had a crazy few days. Thursday evening (Feb 19) we got an unexpected call from Courtney with FAC. She said there was a special circumstance involving a birth mother who'd delivered a baby girl a few weeks before and had chosen to parent her baby (after having picked an adoptive family prior to the birth). Now she was reconsidering adoption but was having trouble picking a family. Courtney wanted to know if she could show our profile PDF to the birth mom. It was a good situation for us because we would not have to pay anything or travel unless she picked us (because the first matched family had already paid prior to the birth). It was an African American baby girl. We agreed to present while realizing it was a long shot.
Friday evening we heard from Courtney and the birth mom had asked to speak with us and 2 other families on the phone the next morning. We were in Birmingham for the Mercedes Kids Marathon and the call was scheduled for right before we needed to head out to the race. Courtney called us ahead of time to answer some questions and give us some tips for the call. Brad and I prayed for the entire situation before the phone rang.
The call itself went well. The birth mom had some questions for us, primarily about how we would handle raising a black child in a white family. I guess she was satisfied with our answer because after calling Courtney from the car on the way to the race, we got a text a few minutes later that the birth mom really liked us! Later that day, we found out that she had spoken to 2 other families after us and liked both of them as well. We were asked to have another call with the birth mom the following morning. We decided to head home for the call because if she picked us, we would need to be prepared to travel within a day or so.
We got home midmorning and rushed around picking up the house and getting set up for our call. Nothing about the adoption came up in this call, but I was writing down every tidbit of information that she revealed to us in case she picked us. I wanted to know as much as I could about her to tell her/our daughter one day.
Over the next couple days, the birth mom still had not made a decision. We found out some other information that had us concerned that this birth mom really did not want to place her daughter for adoption. That information combined with her continuous delays and inability to "choose" between us and another family and some scheduling problems resulted in us asking Courtney if we could withdraw from this situation. It was hard but we felt this was the right thing to do. We have not gotten any specific information since that time about this situation, but we think that the birth mom still has not signed consent for adoption.
We did get all our paperwork sent to Courtney except our children's medical and our home study, which SHOULD get there in the upcoming week. We found out there was one additional clearance required by Alabama for ICPC that we had not completed yet. In the middle of doing all this we had some crazy weather that brought snow and missed school days.
Courtney said she would start presenting us when she got our final documents. It was a crazy stressful whirlwind few days, but it did help us to get prepared when it finally does happen for us. Hopefully March will be an exciting month for us!
Friday evening we heard from Courtney and the birth mom had asked to speak with us and 2 other families on the phone the next morning. We were in Birmingham for the Mercedes Kids Marathon and the call was scheduled for right before we needed to head out to the race. Courtney called us ahead of time to answer some questions and give us some tips for the call. Brad and I prayed for the entire situation before the phone rang.
The call itself went well. The birth mom had some questions for us, primarily about how we would handle raising a black child in a white family. I guess she was satisfied with our answer because after calling Courtney from the car on the way to the race, we got a text a few minutes later that the birth mom really liked us! Later that day, we found out that she had spoken to 2 other families after us and liked both of them as well. We were asked to have another call with the birth mom the following morning. We decided to head home for the call because if she picked us, we would need to be prepared to travel within a day or so.
We got home midmorning and rushed around picking up the house and getting set up for our call. Nothing about the adoption came up in this call, but I was writing down every tidbit of information that she revealed to us in case she picked us. I wanted to know as much as I could about her to tell her/our daughter one day.
Over the next couple days, the birth mom still had not made a decision. We found out some other information that had us concerned that this birth mom really did not want to place her daughter for adoption. That information combined with her continuous delays and inability to "choose" between us and another family and some scheduling problems resulted in us asking Courtney if we could withdraw from this situation. It was hard but we felt this was the right thing to do. We have not gotten any specific information since that time about this situation, but we think that the birth mom still has not signed consent for adoption.
We did get all our paperwork sent to Courtney except our children's medical and our home study, which SHOULD get there in the upcoming week. We found out there was one additional clearance required by Alabama for ICPC that we had not completed yet. In the middle of doing all this we had some crazy weather that brought snow and missed school days.
Courtney said she would start presenting us when she got our final documents. It was a crazy stressful whirlwind few days, but it did help us to get prepared when it finally does happen for us. Hopefully March will be an exciting month for us!
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