RiSk Or ReGrEt???

    Several years have gone into planning what our future family might look like and there were a few years in there that we were not ready for a family of our own for so many reasons and God's timing now makes sense. However, as many of you know, we opened our hearts to adoption (both public and private) over this past year and really trusted that God opened these doors for a reason and had a plan. We also started taking more risks by pursuing adoption.

   We were over the moon to actually get an approved home study in the fall, with Aaron's medical history hanging over our heads many were skeptical that we could even pass a home study. We also had an unexpected blessing just a few weeks following that which would open more doors than we ever knew were possible. There are also sweet friends who keep their eyes and ears open for kiddos who needed a good home and are still recommending us as a forever family whenever possible to their families, friends, and acquaintances.

    Those of you who have adopted or have considered adopting know that adoption is rather complicated and can take a long time. The matching process, well it's something that can be both exciting and terrifying all at once. It can also take two weeks, two months, two years or even more. Through the state adoptions, you are able to do some of your own searches of children who need a home and are eligible for adoption. (We have that site bookmarked and look through it frequently.) The public system we are involved with also hosts special events from time to time that we are invited to go and meet actual children that need a forever home. In private adoptions, you leave it to someone to share your story and in our case a book about our family and pray that a birth mom chooses you. There is also a time period even after you are matched and a potential child enters your home that you continue to work with agencies to make sure they are in a home that is best suited for them and are doing well.

     Our first inquiry was from the public agency in November. It was a sibling group. The agency got right back to us and let us know that they hoped to match this group with a family where one parent could stay at home with them full time, something we were not prepared to do. We were excited to inquire and at the same time slightly disappointed for the potential match to be done so soon, of course we also knew that realistically it was the first of what we knew would be many.

    In early December we received a call about a sibling group. It seemed to good to be true that we may get kids for Christmas but we soon started getting a lot of details about the process and what we were potentially committing to. There were several phone calls and texts back and fourth. We started to get excited about the possibilities of having a match. After some waiting to find out the next steps, we found out that there were some concerns with Aaron's medical history being matched with children younger than school age. The agency had to consider the possibility of our family not being the best match for this sibling group. Even though we understood, we had really gotten our hopes up and we were really disappointed when it was all said and done. Again we knew there would be more matches and this was just a part of the process to find the right family for the siblings. 

   Right after we returned to school in early January, we received a call from our adoption lawyer (who we have been connected with off and on for over the past two years) with the exciting news of a birth mom who picked us to be the parents of her soon to be born baby. She was having a boy and was due mid April. Less than two weeks later, we had the opportunity to met our potential birth mom. Even though she had already picked us, I was convinced that she may not like us after she met us and change her mind but as you can probably guess, our visit went great. It was so much easier than I ever thought it would be and we had a nice lunch. Aaron and I spent the rest of January and most of February keeping our news as quiet as we could and were "cautiously optimistic", which was advice given to us by friends who have adopted. Once we started signing paperwork and finances were involved (this is part of private adoption)  sometime in February we finally started sharing our exciting news. With more advice from friends, we bought only the bare necessities. If you know me well you know that this took a lot of self control and I had to revert to window shopping for the meantime. As much as we appreciated all of our families and friends excitement we also requested no showers be thrown before the baby was born, again more advice given to us. We were excited to have our second visit with our birth mom the middle of March. It was even better than our first visit, we had ice cream and our birth mom surprised us and gave us her recent sonogram pictures to keep! We made plans for the hospital when the baby was born. We left the visit reassured that this was really happening and we were going to be parents in a month or less. It was hard to contain our excitement. I started to make arrangements to be off work, we packed a diaper bag and even put the car seat in the car so we were ready when we got the call. We started getting serious about baby names and even found a pediatrician we liked. Before we knew it, it was already April and we were weeks or days away from that phone call to let us know that we needed to come to the hospital to meet our baby boy.

     We got what we thought was THAT call one rainy Saturday afternoon as we were running errands around town. As soon as we saw who was calling our hearts skipped a beat and we answered as quick as we could only to find out that the baby boy had been born and the birth mom had decided to keep him. While we knew that was a possibility all along and she had every right to choose to parent, we were crushed and also taken by surprise. I didn't really want to talk to anyone and tell everyone the disappointing news so we spent the next hour texting, private messaging, and emailing everyone who knew about the adoption and were eagerly awaiting the news of the baby's arrival with us.

    There is a lot of risk involved in public or private adoption (and fertility treatments too). We have known that all along and are prepared as much as we can be. As trying as these past few months have been and as difficult as the past few weeks were, at least we can say we have no regrets.

One of the reasons we continue to choose to take risks is so we have no regrets.