WaItInG fOr WhItLeY!

The wait is hard. Depending on how you look at it you could say we waited for 10 years, 3 years, or 3 months. We were matched on December 4th and that was also the official day our wait for Whitley began.

When we signed up with our consultants we had read about several families who were matched with a baby who was already born and they were traveling right away. I thought this would be the ideal situation and prayed it would happen to us. Who likes to wait anyhow?! Lord knows I am not very good at waiting and we had also been waiting a long time already. 

Advice from friends who have adopted (as well as having a failed match less than a year ago), was not to buy or do too much ahead of time because the biological parents always has the right to chose to parent after the baby is born. Remembering with M had told us we really did try to get excited but we still spent most of our time waiting window shopping for Whitley. We did buy a few items, including a Vera Bradley diaper bag that was on my must have list! We made Pinterest boards to "decorate" her new room when she came home. We made a list of girl names we loved. We started a registry. We went to Disney. We spent time with friends. We also gathered some of momma K's favorite treats to make her a bag for her hospital stay. 

We have learned several times over the past few years that God always has bigger and better plans for us. Our wait allowed the opportunity for us to get to know Whitley's first momma, to love her big and well and pray for her as our consultants encouraged us to do. We were able to talk about all kinds of things, things we will be able to share with Whitley when she is older. We answered questions. We talked about our pasts and our future plans and goals. We talked about how Whitley would be raised. We chose her name. We encouraged each other. We laughed. We talked about hair. We shared our favorites. We shared pictures.

We know we were lucky because our official wait for Whitely was not that long. If we had not had to wait those few months, we would have missed out on getting to know Whitley's first momma. We can't imagine our journey any other way, we love our story and we love Whitley's story even more. 

Aaron trying out the new diaper bag!

MaTcHeD!

    Those of you who have ever know anyone who has adopted or have adopted yourself world know that being matched is one of the most exciting parts of the journey, especially since it is typically the finale after the mounds of paperwork and red tape! It also means that there is an actual baby that will most likely be joining your family in the near future. Matches can happen fast (in our case less than a month) or they can take years. Matches also can depend on whether you use an agency or self match or even which preferences your family has.

    We had spent the summer updating adoption paperwork and also decided to consult (and later sign a contract) with a Christian adoption consultant that had been recommended to us (not once but twice on two different occasions by sweet friends)! This time was the right time. We worked hard to complete all of our paperwork, update our profile book, have a friend help us make a PDF file of our profile, and we completed a new home study. We were able to finish everything up and sent it all in right before Thanksgiving break.

   On Friday, December 2nd we got an email from our consultants asking us to read over a case they thought we should consider. They wanted us to let them know if we would like our profile presented to the expectant momma asap. We looked it over and without much hesitation Aaron and I quickly sent them back our "yes", little did we know that would be just the beginning of our journey to meeting Whitley and becoming her parents. When we said yes, we also knew a few pieces of important information, including the baby was a girl that was due on March 7th. We also knew her expectant momma was in Arizona.

     On Sunday, December 4th my cell phone rang about 8:30pm with a Georgia number. I usually don't answer random numbers, especially that late on a Sunday but I was glad I did because it was our consultant calling us. I remember hearing the excitement in C's voice as she told us that momma K had chosen us and we were officially matched!

Dreaming of Whitley!

    Over the next few days, we connected with the agency and K's case manager in Arizona. M knew of our failed match in the spring and was very encouraging and literally told us that we needed to get excited. She spelled it out for us, this was our last trimester and we were having a baby in March! Ahhhhhhh! We took her advice but remained cautious and ended up keeping the good news under wraps until after the holidays. M continued to explain the process and led us through the next steps.

    By the second week in December M had set up a conference call with our expectant momma K. We were super excited and equally as nervous but the call went well! Later that week we were able to exchange phone numbers and Aaron and I began to text with K and we would continue to text through the rest of her pregnancy with Whitley.

Our dream come true!