Shane and I realize we have been far from perfect at the daily blogging this November for National Adoption Month. In an effort to make up for our absence (due to traveling and waiting for our third child to arrive any minute), I have an amazing story to share with you.
Every child is a miracle but adoption stories tend to be extra miraculous (at least in my opinion). What I learned with our Ruby's adoption is that it takes multiple miraculous happenings woven into a huge "miracle explosion" (to use our friend Tamra's perfect description) to create most adoption stories. This story is one that I have been allowed the humbling opportunity to be a very small part of. I'm so grateful for the prompting I received to immediately share about what I thought was just another adoption situation. I thank my Father in Heaven for allowing me such a magnificent chance. I thank my adoption friends for fostering online and real-life communities where we can support and help one another in our efforts to assist precious children in finding their forever families -- communities where I feel comfortable and encouraged in sharing outreach situations in hopes that families will be grown or created. I thank my beautiful, thoughtful sister-in-law, Kim, for taking the time to call me in the middle of a busy day to ask me to share information with my hoping to adopt friends about a situation. I thank my childhood friend Nicole, with whom I had a chance recent reconnection on facebook, for following her prompting to call a friend whose heart was breaking and to share a little bit of hope. Lastly, I thank sweet Antoinette for being willing and taking the time to write and share this touching story with us all. Here is her story:
Our fourth child Logan was only three months old when we had a very strong feeling that there was another child trying to come to our home. We spent the next several months searching, looking, and praying for what direction to take. Do we go back to LDS Family Services, try to contact adoption attorneys, or try a private agency? The questions just kept coming. We knew that she was out there somewhere, but where? None of these options felt right. From October 2008 until February 2010 we had worked with seven different birth-moms. None of them ended up choosing our family. We were disappointed to say the least; heartbroken might be a better word. In June 2010 we finally felt peace about putting our papers in with LDS Family Services. We continued to sit and wait. The feeling of our child continued to get stronger and stronger within our hearts.
Friday October 22nd one of my friends called. She said, "I have been thinking about you for the last two days, are you OK?" I erupted in emotion. Where is this child that I feel inside of me? Why can’t I find her? My friend said she was sorry, she didn’t know why I had to go through this, but she knew that God loved me. By the time I got off of the phone I felt better. I felt like I could make it one more day. That night at about 7:00pm another one of my friends called, her name is Nicole. Nicole is a friend of Megan’s. She said that minutes earlier she had gotten on Facebook and Megan had posted a message. The message said: Adoption Friends: FYI, I just heard there is a full AA baby girl due Nov. 15th in WA State through The Adoption Center of Choice. If interested, please contact Karen @ ……
Nicole said, "I don’t know if you are interested, I just thought I would call and let you know." My husband was out of town with the boy scouts so I couldn’t call and talk to him about it. I went to bed that night with no desire to do anything about this. I slept better that night then most, which was a good thing for what would end up happening over the next couple of days. I was really going to need that one night’s sleep because the next week would be spent with virtually no sleep at all. I got up the next morning and jumped into the shower before my kids got up. Ideas just kept coming through my mind. Could we afford a private adoption? Was this really our child? I thought that she was going to come through LDS Family Services? As questions flew through my mind, answers came just as fast.
My husband called at 11:15am Oct. 23rd saying they had been rained out and they were on their way home. I told him about what Nicole had said. He said he wasn’t that interested. I said that it just kept eating at me and asked him if it would be okay if I just called and asked about it. He said sure there was no harm in calling. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal -- she wasn’t due until November 15th so we had some time to think about it. But I could not stop the feeling of call right now.
At 11:30 I called Karen. She told me that there was another family interested but we could give her our information too. I told her a little bit about us and she was surprisingly interested. Karen told me that this birth-mom had already had three families back out on her for one reason or another. The birth-mom was also being induced on Monday the 25th because of some complications. If we were interested we needed to get all of our information faxed from LDS that day, and have the check in hand. We would have to get to Washington by the next night to meet the birth-mom and she wanted us at the hospital Monday morning for the delivery. My heart started racing. What was I supposed to do? This was crazy. Could this really be our child? Karen told me I needed to get off the phone and talk to my husband about it. Well that was easier said than done. My husband was in an area I wasn’t sure if he could get service. Fortunately he was able to pick up when I called. I updated him on the situation. Then I asked, “What do you think I should do?”
Surprisingly he said, “Go for it.” Go for it? Are you serious? My husband in never rash in a decision, he likes a couple of days to think about anything big.
I asked again, "Really?"
"Yes, Heavenly Father will stop it if it is not our baby."
I asked again, “Are you sure?”
He said, “I have been thinking about it since the last time we spoke and I actually feel really good about it.”
So I started the paperwork game. Calling between all of the people that needed to send paperwork back and forth. I spoke with Karen one more time. I really felt like if we said we were all in this would be our baby. I called Brady back one more time.
I said, "Are you all in, because if you are I really believe that we will end up getting this baby."
He said, "I am 100% in."
I called Karen back and told her we were 100% in, she then told me that the birth-mom wanted to place with us. Karen said, “Then she is yours!”
What did my little ears just deceive me? Did she say, “She is yours?” Mine, really?! Just like that?
At that point it was a crazy race to get everything done in just a few hours. We were frantically trying to get everything done to leave for Washington at 5:00am. I hardly slept that night. What were we going to say to this sweet birth-mom, would she even like us?
We had dinner with her and the agency representatives that night at 6:00pm. The birth mom said that she would like us to be at the hospital Monday morning while she was induced. We fell in love with our birth mom. She is such a strong person, beautiful on the inside and out. She carried such a spirit of direction with her. She knew exactly what she was supposed to do.
We met her at the hospital the next day. She was kind enough to let me and one of the agency representative stay in the room with her. After many hours of laboring our little baby girl was born at 7:00pm that night. She was 5 lbs 4 ozs, 18 inches long. She had a full head of curly dark brown hair. She was beautiful. No words could ever describe what I felt in that moment. I got to cut her umbilical cord. Tears streamed down my face in awe of this beautiful child that was going to be mine. Did God really love me that much? Really? After nine years of the adoption journey five beautiful healthy children. Could one God really love one person that much? This birth mom having such direction inside her heart to want to give this innocent spirit a mom and a dad. As I stared at our birth mom I felt inside the great strength that God must give these birth moms to be brave enough be so selfless. As I watched our child lay on her birth mom my heart ached to hold her, my heart ached to know of what this birth mom was going to do on my behalf the very next day.
The following day we took custody of our daughter, by Thursday we were given permission by the Interstate Compact to leave Washington and enter Utah -- that was its own miracle if you have ever had to deal with the Interstate Compact. It can take up to two weeks to get home sometimes.
Every one of our adoptions have come through a trail of people who didn’t even know us. And I will be forever grateful for each one of them who were willing to listen to the spirit and helped us bring our babies home. I believe that there is a plan greater than any of us know. I know that God will find a way to bring all of us our children no matter what that means may be through.
Adoption is a miracle placed on this earth for you and for me. I know that one day we will all find the road that was meant for us to bring our children home.
Every child is a miracle but adoption stories tend to be extra miraculous (at least in my opinion). What I learned with our Ruby's adoption is that it takes multiple miraculous happenings woven into a huge "miracle explosion" (to use our friend Tamra's perfect description) to create most adoption stories. This story is one that I have been allowed the humbling opportunity to be a very small part of. I'm so grateful for the prompting I received to immediately share about what I thought was just another adoption situation. I thank my Father in Heaven for allowing me such a magnificent chance. I thank my adoption friends for fostering online and real-life communities where we can support and help one another in our efforts to assist precious children in finding their forever families -- communities where I feel comfortable and encouraged in sharing outreach situations in hopes that families will be grown or created. I thank my beautiful, thoughtful sister-in-law, Kim, for taking the time to call me in the middle of a busy day to ask me to share information with my hoping to adopt friends about a situation. I thank my childhood friend Nicole, with whom I had a chance recent reconnection on facebook, for following her prompting to call a friend whose heart was breaking and to share a little bit of hope. Lastly, I thank sweet Antoinette for being willing and taking the time to write and share this touching story with us all. Here is her story:
Our fourth child Logan was only three months old when we had a very strong feeling that there was another child trying to come to our home. We spent the next several months searching, looking, and praying for what direction to take. Do we go back to LDS Family Services, try to contact adoption attorneys, or try a private agency? The questions just kept coming. We knew that she was out there somewhere, but where? None of these options felt right. From October 2008 until February 2010 we had worked with seven different birth-moms. None of them ended up choosing our family. We were disappointed to say the least; heartbroken might be a better word. In June 2010 we finally felt peace about putting our papers in with LDS Family Services. We continued to sit and wait. The feeling of our child continued to get stronger and stronger within our hearts.
Friday October 22nd one of my friends called. She said, "I have been thinking about you for the last two days, are you OK?" I erupted in emotion. Where is this child that I feel inside of me? Why can’t I find her? My friend said she was sorry, she didn’t know why I had to go through this, but she knew that God loved me. By the time I got off of the phone I felt better. I felt like I could make it one more day. That night at about 7:00pm another one of my friends called, her name is Nicole. Nicole is a friend of Megan’s. She said that minutes earlier she had gotten on Facebook and Megan had posted a message. The message said: Adoption Friends: FYI, I just heard there is a full AA baby girl due Nov. 15th in WA State through The Adoption Center of Choice. If interested, please contact Karen @ ……
Nicole said, "I don’t know if you are interested, I just thought I would call and let you know." My husband was out of town with the boy scouts so I couldn’t call and talk to him about it. I went to bed that night with no desire to do anything about this. I slept better that night then most, which was a good thing for what would end up happening over the next couple of days. I was really going to need that one night’s sleep because the next week would be spent with virtually no sleep at all. I got up the next morning and jumped into the shower before my kids got up. Ideas just kept coming through my mind. Could we afford a private adoption? Was this really our child? I thought that she was going to come through LDS Family Services? As questions flew through my mind, answers came just as fast.
My husband called at 11:15am Oct. 23rd saying they had been rained out and they were on their way home. I told him about what Nicole had said. He said he wasn’t that interested. I said that it just kept eating at me and asked him if it would be okay if I just called and asked about it. He said sure there was no harm in calling. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal -- she wasn’t due until November 15th so we had some time to think about it. But I could not stop the feeling of call right now.
At 11:30 I called Karen. She told me that there was another family interested but we could give her our information too. I told her a little bit about us and she was surprisingly interested. Karen told me that this birth-mom had already had three families back out on her for one reason or another. The birth-mom was also being induced on Monday the 25th because of some complications. If we were interested we needed to get all of our information faxed from LDS that day, and have the check in hand. We would have to get to Washington by the next night to meet the birth-mom and she wanted us at the hospital Monday morning for the delivery. My heart started racing. What was I supposed to do? This was crazy. Could this really be our child? Karen told me I needed to get off the phone and talk to my husband about it. Well that was easier said than done. My husband was in an area I wasn’t sure if he could get service. Fortunately he was able to pick up when I called. I updated him on the situation. Then I asked, “What do you think I should do?”
Surprisingly he said, “Go for it.” Go for it? Are you serious? My husband in never rash in a decision, he likes a couple of days to think about anything big.
I asked again, "Really?"
"Yes, Heavenly Father will stop it if it is not our baby."
I asked again, “Are you sure?”
He said, “I have been thinking about it since the last time we spoke and I actually feel really good about it.”
So I started the paperwork game. Calling between all of the people that needed to send paperwork back and forth. I spoke with Karen one more time. I really felt like if we said we were all in this would be our baby. I called Brady back one more time.
I said, "Are you all in, because if you are I really believe that we will end up getting this baby."
He said, "I am 100% in."
I called Karen back and told her we were 100% in, she then told me that the birth-mom wanted to place with us. Karen said, “Then she is yours!”
What did my little ears just deceive me? Did she say, “She is yours?” Mine, really?! Just like that?
At that point it was a crazy race to get everything done in just a few hours. We were frantically trying to get everything done to leave for Washington at 5:00am. I hardly slept that night. What were we going to say to this sweet birth-mom, would she even like us?
We had dinner with her and the agency representatives that night at 6:00pm. The birth mom said that she would like us to be at the hospital Monday morning while she was induced. We fell in love with our birth mom. She is such a strong person, beautiful on the inside and out. She carried such a spirit of direction with her. She knew exactly what she was supposed to do.
We met her at the hospital the next day. She was kind enough to let me and one of the agency representative stay in the room with her. After many hours of laboring our little baby girl was born at 7:00pm that night. She was 5 lbs 4 ozs, 18 inches long. She had a full head of curly dark brown hair. She was beautiful. No words could ever describe what I felt in that moment. I got to cut her umbilical cord. Tears streamed down my face in awe of this beautiful child that was going to be mine. Did God really love me that much? Really? After nine years of the adoption journey five beautiful healthy children. Could one God really love one person that much? This birth mom having such direction inside her heart to want to give this innocent spirit a mom and a dad. As I stared at our birth mom I felt inside the great strength that God must give these birth moms to be brave enough be so selfless. As I watched our child lay on her birth mom my heart ached to hold her, my heart ached to know of what this birth mom was going to do on my behalf the very next day.
The following day we took custody of our daughter, by Thursday we were given permission by the Interstate Compact to leave Washington and enter Utah -- that was its own miracle if you have ever had to deal with the Interstate Compact. It can take up to two weeks to get home sometimes.
Every one of our adoptions have come through a trail of people who didn’t even know us. And I will be forever grateful for each one of them who were willing to listen to the spirit and helped us bring our babies home. I believe that there is a plan greater than any of us know. I know that God will find a way to bring all of us our children no matter what that means may be through.
Adoption is a miracle placed on this earth for you and for me. I know that one day we will all find the road that was meant for us to bring our children home.
4 comments:
What an awesome story! Adoption truly is a miracle!
I love this story and am so grateful for social networking and for being able to call you and give you the info on this sweet baby. I prayed that she would find her home. It is an explosion of miracles in all adoption situations. LOVE ADOPTION and the sweet babies it brings into our lives. LOVE the birthmom's for the strength they have to place these sweet babies. LoVe Them!
Megan! I really, really appreciate this story. Today had been a particularly difficult day. I met you at the blue lemon just recently to cap off Adoption month I had the pink scarf on. I felt a little awkward I have been in the Autism crowd and not adoption. I felt that I really needed to be at the Blue Lemon that night. As the night was coming to an end, I thought back on how strongly I felt to be there. We closed with trading pass along cards. Once I received a pile in my hand I felt really excited to have had them. We said our goodbyes, we got into our car and my phone rang as I sat down. It was a friend telling me of a potential adoption situation. I was excited to know that I had the pass along cards from that night to give to my friend. The next day I went to a meeting And handed off the cards and felt really happy. I talked to another friend that night who told me about a little girl that they want to pursue for adoption. My heart sank and it shouldn’t have. For over for years now we, (my husband and I) have talked about adopting a little girl (somewhere between the ages of 18 months-22months,). We have thought about this girl at about the time that we started our first adoption process before our first son was born. I thought that she would be our first child since I had dreamt about her being older, it only made sense. A few months later (4 years ago) we were approved through LDS services and they called about our son. I felt so right about him but I felt confused as I had thought this little girl would come first, NO DISSAPOINTMENT JUST SURPRISED! Then it began to dawn on me, I wonder if this little girl is not to be our oldest but a toddler when we brought her home. When our son was about 15 months old he would only say mama. One day he began to say sister (around 18 months old) and shrug his shoulders and put his hands out gesturing where she was. This is a big deal because he wouldn’t say any other words. Even thinking about it makes me want to cry! At that time I had thought, I didn’t think we would have any more children. I loved our son, he had some challenges to say the least and as much as I thought we had more children to come I was beginning to feel that there would be no way that we would be able to care for more and I began to push the thought out of my head. Time passed and we began to get help for our little son. Many challenges later and much heartache we felt like we should move another city. We found a house to rent, our son was not as bothered by this house, we could run the dishwasher and he began to ask for a drink instead of falling apart on the floor because he didn’t know how to say can I have some juice. I felt very worn out and still questioned if we would ever be able to care for more children (our son was nearing 40 months old). I had a feeling to start the adoption process again and needless to say it has been very scary for me. One- how would we find this little girl and two could we do it. We went to our son’s doctor who had been helping us with treatments and he mentioned how well our son was doing. Our son began to improve as we began our second adoption process. This makes me want to cry. He continued asking for his sister. He seemed to stop lining things up and many other things he used to do, he began to get better. We were approved for adoption (this fall 2010) and I have gone through an array of emotions. Our son has continued asking for his sister and in fact has pointed out a little girl that looked very similar to the one I dreamt about. At church this past Sunday he asked if he could take a little girl home. I told me that she belonged to her family and that she wasn’t hers. He keeps asking and I do not have an answer for him as to why she is not home. I woke up this morning and was heavy hearted. I had a feeling to pop on your website and I read this post. It brought comfort to my soul. I am grateful for all of the connections to adoption. Thanks for the post and for being inspired in the story above. Emily Itsaboutlove.org profile #23532141 Dan and Emily
Wow! Adoption miracles all around you lately....Heavenly Father has definitely put you in the right spot to bless many, many lives.
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