I haven't posted much about our adoption contacts because every time I almost post something - something else comes up and I never get around to it. So here goes...
Since getting our adoption approval in November Isaiah and I have been lucky enough to have 3 adoption "nibbles" as we like to call them.
In December a sweet birth mom started emailing us. She found our profile on itsaboutlove.org and was interesting in getting to know us better. We emailed back and forth everyday for about 3 weeks and then...nothing. One day she stopped emailing us and didn't return any of the emails we sent her. We realized getting to know a birth mom is like dating again (in a weird sort of way) and we just got dumped :) LOL. She was an amazing women with a hard choice. We're not sure if she decided to place her baby for adoption or not but either way we wish her nothing but the best. We're grateful for her emails because it's exciting to have any contact with a birth mom early in the process that it made the first few months in adoption land eventful.
Our next nibble came in February. We got a call one morning from our case worker. A baby boy had been born prematurely the night before and they needed to place the baby in the next 48 hours. The little boy was born at 26 weeks and only weighed 1.5 lbs. We went to the NICU to see him and he was the smallest person we had ever seen! The nurses were amazing and gave us a realistic idea of what we could expect if we adopted him. Since he was extremely premature he would likely have some special needs.
Isaiah and I left the hospital and did a lot of praying. I think we both wanted to give this little guy a home so badly that we didn't really listen to the uneasy feelings we felt when we prayed. About an hour before we were supposed to sign the adoption papers we received a call from our case worker. She said the nurses had done an MRI on the baby's brain and had found level 2 bleeding. Isaiah and I were crushed. We looked online and found out babies that small regularly had severe bleeding in their brain and that level 2 could quickly progress to level 3 which is normally fatal. We hung up with the case worker and prayed again. We realized that as much as we wanted to have this baby in our home our Father in Heaven had different plans for him. The hardest thing we have ever had to do was call our case worker and tell them we couldn't adopt this baby.
While this experience was so difficult I am so grateful we went through it together. It taught me how to sincerely pray and receive answers, it brought Isaiah and I closer together, and it taught me how precious life is and that our Father in Heaven has a plan for all his children. Unfortunately because of HIPAA laws we may never know how the little baby is doing but we hope his is well and that he found the family that he needed to go to.
Our last adoption nibble came a few weeks ago also from itsaboutlove.og. The birth mom asked us a few questions but didn't give us any information about herself. Our case worker called a few days later to get some more information about us for her. We still don't know anything about the birth mom so we'll see if anything comes of it.
We've found a pattern in our birth mom contacts. It seems like they come every other month so I'm expecting our next contact will be around June :) We'll see. Although the adoption world is full of crazy emotional highs and lows I am sooooo grateful that Isaiah and I have the blessing of starting our family this way. Through adoption I've learned that every child deserves a loving home, that our Father in Heaven loves ALL his children and that life is precious. .I am very blessed to have an amazing husband who is just as excited as I am to adopt.
We are grateful for everyone who has kept us in their prays and who has told someone they know that we are adopting. One - third of all adoptions come through referral so we really are grateful for everyone's help.
