One day, near the end of September, Jim left his family and headed on a trip out of the country. When he came home a week later, he had a son...
Read as Robin shares how God answered years of prayers in a matter of days.
Several times now I have sat down to try and put our adoption journey into words to share, and have struggled. The emotions, struggles, and blessings in this journey have been so immense. After dealing with my second second trimester miscarriage we were trying to come to peace with the reality that there may not be a baby in our future. However, little things kept calling to me...the verse from 1 Samuel "for this child I have prayed" kept popping up everywhere I looked, this little wall hanging I kept seeing in the window of the hospital gift shop that said "Then we had you, now we have everything." I just couldn't find peace, and then one night it happened; clarity. I sat straight up in bed and proclaimed to my husband that we were being called to adopt. I could all of a sudden feel and hear the call so loudly. He maybe wasn't quite as convinced at first, but did not take long to feel it too.
When my husband and I first realized that our hearts were leading us to adoption, we had no idea what that meant, or how to even get started. I had family members who have adopted in various ways (foster, closed adoption), but I wasn't sure that was right for us. I had a friend who had adopted and it was an open adoption. Talking to her made me want to learn more about open adoption, so she set me up with Susan at Christian Adoption Consultants. I was so worried that we wouldn't be "good candidates" for adoption, that birth parents wouldn't choose us for multiple reasons. I called her in April with a list of questions. Susan was so kind and reassuring. She carefully outlined for us the right steps to begin, and we started our journey. We moved through the home study process very quickly, as I was very focused and motivated to get things done. We were home study approved by the end of June and saw our first situation within a few days, and even though it turned out to not be a good fit for us, it raised our hope that our baby was out there somewhere. We saw a couple more potential situations over the summer, but each time as we talked and prayed about it, something didn't feel quite right to us.
I have to admit that even though we had only been waiting a few months, I started to get frustrated and question if I had answered that "call" I had heard so loudly in the right way. My husband, Jim, is from Canada and had planned a trip to visit family and friends for two weeks at the end of September. Right before he left I joked with him that I was going to bring a baby home while he was gone. He left on a Thursday and on the following Tuesday afternoon I received a phone call saying that there was a baby born situation less than 2 hours from where we live. The baby was ready to be picked up tomorrow if we were interested; a 5 day old baby boy. That was really all of the information I had when I said "yes." I listened to the rest of the details and knew I had to call Jim in Canada and discuss it, but I knew in my heart it was yes.
Nothing could have ever prepared me for the emotional roller coaster the next 48 hours took me on that included calling my husband and telling him "Our baby is ready to be picked up!", sharing the news with the older kids, buying all of the baby essentials we would need to bring a baby home, trying to get my husband home from Canada over a week early, and jumping through some legal hoops. Within 24 hours it started to look like we had gotten our hopes up for a situation that may not work out. I was crushed, but thankful that if it wasn't truly meant to be that we found out early. I couldn't make peace with it though because in my heart I heard loudly that this was my son, waiting for me to pick him up. My husband was driving back from Canada, and had not yet made it back, so I got in the car and drove to get him just two days after we first heard about him. All of the fear and uncertainty disappeared the moment they placed him in my arms. I knew for sure that this was the child that we had prayed for, the one who motivated us to enter this journey. The Lord had granted the desire of our hearts!
The first photo taken of me by the social worker from the agency will always be my favorite, as it truly catches the true emotions I was feeling: a confusing mix of overwhelming joy in holding my son, shock, sadness for the grieving birth mom and for my husband missing these first moments, and mostly, totally in awe at this blue eyed boy who I felt like my heart had known forever.
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