The news we received on April 1st was no April fools joke! It was real! We had been matched again!!!! Although exciting news, we were told to be "cautiously optimistic" (the words we were told for the previous situation). Those two words certainly made us proceed with caution. As with anything in life, situations can change directions in the blink of an eye. It happened with the previous situation . . . it could happen again. We guarded our hearts in many ways as a means of protecting it from hurt and disappointment again. That didn't stop us from praying extra hard and making preparations for our possible son to enter our home. We were ready to hold on tight and take this roller coaster ride!
Since I knew the possibilities of an upcoming adoption, I was greatly motivated to finish our adoption fundraising efforts. Adoption is an expensive undertaking that requires complete faith. Don't let finances keep you from adopting. We did not have the money to adopt either of our children, but God provided it all. When He wants something to happen, He makes a way for it to happen. We just need to be faithful and trust him completely. For our final fundraiser, we sold 29 Matthew 17:20 necklaces through my Premier Designs jewelry business. Matthew 17:20 says, "For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."
Knowing that a birthmom meeting was really going to happen greatly motivated me to utilize my spring break time to catch up on some majorly neglected household chores. I decided to proceed as if we would be quickly adding a newborn into our family, and I knew that even if the plans changed, the house would be back in order (somewhat). I worked extremely hard that week, and I am thankful I did! It felt great to feel like I had regained control of my household responsibilities! There was still so much to do, but I was able to make a huge dent.
We met our son's birthmom on Thursday, April 9th. We took her a special gift of a necklace (Premier, of course, and pink - her favorite color), a gift card, a special bookmark (because she enjoys reading), a special card with a note from us, and some flowers - a dozen beautiful pink roses. I held back tears as I watched the florist carefully prepare the bouquet. I didn't expect to be so emotional! I wanted everything to be just perfect for her, and they looked wonderful! It was the least we could do to express our love and care for her! Eric and I were both nervous ... What to say, what to think, what would happen? This was new territory for us for we have still not met Eli's birthmom. We definitely had to trust God.
The Lord ran that meeting. We didn't feel nervous during the meeting. God guided the conversation. The birthmom was able to ask us important questions and we asked her a few questions. She gave us copies of her ultrasound pictures - our first view of our son! When we were asked how we would share adoption with her son, Eric was able to share the gospel. We left knowing that even if this adoption didn't work out, the birthmom heard the gospel and was challenged to seriously think about the Lord. Please be praying for her relationship with Christ - the most important one of all! It was really hard seeing this birthmom having to process through this difficult decision of love. It was obvious that she was having a hard time, and rightfully so. She really cared about her son and wanted to make sure she was selecting the right family for him.
Cautiously confident is a great way to describe our feelings after our meeting. It went well. We weren't nervous during the meeting. She appreciated our gift. We left with a hug. We felt like the birthmom was solid in her decision, but we also so very well knew the reality of her mind changing.
Now what? On to more waiting! Adoption involves patience due to the large amount of waiting involved! What was this period of waiting like? So many unknowns! It's hard to prepare for something big like this when you're not sure whether or not it will really happen. How invested should we get? How excited should we get? Our caseworker wanted us to keep the situation on the DL, because it was another risky situation. In our time of waiting, only a few people could know, so we had to keep going on with our lives as normal, even though in reality it wasn't normal. Our normal was about to be turned upside down (hopefully).
We continued making preparations at home in case our son would be coming home. I continued to work hard at getting the house ready. I had so much school work to complete, especially since spring break was a wash as far as that went. I had originally hoped to use spring break to grade some important papers, but those plans obviously changed. I had many sleepless nights (or almost sleepless nights). Eric also had preparations to make for the posibility of being away from work for a little bit (it's tough to be away when you are the headmaster of a school, but he has an incredible assistant). Another huge preparation was helping Eli prepare for his new role as older brother. We purchased some big brother books which helped tremendously. We took the risk and openly talked with Eli about a baby coming into our home. We cautiously made him as much of the process as we could. We even got him a new big brother shirt to help make his becoming a big brother a big deal. Eli handled it well. He was faithful to pray for his baby brother. He would also ask us when baby brother was coming.
Another preparation was updating our medical documents. They expired on April 20/21, so we had to work fast! On the way back home from our birthmom meeting (which is when we found out that our medical forms were about to expire - can't adopt without them current), I made calls to set up appointments. Guess what?! Our doctor was out of the country! Bloodwork was required that other facilities wouldn't do for us. Another doctor wasn't accepting new patients. I kept hitting road blocks. Finally, we decided to do our bloodwork almost a week before our actual physicals so that the bloodwork would be back in time for our doctor to review the results and sign off on our papers. Thankfully, she returned to the country in time. (Side note - I found out that the lady who always does our bloodwork is a Christian. I love the conversations adopting children can open up!) We also had to get a medical form signed for Eli. All of that was completed on April 20th.
Before the completion of our medical forms, we were just waiting . . . still no word from our caseworker . . . The birthmom was not due until April 30th, and then we would still have to wait for the ten-day revocation period to end once she signed release papers. That would have put having a placement around the week of May 10th. No big deal because the school semester would be almost over. Haha! That would have given us too much time to get things ready on our own. God wanted us to have to depend on Him.
Monday, April 20th - Here's the email I sent to my administrators at 11:47 . . .
"I just received a call from Eric. He just got off the phone with our caseworker. Our son was born on April 16th!!!!!!!!!!! The birthmother named him what we wanted him named. She signed surrender papers on the 17th. She has until the 27th to change her mind, but it doesn't seem like she will. Our placement can happen anytime between next Tuesday and the first of May." Wow! That was some news! Eric's call was during class change, so I still had one more class to teach - and I had to walk right in to class and act like nothing had happened! I had just heard that my son had been born and couldn't say anything!
By Wednesday, I was in a meeting with my administrators to make plans for maternity leave that would begin that following Tuesday! Typically, pregnant moms have months to prepare to be out of school, but I had days! As He always does, the Lord had a perfect sub plan in mind: two teachers and an outside sub covered my classes. The outside sub was a wonderful jewelry show guest from the end of the year. She didn't want to attend the jewelry show but came anyway. She fell in love with a bracelet, so our checkout conversation included her saying that she used to be an English teacher but had stayed home with her kids for a while. She was looking to get back into the classroom and offered to sub for me if I ever needed her to. Well, she was ready, willing, and available when I took her up on her offer! I love how God orchestrates even the little details and begins preparing us for future events long before they even happen! Love Him!!!!!
Those next few days were CRAZY! So much to do that didn't get done. Eric was busy preparing to miss almost two weeks of school (out for our adoption and jury duty). I was getting all of my sub work together, meeting with my subs, grading papers, having and closing out several jewelry shows, and wanting so much to get baby items ready and hopefully sleep at some point! Still, only a small group of people were able to know what was going on. God helped us, though. A special friend came over and did some cleaning and laundry for me. Such a touching time for me, and a life saver!!!
We found out that Friday that our placement would be that upcoming Tuesday! It was becoming more real, but we still remained cautious and guarded because the birthmom had until midnight that Monday to change her mind. We kept proceeding as if it would happen.
On Sunday, I was finally able to pull out and wash bottles and sort through Eli's baby clothes to hopefully find something for our new son to wear in a few days. Thankfully, I kept everything of Eli's. Even though Eli was a December baby, there were still some clothes that Zeke could wear in the spring. Isn't God good?!?! He provides just what we need when we need it! While the dishwasher and washing machine were running, I was finishing up grades - everything had to be finished before I left school Monday. I had to act like the school year was over! (I was teaching multiple upper-level English courses, so the grading took a while.) I ended up getting two hours of sleep, just enough to carry me through the day - the difficult day of telling my students that I wouldn't be returning for the school year. God certainly gave Eric and me the strength we needed to get ready!
That night, we finished up what we could and went out to dinner for the last time as a family of three!
We had a wonderful time and even let
Eli have big brother ice cream! There's so much more we wanted to do as a family and for Eli, but there wasn't time nor energy. We were spent!!!! It was crazy thinking about how we would drive to Macon the next day and come back as a family of four!
Our hearts were heavy all month for Zeke's birthmom, but they were extremely burdened for her that Monday night. Once midnight came, the deal was done. No turning back. We prayed for her as did the small group of people who knew about our situation. I wanted to stay up until midnight just in case our caseworker contacted us with changing news, but I was able to sleep. Eric was up at midnight, though. No call. No message. It was done!
The awaited day arrived! We made it to Tuesday! We were finally going to meet our son!!!!! We woke up feeling like we could finally be fully excited - no reservations - this was really happening! We loaded up the car and headed to Macon.
We met Eric's parents for lunch. I'm surprised I was able to make myself eat! Eric and I both had knots in our stomachs! We were getting nervous. So much had happened in such a short time that we had not had time to process what was about to happen!
After some great time of fellowship, we made our way to Covenant Care to bring Zeke home!
What a roller coaster ride!!! If I could name a roller coaster, I would certainly name it April Adoption! Many ups and downs, but so worth it!!!
Check back soon for the placement story!
