Adoption Isn't Easy

Something was wrong. I could feel it in my gut.  It was Friday, two days before our drive to meet her again.  I had texted her but not gotten a response.  I got sicker as each hour passed thinking the worst. I just knew that she had changed her mind and didn't want to tell us. I kept wanting to call and tell her that was okay, that we were with her until the end no matter what.  My heart broke for her. Her c-section was days away and I couldn’t imagine what she must have been going through.  Our hearts poured out prayers for her and her family in those last days.

Saturday came with still no response and Derek and I had resolved that we were just going to try and enjoy the ride. We knew that we were right where God wanted us to be- next to K.  We just couldn’t see what came next. We spent the day distracting ourselves with shopping at goodwill’s and flea markets and just enjoying our time together.

We had planned to meet K and her family on Sunday evening and stay in a hotel. We’d then meet her at the hospital Monday morning to meet the little guy, but that was before the texts stopped happening. We felt like something about the situation was changing and it scared us.

In an adoption, the adoptive couple has little control of anything.  It's probably the scariest thing of it all. When you have biological children there are some things you can count on - you probably know gender and race ahead of time, you're pretty certain which hospital you'll be at, your family and friends can visit, and you know without a doubt that you'll be leaving with your child. Adoption just isn't like that. It's more of a grab bag- this race, this gender, this location, this name, this birth mom, and the chance that you'll be leaving empty handed.  All you can do is fill out the paperwork and hold on. 

In order to protect our hearts we decided that if we didn’t hear from her by the end of my baby shower on Sunday then we would call our agent and tell them we weren’t going to the hospital. We would give her all the privacy she needed and in turn guard our hearts.