Our dreams have come true... two became three! We always knew God had a plan and that our perfect baby would come into our lives but we had no idea how perfect he would be. We kick ourselves for ever losing patience because we would have waited a million years for this little guy. So here is our family's story... We got the call about "baby A" on Friday, April 28th. We were told he was 6 months old and was a happy baby boy. We asked for our profile to be shown to his birth parents in hopes they would choose to meet us! Monday, May 1st, they looked at our profile and we got the call they wanted to meet us!!! On Thursday, May 4th we sat in the waiting room scared out of our minds to meet the birth parents and our possible forever baby whom we found out was named Aiden!! When they walked in, we could immediately sense how amazing they were. When they removed the blanket from his car seat we knew, this was it, he was our baby! We fell in love with him instantly! We sat there loving on him, hearing his story and learning about his birth family. We not only bonded with him but with his birth parents as well! The social workers and birth parents chose to surprise us with his middle name at that meeting.... it is RYAN!! We got chills!! For about two hours we talked, laughing and crying. It was perfect! They told us they wanted us to become his parents... our hearts exploded! We always were a little nervous about open adoption, but after meeting them, we feel honored to be able to have them in our lives! We had to wait a few days to pick him up... on May 10th we got to bring the love of our lives home. I can guarantee that no one has had a better Mother's Day than I had this year!! We have spent our days in awe of how perfect he is. Our whole family has fallen in love with him. He has learned to clap, sit up on his own, crawl and click his tongue! He loves to walk with our help, be outside and splash in the bath! June 13th... 12:30 pm.... Aiden legally became our son. It is amazing how when the perfect child comes into your life, you start thanking God for your fertility issues and failed adoptions. Without these we would not have Aiden and our lives would not be complete without him. Thanks to everyone for the thoughts and prayers! Aiden is proof that God's timing is perfect and He knows what is best. Wishing everyone happiness as huge as ours! The Jagers - Ryan, Amanda and Aiden
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We now have a playroom with a playhouse in our basement!
So Ryan didn't think I could find anymore baby projects around the house after we finished the nursery and bought pretty much everything we will need once we get our baby.... well, he was wrong. We had two storage areas in the basement and one just seemed to be perfect to make into a playroom with a play house! Once we had a plan, we hired Keeler Drywall to do the job. We recommend them to anyone looking to have any remodeling done, they are the best! They transformed an empty room with cement walls into exactly what Ryan and I were hoping for! We still have some work to do.... debating on the facade of the house - barn look or the look of an actual house. We want to make the playroom area look like the outdoors with some fun vinyl stickers... ideas, ideas. I don't think Ryan will ever get a break from my projects! Anyway, I wanted to share because I am super excited how it turned out! Unfortunately, we did not find our forever baby this year but we learned some valuable things and met some amazing people along our journey in 2016.
The year started out slow with one potential birth mom that chose another family from our agency but got really exciting when we learned about a potential birth mom over the summer. She obviously did not choose us to parent her child (she chose to parent herself) but crazy as it sounds, she impacted our lives and our views on people dramatically. She came into our lives because someone knew our story, someone who even though we weren’t super close with, had faith that we would be good parents to this child. This was the first lesson we learned- there are SO many amazing people that care about and are praying for us; more than we will ever know. This birth mother saw our adoption book and heard our story but wanted to also meet us to see what we were like in person. I cannot image the courage this took… I know we were so nervous to meet her as well! When she came over, she was very shy but you could tell she came prepared with certain questions and knew what she wanted us to know about what she wanted for the baby. She told us she was still deciding if she wanted to parent or choose adoption but if she chose adoption, she did not want to be involved at this point in the child’s life- he would be ours (this is what she believed was best, even though we are willing to have an open adoption), she wanted to give us her breast milk to make sure he had the best chance of being as healthy as possible and she wanted us to know she was always going to be available for family history if he had any health issues. Our jaws hit the floor when she told us these things. We had never experienced this amount of love from a birth mother (not that all of them don’t think this way, we just had never heard it out loud). We fell in love with her. She truly loved this baby and wanted the best for him- which she thought at that time might not be with her. This was the biggest lesson we learned- even though we knew the birth mother would be the hero in our adoption story, she proved this to us. It was getting close to her due date and we were on the edge of our seats waiting to hear what her plans were! On a Friday, I received a call from her. She simply said “Amanda, I am really sorry. I have been thinking and what I believe is best is to parent the baby myself”… I was heartbroken…. but then she stayed on the phone with me making sure I was ok! This must have been the most uncomfortable phone call she had ever had to make and this was what made Ryan and I realize how amazing she was. #1 – She could have had the person we know contact us instead of calling me herself #2- She could have told me quickly and let me go #3- She stayed on the phone to comfort ME! #4- She reassured us that if she chose the adoption route she knew we would have been the best parents for her baby. Even though I was sad, I found myself at peace knowing this baby is going to be raised by one amazing mom. The last lesson we learned from her is how to treat people…. Not to take the easy way out. If we were to have simply received a text or a short call, we would not have had closure which has happened in the past. With this situation, even though we did not get our forever baby, we gained someone we will always care about and pray for. We also found out that there are many people out there fighting for us. This is just one of the many stories we have from 2016. We put a quote in our adoption book that states “Adoption- when you family tree becomes and orchard.” Initially we took that as our family and the birth parents families, now I realize it is much more than that…. It is our family, the birth parents families, our friends, our community and people we don’t even know who are desperately praying for us to find our baby. So even though our dreams of a family haven’t come true yet, this journey has taught us such valuable lessons in 2016. Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes. We truly feel 2017 will be our year! Ryan and Amanda I have so many feelings over writing this post and letting our story go public.... Excitement, fear, joy, and pressure to write the correct things because our family, friends and possibly our future birth mom will be reading this. Most of our friends and family are aware we are going through the adoption process but not many know our story. So here you go....
Soon after Ryan and I got married we started trying to get pregnant. Two years of trying and testing and fertility treatments, we were getting pretty discouraged. We had to take the next step.... IVF or adoption. Ryan and I have always been excited about the option to adopt someday so it didn't take too many conversations to choose this path. In November of 2014 we contacted D.A. Blodgett- St. John's Home to start the adoption approval process. I had heard someone say about adoption "my pregnancy pains are paper cuts"... this was no joke! Background checks, interviews, home visits, doctor appointments, finger printing... I could go on but finally in February of 2015, we were approved! The excitement started right away; even before we were approved we had our first birth mom profile. Then soon after two more! All three changed their minds and decided to parent. We still had such excitement because we had already had three profiles and it was only March! Then April happened and our excitement turned into heart break. April 28th we received a phone call that there was a teenager in the hospital who had just had a baby, she didn't know she was pregnant and said she wanted to pick a family to adopt her baby. The phone call was simply to ask if we wanted our profile to be shown to this birth mom to make us an option for her. We were on pins and needles waiting to hear back.... when we got the call, I couldn't believe my ears, SHE PICKED US! She still wanted to meet us the next day but WE were the ones she chose. PURE JOY is the only way I can explain our feeling at that point. That night we went shopping to buy baby girl clothes (we have everything else a baby could ever want, I have a baby shopping issue) put the car seat in the car and packed the diaper bag. We called our immediate family to let them know... we may have a baby TOMORROW! The next morning we were meeting at the hospital at 10 AM. Our social worker and her pregnancy counselor met us in the lobby of the hospital to go over the process. Ryan and I took a walk while waiting to meet the birth mom and were both feeling like this was a dream! They told us she was ready to meet us now, we went in the room and her friend was holding the baby..... right away she asked me if I wanted to hold her. I took her in my arms and immediately fell in love, she was our baby! I sobbed so hard I almost had to give her to Ryan because I was nervous holding her, I was shaking so much. The birth mom seemed happy, we discussed her future plans, we told her our future plans, and that was it..... all we had to do was meet with the doctor, she had to sign the papers and we were taking our baby home! We were not able to take the baby out of the room with us to meet the doctor because we were not registered with the hospital to take her as everything happened so fast. We met with the doctor, started to set up an appointment with our pediatrician the next day and were about to start calling our families when the pregnancy counselor came in and grabbed our social worker. We thought that was strange but figured they just needed to talk about some paperwork.... or something. Then the happiest day of our lives turned into the worst. Our social worker came in and said "she changed her mind"..... I couldn't comprehend what she said... changed her mind about what? The birth mom decided after we left the room that she couldn't sign the papers, she couldn't go through with the adoption, she wanted to parent. It is the strangest feeling when you hear that and it is impossible to explain. All I can say is that, to me, going through the adoption process feels like I am pregnant... having a very long pregnancy where I don't know my due date. The moment we saw the baby, it felt like I gave birth to her. I have heard people say feelings are different when you adopt than when you give birth... I have not had the experience of giving birth but I can tell you that I have never loved anything like I loved that baby girl, there is no possible way I could love anyone more. We lost OUR baby is how we felt. Since then we have tried to move on. Things have been tough, a lot of people have been praying for us which is so amazing and has really gotten us through. The baby in April is the last birth mom profile we have seen. It has been a year now, we are going through the approval process again. I have decided to start this blog because I think telling our story will help. Also, I truly believe the more prayers, the better, so we ask for prayers for our baby to come to us but also for the birth moms trying to make these decisions as they need so many prayers as well. Love, The Jagers |
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