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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