A few weeks back a friend and mother of two, posted the following from the Psalms:

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

We are completely approved to adopt now and our baby is being formed by the awesome Creator of the universe.  Our baby and its birthmother are being carefully crafted by our amazing God–praise Him for this beautiful process!  Brian and I get chills every time we think about the fact that our baby is out there and only God knows who he or she is.  How marvelous is our God?  We continue to pray for the birthmother and birth family of our child and hope that you do, too.  They are making an incredible sacrifice for the good of their child and for the sake of our family.  I cannot begin to describe how grateful we are to her, whoever she is and to God for painting the beautiful picture in life that is adoption.

Adoption, though, is the emotional roller coaster that everyone says it is.  This past week has been overwhelming for us.  Brian and I were presented with two particular situations from an agency in the south.  We told our adoption counselor to show us to these prospective cases–and then it happened.  A birthmother wanted to speak with us over the phone because she was pretty sure she wanted to match with us.  This, mind you, is happening during one of my busiest work weeks of the year.  God does have a sense of humor 🙂  I was running in and out of training sessions for my student staff taking calls from our agency, Brian, the agency in the south–to top it off another referral came in for a baby girl and we were to be shown two days in a row this past week.  My heart could barely contain the joy that was transpiring in those few, short hours.  Once Brian and I agreed to the telephone call, I raced home anxiously, preparing for the phone call we would have with our potential birthmother.

Brian came home and we were both so anxious and excited.  I was, of course, balling, thinking about how we had just gotten approved and how God had already placed a potential situation right in our laps.  We were so grateful.  The time came to make the phone call and we were on with the birthmother, a rep. from the southern agency, and us.  We spoke for 25 minutes with this woman, a wonderfully sweet woman who is carefully picking the perfect parents for her baby.  We hung up the phone, looked at each other and knew that this was not our baby.

It was the strangest thing.  It was, what I like to call, a “Mac truck moment.”  When you feel as if you have gotten bulldozed by a huge semi and can barely shake off the dust, get up, and start again.  We knew we would face rejection in this process, but we never emotionally prepared for the fact that we may have to reject a situation.  A child.  A birthmother.  People.  Rejecting people on the adoptive parent end is something that we were utterly unprepared for.  We kept thinking that we were cruel–this is a baby, a life, a mother–who are we to reject anyone?  But, as I’ve heard from many adoptive parents and our counselors, we will know when the situation is right.  When I spoke with our adoption counselor the next day she almost seemed proud of us.  She said that that baby will find it’s home and that our baby will find us.

Thank the Lord for her, she always knows how to comfort us.  We really do have the most incredible adoption counselor.  I realized then that we had done the right thing.  To have strung the birthmother along when we knew it was not the right situation would have been horrible; for her, for the baby, for us.  Please pray for her.  I cannot tell you her name for confidentiality purposes, but God knows.  She is a woman who loves the Lord, too and I just know that He is sovereign over her situation and will place her child in the right home.

As for us, we do not have a match yet, but we have laid our burdens and fears at the feet of the Lord.  We, too, are wonderfully and fearfully made, as are all God’s children, and He has a plan for us.  Please continue to pray for us, our child, our birthmother, and our supporters.  They are on this crazy ride, too, and are in need of wisdom and guidance.  Thank you for your support, electronic or otherwise.  It is all very helpful and encouraging to us.  I will be updating regularly again, so check back for more posts on our process.

In Christ,

Tone