With one sentence, I was thrust down a rabbit hole of
emotion: “She decided to parent.”
Two days earlier was
my birthday. Like any other birthday before, this one was average: I still had
to go to work, remind people it was my birthday so they had to be extra nice
today, and head home to hang out with my family. At 5pm, we got the call.
A woman had given birth to a baby girl in a state nearby and
wanted to make an adoption plan. She had seen our profile and had chosen us to
be her parents! We were over the moon. I went from being a mom of one spunky
little boy to a possible mom of two. After two years of blues, greens, trucks,
dirt, and Disney/Pixar’s Cars, I had visions of pink, bows, dresses, and Barbie’s
dancing in my head. How serendipitous that she was born on my birthday! Thank
you, God! I wondered in amazement at how God is really in the details of every
situation!
The next day was a flurry of activity: where is the infant
car seat? Where did we put the pack n play? We don’t have any girl clothes!!!
We need to go to Walmart ASAP! A friend brought over a bag of newborn girl
clothes, pajamas, and sleepers. One trip to Walmart later and I was fully
stocked on pink and purple pacifiers, head band bows and flowers, and girl
colored everything.
We messaged our consultant and said, “We are ready!”
However, instead of hearing, “Ok, you guys should travel now
to XYZ hospital,” we heard, “just hold off for now, guys, we have some details
to work out.”
So we waited through Thanksgiving, biting our nails, into
Friday morning. My stomach was in knots with excitement and worry. We had been
told that this mom was 100% certain of her adoption plan but she had been
getting some pressure from her family to choose to parent. We fired up our
prayer tree and told everyone we could to pray for her resolve.
Friday, we went to eat lunch at Chik-fil-a. That’s when my
phone lit up. “She decided to parent.”
My heart broke in a million, thousand pieces. I was going to
be a mom the very next day but with one text, I wasn’t. Now, we have to go home
and put away all of the baby items, return all of the girly things to our
friend and to Walmart, and call my boss and tell him “Thanks for being so
flexible in allowing us to travel for the adoption, but the mom changed her
mind. I’ll see you on Monday morning.”
Devastated.
Now a few days after the devastation, I’m better. I took it
much harder than my hubby. What I’ve learned in this mess is that I’m stronger
than I thought I was. God is still good. As Bill Johnson puts it, “I will not
sacrifice my knowledge of the goodness of God on the altar of human reasoning
so I can have an explanation for a seemingly-unanswered prayer.”
Keep us in your prayers this week as we continue to heal our
broken hearts.
