THE JOURNEY BEGINS

Before I started this blog, I asked several people for suggestions on what I should write about.  Almost everyone I asked told me that they wanted to know about our adoption journey.  And our adoption journey is definitely something that I want to share.  I pray that our journey sheds some light on adoption and inspires you to pray about adding a precious child to your family by the way of adoption.  Our journey is somewhat long, so I will split it into two post because it is quite lengthy. 

Our adoption journey began long before Will and I got married.  When Will and I began discussing marriage, family, and the future, both of us began to feel God's call to adoption.  So, in January 2009 we made the call that began the journey to bring Tytus into our family.  Over the next several months we completed paperwork, had both individual and family meeting with a social worker and completed required adoption training.  And in March of 2009, our homestudy was completed for a domestic adoption. 

Over the next few months we had a few leads on possible adoption opportunities, but nothing ever worked out.  In August 2009, we got a call from our social worker saying that there was a birth mother looking to place her baby for adoption upon delivery around the first of September.  So, we begin planning and preparing for the arrival of our second child. 

On, September 5th, 2009 (Labor Day Weekend), we get the call that our child has been born and that it is a girl!  So, we cut our visit with family short and headed home to meet our precious little girl.  And that night, we met Lynlee Faith for the first time. 

Two days later we were on our way to the hospital to bring our little Lynlee home when we got a call from our social worker telling us that the birth mother had changed her mind and that she was taking her home with her.  WOW, you talk about devastating.  We felt like our hearts had been ripped out.  But, you know God is good and we knew that He had something else in store for our family.  We also knew that if Lynlee was suppose to be a part of our family, then He would bring her back into our lives.  And He did just that, two days after we were suppose to bring her home from the hospital, we get another call stating that the birth mother changed her mind again.  Our social worker wanted to know if we wanted her in our home or if we wanted her to go into foster care until the adoption was finalized.  After talking it over with Will, we decided that we wanted her in our home.  We felt that God had given her to us, even if that meant for a short amount of time.  And that was a risk we were willing to take.  For, "Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" (Alfred Lord Tennyson)

The next 5 weeks were a roller coaster.  The birth mother and birth father struggled with their decision and exactly 5 weeks after Lynlee joined our family, the birth mother changed her mind a final time.  The only thing we knew to do at that point was to pray.  We knew that God was in control and that He had something great in store for our family.  

A few days later our case worker called to check on us and to see how we were doing and to see what our next step was.  At that point, we weren't sure what our next step was.  We were praying that the Lord would just show us what He wanted us to do.  Our case worker gave us a blog of a family that had adopted from Ethiopia Africa and told us to take a look at it.  So, that evening I decided to check it out, and as soon as the page loaded and I sat there looking at the face of this precious little boy, I knew what God was calling us to do.  I showed the picture to Will and agreed that God was calling us to adopt from Ethiopia!