Oh my goodness, Lisa!! I agree, where to start. I'll try not to post a short story here....
In 2005, after trying to start a family for Five years, 7cents and I started the adoption process. It was sooo difficult-homestudies, physicals, complete invasion of privacy, coming up with a huge amount of money (especially for our ages), going to numerous classes, making a profile, etc. I am pretty good with paperwork and organization, but the process still took me several months. We are warned it can take months, even a year to be matched with a birthmom and of course, we are praying. After meeting with our agency and leaving their building, Travis says "I feel like our baby will come through this agency." I wasn't sure...I WAS SCARED. We tell the agency we are open to a child with no pre-natal care, drug exposure, history of family mental illness, etc. We felt like GOD would enable us to handle whatever he gave us. we slowly begin to get our house in order for a child, but don't get too carried away because frankly, even with the realization that we would eventually have a child, it was still painful to have an empty nursery. Fast forward 5 weeks...we get a call from the agency about a precious little boy due in February of the next year. The birthmom was only four months pregnant. That is a very risky situation for adoptive parents and is unusual. Most placements begin around the seven month period. I was leery about accepting, but we met with the birthmom, seemed to click and viewed pictures of her other children and they were GORGEOUS. We agreed to match with her. Our family was told, we were so happy. We named the little guy and thought our child was on its way. On Halloween day everything unraveled. We had been matched for approx a month and the birthmom called me yelling and cussing about needing money and became very demanding. I could not calm her down and was forced to call the agency...long story short, the relationship deteriorated and little Ashton Parker evidently was not meant to be ours. I knew GOD had a plan, but it HURT. My worst fears about the whole adoption process had been realized. He was already our child in our hearts and I mourned his loss. Our families were devastated...shew, I just can't even hardly think about it even today. The agency was understanding and told us to take some time and grieve and get back in touch with them. Prone to depression, I had a hard time in the coming weeks. Mostly, I wondered what would happen to this child I loved...who would end up with him? Would the mother try to parent him when she wasn't able? Had we made the right choices? I just didn't have answers.
Even worse, I knew I had to make a decision about putting our profile back out there. I wasn't ready, but I knew Travis was. Part of me was angry with him for being ready. Seriously, it had only been a few weeks, how was it possible that GOD had already healed his heart when I felt he hadn't even touched mine yet? I began to pray....One day I felt GOD speak to me (for the first time in my life) and told me to be submissive to my husband. Ugh, I had always been more submissive than not, but at 25 I will admit I had a ways to go. All morning, I struggled with what GOD had told me, but I decided me being in control wasn't working. I called Travis and told him what had happened and ask his permission to call the agency and have them reopen our profile. Of course, he agreed and our profile was reopened. Luckily, the holidays were upon us and we were super busy. I gave little thought to the process. On Jan. 6Th (roughly 3weeks after reopening our profile), I was at work taking inventory and the phone rang...it was a personal call. I recognized the number and my heart skipped a beat....it was the agency. What I was fixin' to hear come out of that phone was so shocking.....we had a baby girl! She was already born less than an hour away and if we were willing to accept her, she was ours. ALREADY BORN...OURS....GIRL....I seriously almost passed out. I managed to mutter something and I fell to my knees. My co-workers tell me all they heard was "thank you, LORD" over and over. I will not say things were only peachy keen from that point on, but I can see GODS hand in everything. First of all, it is unheard of to be matched with a newborn in three weeks, much less and emergency placement. The little boy we desperately wanted was to be born February 26th and Loren was born Jan 5th. Not only did god give us a child-the one we were intended to have, but we actually had her in our arms sooner than we would have waiting for Ashton. Loren was born exposed to drugs and alcohol and tested positive in her urine for one particular drug, she was premature and had no pre-natal care. She shouldn't be a perfect, smart little girl who is by far the head of her class, but she is. She was born to a Wiccan mother, but loves the lord with all her heart. After we came home with Loren, and the fog of the crazy first few days lifted, I realized that from the time we submitted our first paperwork, to the time that we held Loren in our arms for the first time, was NINE MONTHS EXACTLY. You see, GOD gave me the pregnancy I had always wanted!!! The miracles kept coming and I won't list them all, but one that stands out is this: Travis has a very rare blood type and when i was going through Loren's birthrecords, I was shocked to see that she carries the very same type. God is amazing.
Ma Betty