Yes, it is true!
We are adopting again!!!!
Ian is going to have a baby brother. Another beautiful boy who is scheduled to make his big debut at the beginning of January. He is actually due less than a week after Ian's third birthday, so needless to say, our Ian will be getting one pretty amazing gift this year!
In case that didn't sink in, let me put it to you this way...
we are going to be parents again!!!
we are going to be parents again!!!
And in just a little over 5 WEEKS!!!!!
And just so Heather doesn't come all the way from California to beat the details out of me, here is the miraculous story of how we got here=)
Last spring, Mike and I ran into our attorney (who had helped us with Ian's adoption) at an adoption conference. He told us then about a network that he was organizing to try and help hopeful adoptive families and pregnant women find each other without an agency and all the hassles and fees that come with them. We thought it sounded intriguing, but at that time, we were on the waiting list again for a foster child so we just filed it away to be considered "someday".
Then came baby Mason.
Our little family changed quite a bit with the arrival of this sweet little one, and his coming to our family taught us many, many things. He showed us that we needed another child in our family. As complete as Ian made us feel as parents, and as blessed as we felt to be our little family of three, Mason helped us to see that we were not complete at all.
We learned that Ian is an amazing brother. He is SO good with Mason, and loves him so much, as do Mike and I as well. But we saw that Ian really needed a sibling, and he deserved the security of knowing that his brother was never going to have to leave us. We didn't like seeing the pain and hurt in Ian's eyes every time we talked to him about Mason's temporary place in our family, and we quickly decided that foster care was not fitting our family dynamic anymore.
So as it became more and more apparent that our days with Mason were going to be numbered, Mike and I began seriously talking about ways that we could add another child to our family, without going through foster care. Immediately, I thought back to our conversation the previous spring with our attorney. We talked a little bit about it and decided that when Mason was gone, we would take a little time to regroup and recover, and then we would give him a call.
This was the beginning of October.
Mike was busy planning my birthday extravaganza and we started thinking that maybe we should get a will. We were going to be traveling together, without Ian, and we thought it might be a good idea to have our bases covered. Again, I thought of our attorney. For various reasons, it took us a couple of weeks to connect with him and actually talk. When I finally did get a hold of him, I asked him about wills and then almost as an afterthought, I mentioned that Mike and I had been talking about adopting again. He told me that he had room in his network for one more adoptive family (he puts a cap on how many he has at any one time in order to give those families a higher chance of successfully being matched). And then he said, "I am actually meeting with a pregnant woman this Friday (two days away!) and if you can get a profile to me before then, I will add it to the ones I am planning to show her". Of course, we didn't have a profile ready and Mike was leaving the following day to run in the Vegas Ragnar relay race. So I stayed up until the wee hours of Thursday morning to ready our profile so I could get it to our attorney and he could add it to the mix.
About a week and a half went by, and we went to Vegas. When we got home, there was a message on our machine from our attorney saying that he wanted to give us "an update on how the meeting had gone". I immediately tried to call him back, but it was Friday night and he had already gone home. So Monday morning, I called again. His answering machine said that he was out of the office until the end of the week, so I left a message and prepared to wait a few more days. I remember thinking that it was not going to be good news, because if it was, he would have called us back already. A few hours later, my phone rang. I was feeding Mason, so Mike answered. He mouthed, "It's Wes" and then I heard him say, "What in the world are you doing calling us from a cruise ship?!?!?" I overheard as our attorney told him that even his vacation couldn't stop him from letting us know that he had a prospective birth mother who wanted to meet us.
My heart started racing out of my chest!
When Mike hung up I said, "Holy Crap! Did he just say what I think he said?!?!?" It was true. Our attorney had met with the girl, and of the handful of profiles he had shown her, we were the only family she said she wanted to meet!
WHAT?!?!?!
He sent us her phone number and said she was expecting our call.
Talk about nerves, holy cow!!! What do you say to the person who could potentially offer you the greatest gift in the whole world?
Our first conversation was pretty short and sweet. We decided to meet at a restaurant the following week for dinner and that was pretty much it. I don't think I slept more than 10 hours total that whole next week!!!! I was a bundle of nerves by the time the meeting day came. But I was also at peace too, if that makes any sense. I had faith that if this was meant to be, it would happen. If this was our child, we would all come to know it. And I knew if it wasn't meant to be, I would be okay too. So we went to the restaurant full of hope and excitement, but knowing that it was really out of our hands. We would just be ourselves and pray for the best.
That is where we met "K". We liked her immediately. She turned out to be such a sweet, cute girl, and we had a great time with her. She brought her best friend and we really liked him too. We felt like the night had gone really well, and she even said she wanted to meet again so she could meet Ian. Good sign, right?!?! I told her I would get in touch with her the next week to set it up and we left feeling great, but also thinking that if nothing else came out of it, we had just enjoyed a nice dinner with some even nicer people.
We texted each other the following week and set up a lunch date at a local play place for the next Saturday. We met her at 12:30 and we didn't leave until after 4:00!! We have such an easy time talking to her and we enjoy being with her, so we just stayed and talked and watched Ian play. And Ian liked her immediately. There is just something about her that draws him in and he wants to be near her. He won't even make eye contact with Mason's mom, but with K, it is a whole different story. Looking back now, maybe he sensed that it is his brother in there=)
After our meeting with Ian, we felt confident that all was going well, but she still had not decided what she wanted to do. We were anxious, but knew we just needed to be patient. We kept in contact through text, and we began talking pretty often, and I tried very, very hard to stay calm and be patient=)
That patience paid off this past Sunday when she texted to ask if we were doing anything that afternoon. I said no and she asked if she could come visit. Holy Cow!!! I said to Ian, "Guess who is coming to visit us today? K!!" He threw up his arms and yelled, "YAY!!!" So out she came.
She had an envelope in her hand when she got there and told us that she had something for us but that she wanted the three of us to open it together. I don't think I took a breath for the next several minutes!!!
Mike, being the Mr. Jokester that he is, took his sweet time finishing up the chip dip he was busy making when K arrived, and by the time I dragged him away from it, I was barely holding it together. Mike probably sensed this, because he offered to read it out loud as I read over his shoulder.
She had written us a beautiful and touching card, one that I will cherish forever. In it, she talked about how over the last several weeks, she had gotten to know us and see what an amazing family we were. She admired what Mike and I have together, and the love that we have for our Ian. There was a lot more, but at the end, she said that she liked how we never took one minute for granted and were so appreciative for everything we had. Then she said how this was as much a gift to her as it is to us and that she was honored to offer us another miracle to cherish. Then she congratulated us on becoming parents again. (She had also included a dvd copy of the ultrasound.)
By the time Mike finished reading, there was not a dry eye in the room. I jumped up from my chair and grabbed K in the tightest hug I dared give to such a beautiful, pregnant miracle. I cried as I thanked her and told her how much she meant to me. Then I hugged my Mikey and cried some more.
It was a moment I will never, ever forget!
Our baby boy is due in a few weeks, and we have plans to meet with K a few more times before then. She actually invited me to come to a party at her Grandma's home where she, her step mom, her grandma, her aunts and her sisters will be making a quilt for the baby. Pretty amazing, isn't it?
She also promised to call as soon as she goes into labor so we can be there as soon as our baby enters the world.
I am overwhelmed with the timing of this miracle and the fact that it is even happening at all. It doesn't seem like that long ago when I was unsure if I would ever even be a mother. Now, God has helped TWO miraculous boys find their way to me, and I have no words to express how honored and humbled I am by that. I hope these two boys will always know how much I love them, how much I needed them, and how I never stopped searching until they were in my arms again.
I can't wait to meet you, Ian's brother!!
I love you so much already, and you know what?
Five weeks is not that long...=)
