Adoption Part 2

To view part one, please click here. It is long, so I have broken it in to two pieces.

We worked with a wonderful agency in Orem, Utah for our adoption. We went to their classes and meetings and we felt very strongly that this was the best option for us. We put our paperwork in at the end of February 2003. In March, we had been matched with a little boy. We were so excited. Later his birth-mother decided that she couldn’t go through with it. We never met that little boy. When they called to tell me that it wasn’t going to go through, I was in a scrapbook store with my mom and she was trying to decide whether or not to buy some baby boy things for a scrapbook. I didn’t tell her then, and I tried to be happy. I needed to tell Bryan that she had changed her mind first. I told Bryan, and then I called a couple of family members. Then I cried and didn’t answer the phone so I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. I have never had a miscarriage so I don’t know what that feels like, but I imagine that this was similar. We thought we had a baby and in an instant that changed. There was no baby anymore. It was heart breaking.

A couple of weeks later, the agency called to tell us that there was a baby girl in Tennessee. Were we interested? I said yes and then checked with Bryan. We were. It took a few days to get everything going, and a week later we were in Tennessee. It was a whirlwind trip. We landed about 2:00 on Friday, and met with the agency at 4:00. There we met Daughter, and her birth-mother, and foster-mother.

It's amazing how quickly the pain of infertility and the pain of losing the placement of that little boy dissolved when we held our daughter in our arms and looked into her eyes.

We had left Oldest with my mother-in-law. My brother-in-law had come home from his mission the week before this, and was giving his homecoming talk on Sunday, so we were anxious to get home. We had a flight for home about 6:00 am on Saturday. We got the clearance to travel with her late Friday night. We were relieved that we would only need to spend one night in the hotel. It was wonderful to hold her, but scary too. She didn’t know us, and we didn’t know her. She cried. We took turns walking the halls while the other slept. Eventually we all slept in the bed together. We left the hotel at 4:00am, after putting maybe 20 miles on the rental car and headed for home.

Once we landed in SLC, we stopped for a bouncy seat at Shop-ko, and went to Bryan’s mom’s where family was waiting to meet Daughter. We were so excited to introduce Oldest to his sister.
Six months later we were able to finalize the adoption. It was such a relief to have the adoption finalized. We celebrated by going out to eat and going bowling. Two days later we were able to take her to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple to have her sealed to us. Every year, we celebrate the day the adoption was finalized. At our house it is Adoption Day. We go bowling and out to eat. It’s a wonderful day for us.

I know that adoption isn’t for everyone, but for us it was a wonderful way to build our family. Daughter needed to be with us. I have no doubt. For some reason there were those years there that I couldn’t get pregnant. And she is why. She needed us and we needed her.