It's been a hot minute. For year, blogging, getting my thoughts out there and writing it all down, was so healing. I used this website as a therapy surrogate. Never found talking out loud to a stranger helpful but loved the release of writing it all down. But over the year, it became redundant. How many times can one person walk the same sad journey? What new did I have to type out about my newest miscarriage. I felt like I had said it all, so I let the words dry up and wondered if I might ever revisit this blog or if it had become irrelevant, lost in the daily grief of repeated loss.
And for a stretch of time, things improved. Never exactly as I had planned, but in what I considered God's timing. We continued to experience years of loss before my eventual hysterectomy in 2021. Andrew finally decided to come on board with the idea of adoption right before that. I give him a hard time about the years I spent waiting for him to come around, but ultimate it lead us to miss Hope. She is the picture perfect vision of joy - for the first 1.5 years we said she was the ultimate completion for our family. A part of me always longed for that 5th child we had always planned on, but I also knew I could never enter the adoption world again. We experienced 1.5 years of heartache and waiting - a mixture of not being chosen (and feeling inadequate/not enough with each rejection) as well as failed adoption attempts - being chosen and not being able to bring those babies home. We eventually matched with Hope, a long term pregnancy and open adoption with a couple we fell in love with long before we met them.
Enter Hope - the spunky, sassy, amazing 2-year-old we are incredibly blessed to raise. She is a perfect fit for our family - stands up for herself with her 2 older brothers, dances alongside her big sissy, and keeps us all on our toes. She is completely full of joy and smart as a whip. Anyone who knows her loves her. And, though I always wondered about other kids, our family was complete.
Back in Feb, we sat behind a family at church. At a new church, where we were finally finding our place. And this family had older bio kids and a baby who was racially diverse. This is the first time I had ever seen a family that looked like ours. So of course, it was distraction. No clue what that sermon was about. We made small talk with the family afterwards, offered them use of any of our baby items we had outgrown, and moved along. Andrew asked me on the way home if I had baby fever and I laughed. "I would have to get a call telling me there was a baby for me before I would consider it" I said. Not because I didn't want another baby, but because I couldn't handle the heartbreak of waiting and rejection again. Literally the next day I got a call that Hope's bio parents were expecting again and wanted us to adopt again. It seemed like the perfect opportunity. We took some weeks to pray about it, to wait for them to go through counseling and sign paperwork. But honestly, from the second I heard about it, before I knew gender, I loved that little baby. I would have moved heaven and earth to help mama parent if that had been her desire, but I felt like we were finally getting our complete family. I never doubted their decision for a single second.
I walked that pregnancy alongside bio mom - giving her words of support, financial support, emotional support, etc. I love mama just as much as her kiddos and thought it was just the most beautiful picture of God's design for adoption that there could be. "Hit the birth mom lottery" I say because I just adore her so very much. When I got notice her water broke, I was nothing but encouraging. When the nurse called as said our baby boy was here, I couldn't wait to get to the hospital. Contrary to with Hope, this time I walked into that hospital room comfortable. I kissed mama and gave her a big hug, held baby boy, helped her with postpartum recovery, interacted confidently with the nurses, etc. And then, our world flipped. And somehow, despite everything I knew, we were told we would not be taking this baby boy home. That mama had changed her mind. The initial confusion was overwhelming. Knowing he wasn't going into a safe environment, knowing too much about his home/personal life this time was crushing. We were told DCF would be stepping in and taking him, but then hurricanes and bogged down systems meant no check ins were ever done. And I'm left wondering.
Why in the world would God put this baby in our lives?? Why, when we already had a relationship with bio mom, would we not be just asked to be support people? Why would He cruelly use this family to open our hearts to adoption just to shut us out later? Why would we walk the road of unbearable loss yet again, especially when we weren't even looking to adopt?? I have no answers a month later, only more questions. This God I once served is cruel and awful and spiteful.
