One Step Closer....

I hesitate to write about this... because we don't want sympathy, or pity, or anything like that. We just want to be real. Our prayer is that our journey to adopt and our adoption stories for our children are ones that bring people to see how AMAZING our God is. We have prayed for God's will to be done, and have prayed for amazing stories so that He can be glorified. While we often feel like we are on a never ending emotional roller coaster, we KNOW that God is the one at the controls. And while we struggle with the human aspect of waiting and being "rejected" by birth families, we KNOW that God has our story written, and it is beautiful. 

We just got off of a mountain top experience that didn't end "our way".  God saw the bigger picture, and for reasons we may never know, chose for us to keep on riding this roller coaster of waiting for our next baby.  If you would have asked us, and our families, we were all CONFIDENT that THIS one was it! We felt God's hand woven throughout the whole entire situation... in multiple ways. It was amazing! Each thing that would happen along the way was something that rose us higher and higher on top of the mountain and made us even more confident that this baby was "ours".  Silly now... looking back. One can never be SURE until the papers are signed... and everything is official... but it felt like things were quickly headed in that direction. 

Let me share SOME of the details... for God truly was present in this story! Even though it didn't end the way we hoped. 

We got an email about twins from one of the agencies we were working with. Daddy was having a rough day and we decided to talk about it when he got home. I started praying that God's will would be done and that He would work in this situation the way that He wanted to, and use us.  He came home and we discussed the details and decided to "go for it". We ate supper and sat down to email back the agency, when we noticed another email from a different agency. This agency was emailing to notify us that our profile was currently being shown to a birth mother who had given birth the day before to a little girl. She was seeking to place her baby and the social worker was checking to make sure we were ok with having our profile shown. We learned more about the situation and prayed about it... surprised that we had two situations to choose from.  

We decided that since we had our profile already out there and it was being shown, we'd stick with that one and see what happened. We were shocked that it could be possible to bring home a teeny newborn in a week or so. We went to bed and woke up the next morning and got a call from the social worker saying that we were in the top two! EEEk! :)  We learned that she wanted an interview with us later in the week and the social worker would be in-touch with more details. 

We were excited and felt like this maybe was it... top two! Along with this excitement, we were also feeling God's presence as we were working through the loss of my grandfather.  He was so excited about us getting a match that a few weeks earlier, when the agency emailed about Triplets, he made the comment, "Well, let's go get them!" :) We weren't able to submit for them because our profile was being shown at the time, and some other details we decided we weren't comfortable with.  We felt like maybe this was a way of God allowing something good to come out of something sad. (New life entering the family when a precious member of the family was parting.)  

Allie had a sinus infection and we were at the doctor's office getting her some medicine when the social worker called back and said that we were going to post pone the interview a few days so the birth mom could recover some more before having to sit through interviews. We completely understood and felt like it was God's way of giving us a little breather while the family made funeral arrangements, and Allie had time to  get on her medicine to feel better.  The interview was set for Monday- but details were unknown until Sunday evening. 

We went through the interview feeling confident. There were times when we "forgot" we were being interviewed. We felt a connection to the birth mom and felt like we were ourselves. We left saying that there wasn't anything we could do to show her ourselves better. We kept going over the details of the interview trying to remember everything. We went to calling hours that evening. 

As the week went on, we kept in touch with the social worker and learned that the birth mom was struggling to make her decision. Not the decision to place the baby, but the actual decision.  Long story short, she ended up choosing the other family.  We were shocked and very disappointed. We still are sad. We know that God has a plan and a purpose and He doesn't make mistakes. 

We know that we are one step closer to our baby, and to being the family that is rejoicing because we get to bring a new little life into our family.  

There still isn't anything we would change about how we interviewed, or anything that was in our control.  So we have to believe that God was protecting us from something.... that He knew the bigger picture and something wasn't quite right.  

Still... the human part of the whole situation makes it hard. Hard to know we have to start all over. Hard to know that we were "SO CLOSE!" even though we weren't really (God knew that it wasn't our baby). Hard to know we have to keep waiting. 

Oh and the twins...at the beginning of the story....remember?.... That ended up being a dead end and had we gone for them instead, we wouldn't have gotten any farther with that chance either. It was a no-show situation and so God was protecting our hearts there too.  

Even though we felt God's hand so strongly woven throughout this whole experience, it was a struggle for us to understand WHY He would allow that- and then allow the end result to not be a baby. BUT... after thinking through and processing this... He is not a cruel God. He is LOVING and wants to lavish good things on his Children. So we have to believe that He was showing us that He is still here. Still working on our story. Still present in little and big ways, and He is beside us every step of the way... good and bad... highs and lows... and there are blessings- even when things don't go our way. Good life lesson huh! :) 

This song by Matthew West is where we are right now... God is Strong Enough to carry us when we feel like we aren't strong enough to keep going. 

We pray that our story will help others going through the same thing (in the same way, or in an indirect way). God has got this. He knows the story's ending. He knows what will happen next. And He is good.  

I'm so thankful for the hope we have in Him. I can't imagine riding this roller coaster with anyone other than God at the controls! :)