The Shepherd's Flock

I guess it’s time for me to address the “elephant in the room” on the blog. I’ve thought a lot over the past few days on how to address it…did I want to ignore it? If I did say something, what did I want to say, etc. I guess I’ll just jump in and try to give you an idea how we are doing…

Background – On February 10, 2010 at 1:30 pm I received the phone call at work saying we had been chosen for a baby that was due any day. Cindy, the expectant mother, had a doctors appt the next day. She was going to find out what day she would be scheduled for a c-section. That was the call we had been waiting for for 3 years. Finally it looked like we would get a baby. We made the decision to show our faith that God would see us through this time and we jumped head first into the preparations. We spent the next few days cleaning out the spare room, painting, shopping for new furniture for Cade, shopping for new baby stuff and setting up a nursery. On Monday the 15th we received a call that the baby had been born, it was a boy. On Tuesday the 3 of us loaded up and headed to a town in Illinois about 7 hours from home. We spent the next couple of days trying to keep ourselves occupied. As of Wednesday night at 6:00 pm everything looked great. Cindy would sign over her rights at 12:30 pm Thursday. We would go to the hospital and our new son would be discharged to us. By 11:00 am the next morning our lives had been devastated. Due to some information that Cindy was not honest about with the agency DCFS got involved in the situation. They took the baby. By 1:00 pm Thursday afternoon, instead of becoming a family of four the 3 of us were headed back to Missouri with an empty seat in the truck…and a whole lot of baby equipment in the back.

Cade – Cade is doing pretty well. He did have a breakdown about the time we hit Lebanon Thursday night. I had been on the phone with the Social Worker from Illinois and when I got off I could hear him crying. I asked him if he was sad about the baby or upset because Jay and I were so upset. He really started crying and said it was because of the baby and then he said “at least you still have me”. I’ll never forget hearing him say that. Those words broke my heart because I just didn’t know what was going on in his head all day. Luckily we already had a counseling appointment scheduled for him on the 22nd. We’re both going to go with him.

Us – Jay and I have our moments. Today (Sunday) was a really rough day for me. I’m hoping that once I get past the first few days it will become easier. Right now all I can think of is…one week ago I was painting, We were buying furniture, I was buying a stroller, I was so happy, etc. Now I’m sitting here with the biggest weight sitting right on my heart. I’ve also had a lot of anger today. I had been spending a lot of time praying over the last few weeks about our situation and I had finally come to a point of being ok with it…or at least as ok as a person can be about infertility. Now I’m starting all over. I’ll have to work myself through the stages of grief all over again. I’m not exactly looking forward to that part. I can’t help but wonder why we couldn’t have been left alone if this was what was going to happen. I was ok where I was now the whole cycle has to start over again. Jay is just trying to keep himself busy. At least this time of year he won’t have to try to hard to find things to do. I, on the other hand, wonder what the heck I’m going to do with myself. All of the Saturdays in March stretch out before me like eternity.

The Stuff – Dealing with the stuff is probably what I’m finding to be the cruelest part of this whole deal. Jay and I had wrestled with the stupid car seat base for a couple of hours Thursday morning. We probably hadn’t been done with it an hour before we got the call. I had finally broke down and washed all the new baby clothes Wednesday night. There isn’t a thing we can take back out of the whole bunch of stuff we bought. Now it is sitting in the closet in the nursery. I can’t give it away because that would mean that part is gone…but yet what are we supposed to do with it? Jay said we are keeping it because we’ll use it some day. At this point I don’t quite feel as optimistic as him. I’m also irritated that I’ll have to deal with the finances of paying for a bunch of stuff that we don’t need and can’t return…..not to mention the hotel bill, gas bill, eating bill, etc. At this point it feels like a bunch of wasted money to me. I’m not saying that because we are in any sort of financial trouble, it’s just the way I feel right now.

The Room – Jay and I don’t have a clue what to do with the room. I put all the decorations away this morning. At this point Cade wants to leave the crib up, we aren’t sure why. Maybe Dr. Sue can get that out of him at counseling tomorrow. We did buy a teddy bear on our way there Tuesday (which I ripped the tag off of Thursday morning) for Cade to give to the baby. I asked him what he wanted us to do with it – keep it out or put it away. He said he wanted to keep it in the crib. When we got home Thursday night he took the bear and put it in there. Also, Cade’s new furniture isn’t in yet. They promised us it would be in on Thursday but still his mattress is on the floor. So we’ll have another bill of something that we really don’t need now – new furniture. I’m also getting irritated because we can’t finish getting things back to somewhat normal without the furniture. I really hope it comes on Monday’s truck so we can get his room put back together.

Throughout all of this we had a lot of people praying for us and with us. We appreciate all of them. We were hesitant about who we were going to tell because if it didn’t work out we didn’t want to face a lot of explanations. Finally on Tuesday we broke down and initiated our church’s prayer chain. We decided we needed all the prayers we could get. Even though I hate that everyone knows and we’ll have to face comments once we go back to work/school tomorrow it probably worked out for the best. I’m not sure we would’ve made it through if we didn’t have all the prayers of our family and friends over the last 11 days. Thank you guys for everything.