Our Agnecy and Adoption...

I feel like I need to address this topic today. One of the first things we were told was that in adoption almost every family experiences one loss. Sometimes they won’t know they experienced the loss because it wouldn’t have gotten far enough for the family to know. Sometimes it’s the painful type like we experienced. Right now I can think of at least two other families who experienced an adoption loss. Our agency would also put us in contact with another family who experienced the same thing if we wanted. At this point I’m not too interested in that, but who knows on down the road. This is the nature of adoption – nothing is set in stone until the parental rights are terminated. That is different in every county and every state. In some states it’s a state law. In Missouri it depends on the different county laws.
The other thing about adoption is that sometimes the agencies don’t work with the expectant parents long enough to develop a good relationship. Cindy came to our agency less than a month away from her due date. That didn’t give the social workers enough time to really develop a relationship with her and allow her to trust them. That’s how we ended up with some faulty information that no one (including the agency) knew about until DCFS stepped in. This is no fault of our agency, we just happened to end up involved in a not so good situation.

On Wednesday Jay and I found out some of this information that we chose not tell anyone about. Another thing we’ve learned over the years is that not everyone needs to know everything. It’s important to keep some of this quiet until the child is old enough to hear it and then it will be their decision on what to share. When Jay and I found this out we didn’t know what to do. The news obviously wasn’t what we wanted to hear. Our agency gave us some information and another adoptive mother to contact that experienced the same thing. With this information Jay and I felt comfortable moving forward but we prayed together and asked God for direction. We told him we were comfortable with proceeding, but if it wasn’t the situation for us He needed to close the door. As hard as it’s been to deal with, we feel that God clearly answered that prayer. One blessing is that he closed the door for us, rather than us stepping back from the situation. How awful would’ve it been if we always wondered what might have been?

We don’t have any angry thoughts towards our agency. Jay and I truly feel that they did everything that they could for us. They also did their best at keeping us informed as much as they could, but again that’s the nature of adoption. Things aren’t always perfect. Part of the surprise for everyone else was that only Jay and I knew about DCFS so it wasn’t quite as much of a shock for us as everyone else. That was no fault of our agency. We have every intention of staying with them. We feel that God sent us to them for a reason and we don’t feel that it is time to leave them at this point. As much as we would like to hurry this process along, God doesn’t care about our timetable. Things will work in His time and in His way. As hard as that is to take sometimes, that’s the way it is.

I’m going to go ahead and mention this only because I think it shows God in the situation. I hesitate because I don’t want anyone to think that we are all drama all the time but we didn’t have anything to do with this. On Friday Jay and I went to Springfield to try to fill the day. I got a phone call from an unrecognized number. It was the lady from the NEDC calling about our embryo adoption. We had figured it would be late in the summer before we would hear from them. She was calling to let us know there had been a cancellation and wanted to know if we could be there May 6. I explained to her that we had just experienced an adoption loss. She kindly asked me about the circumstances so I told her. She said she just knew that it was God that directed her to call me that day. I do to. I think it was Him saying don’t give up, don’t quit. I have no idea if this is what we are supposed to do, maybe He wants us to hang on until our perfect adoption situation comes along? On Friday when I thought about the timing of the situation this verse came to mind…Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Now I wish I could say that I was perfect and I haven’t been angry about this situation and I’ve always remembered to God loves me and is faithful, but that would be lying. It comes and goes with me, but I’m at least trying to hold onto that phone call and that verse as God telling us not to give up. As much as I’d like to quit all of this, we aren’t. We think this is God telling us this door isn’t closed yet and we just have to hold on a little longer.