Quick Prayer Request

The birth mother was to have more tests run, and if it was exactly from 2 weeks ago, it would have been that the tests were run on Tuesday (yesterday).  So today I emailed Angel Adoption to see if they had heard anything and they had not.  I then asked Angel Adoption that since the birth mother knew I had her number and she had told me I could call her at any time with questions, if it would be appropriate for me to try and call her.  She said yes.  I wasn't sure it would be appropriate since we haven't yet been formally matched.  So...I will attempt to reach the birth mother tomorrow to see if I can get any updates on the tests and how everyone is doing.  When I talked with the birth mother 2 weeks ago, she had mentioned that she would want us to call every 2 weeks for updates, if we were matched, so I am not sure if she is waiting for me to call or not???  Please pray that I will be able to reach her and that I can be an encouragement to her!  Hopefully we can get some more answers so we can both know how and where we should proceed.

Thank you for your continued prayers.  We will let you know when we know more!

Waiting

After seeking medical advice, having a mostly sleepless night, and receiving counsel from Angel Adoption, we have decided to hold off on making any kind of decision in regards to this precious baby girl until further testing has been done.  I believe the next ultrasound is in 2 weeks.  After we get more testing results, etc, it will help us make a better decision as to what we need to do for our family.  This will also give us time to be in deep prayer over the whole matter.  Angel Adoption was of the utmost encouragement and support to us and I am so thankful for their wisdom.  They plan to contact the birth mother today to speak with her and see if they can get any further information and let her know of our plans. 

In the meantime, our profile with Angel will remain active and be shown to any prospective birth parents that may come along.

I apologize if it seems like I am blogging too often, but so many of you are praying for us and I am doing my best to keep you as up to date as possible so you can know how to more specifically pray.  Thank you so much for going to the Father with us to present these requests.

Phone Interview

I talked with the birth mother for 30 minutes this evening and the conversation overall went pretty well.  In fact, her personality kinda reminded me of Adia's birth mother, which was fun!  The big concern that has arisen, however, is that today, she found out that her 30 week old baby's head was measuring a little bit smaller than it should.  So they will be redoing an ultrasound in a couple of weeks to check the status of the baby's head.  If the ultrasound is accurate, we could be looking at microcephaly, and I'm not sure that this would be best for our family.  So please pray for wisdom as we try to get some more answers. I am to call Angel Adoption in the morning to let them know how the interview went, and maybe they will be able to get some more information??  This is so heartbreaking, but this dear birth mother, is just as scared.  She just wants someone to love her baby and love the baby regardless of if there is a birth defect or not.  Thanks for continuing to pray!!

An Exciting Development

We received a call from Angel Adoption that there was a birth mother who would like to talk with us!!!  I wanted to cry right then and there but needed to quickly pull it together so I could pay attention to the details she was excitedly trying to tell me.  This mother, Allysa, is due with a girl, on December 29.  She had been matched with another couple, but they had only wanted a boy, so when they found out that she was having a girl, chose to back out.  Allysa, had been sent our profile on July 23, with a few others and still had our profile.  She called Angel Adoption today and asked if we were still available!  What timing!!  So... we have a phone interview with her tomorrow evening around 6:30 and we'll see where God leads from there.  Allysa, has two other children, boys, and is without a job.  Again, we are faced with the issue of where and who is the birth father, but will deal with that as it comes.  She is from Louisiana so we will still get to travel a bit to go if this should all work out.  There is also the possibility, depending on how the phone interview goes tomorrow evening, that she may want to meet with us before the baby is born.  Thankfully Skeeter gets 4 weeks of vacation with his adoption benefits so hopefully if we need to go to LA, twice, that we can use part of that time for those trips.

Another HUGE praise, is that we received our letter from the Georgia attorney giving us the details of our refund.  We knew that part of the fee was unrefundable and then 1/3 of the rest would be as well.  However, in God's graciousness, she chose not to keep the extra 1/3 even though she had done some of the paperwork.  Now we just need to pray that if this new development comes through, that we will get our refund processed quickly as it was credited back to our credit card that was cancelled.  However, Discover said that it would transfer over to the new account, but that it could take 7-14 business days to do it.

We would appreciate prayers for all of us involved as we talk on the phone together tomorrow evening that we will say what we are to say, ask what we are to ask, etc.  God is faithful, and I know this might not work out either, but its kinda hard not to be excited and just enjoy this hopefulness!! :) 

A New Journey Begins

We received a call from Angel Adoption this afternoon and it has been decided that our profile will once again go active and be shown to prospective birth mothers.  If we have not been matched, and Alexis happens to reappear, we will be notified.  Although its sad that we are closing this chapter and saying good bye to our baby, we have several things to be thankful for.  We should get a decent amount of our money back that we paid to the GA attorney.  We had not started paying the living expenses to the birth mother, so we're not out any money in that respect as that was to start shortly.  Humanly speaking, I would like to know what happened.  It would be so easy to point fingers and blame, but ultimately, despite all the obstacles of phones being shut off and a slow attorney, etc, God could have made all of the necessary details work out.  He chose not to and we need to trust that He knows what He is doing and that He loves us and has something better for us.  I have struggled at times with being mad at God for allowing us to be matched if in the end it would just fall through, but I know He allowed us to go through this growing and stretching time to help us lean on Him and grow stronger in our relationship with Him.  In our ladies Bible study we are studying the book of James and how we need to patiently endure trials and temptations and how we need to count everything joy - - the Lord's timing and teaching is always right on time, even if it is painful! :)

Now mentally, I have to transition from thinking about baby names and getting everything ready for our baby (the car seat had just arrived right before we were notified that Alexis was missing) to waiting again for the call to say that we are matched with another baby.  As someone else has shared with me, who lost their adoptive baby, that it is very much like losing your own child.  So true!  Once we are matched, in my heart, that baby and birth mother, become a part of me.  So please continue to pray, as we continue to say good-bye.  Looking back, I guess I sensed that something might not be right with the match, but there was nothing specific that I could point to - - just figured it was fear and the fact that we had so long to wait until the baby would be born.  So maybe, God was preparing me ahead of time and I didn't realize it until later.  Although, there is hurt, there is also peace, for which we can thank the Lord! 

Now we are in process of trying to tie up lose ends with both attorneys so that we can start over with a clean slate so to speak.  Thank you so much for joining us in this journey.  God is faithful even when we don't understand why!

Bit of An Update on Alexis

I called Angel Adoption yesterday and left a message for our worker to contact us.  Since I didn't hear anything, I called back again today.  Our worker answered the phone and acknowledged that she hadn't returned our call because she was still waiting to hear from our GA attorney.   We found out today that they still have not been able to have contact with Alexis.  Alexis' phone had been shut off, and so they don't even know if she was receiving their emails.  I am wondering why if Alexis was still interested why she hasn't contacted them by a pay phone or some other means.  Anyway, our worker with Angel is speculating that we may have lost a "solid birth mother", due to the fact that our attorney took a month and a half to get his part done and that was just way too long.  Therefore, we were told today, that we would need to make sure to correct this problem in the future.  When I asked if it was time for our profile to go active again, she said she would try to contact Alexis again as well as the GA attorney to see if there were any other updates.  She was hoping to call me back later today, but we didn't hear.  Thanks for continuing to pray.

Still No Response

Just wanted to quickly update you on the news from Angel Adoption that I received today.  They said that they had emailed Alexis and had not yet received a response.  They have sent her a letter in the mail to see if she will respond that way.  They hope to know more by the end of the week. 

In my heart, and through lots of tears and prayers I have been in process of saying good-bye to "our baby".  Thank you for praying!