Waiting and Heart Aching

Our adoption profile was approved November 2004. We had our first phone call from our caseworker in December, a baby with Downs Syndrome, a heart defect, and Gastric Intestinal problems, would we like to have our profile shown to these birthparents? It was so exciting to have that call, but we knew that it wasn't something that we could handle. Then January a baby was born in Hawaii, the birthmother wanted to look at a few profiles, could they send ours? Of course we said yes!! Well, after a few questions, we were eliminated. Every few months our caseworker would call to check in with us, see how we were, they had to do quarterly updates, but that was it. The calls stopped coming.

On January 20, 2006, I was at work and our caseworker called and said she needed to talk to Spencer and me that day, as soon as possible. I asked her if we had been chosen, she said "I can't say anything, I really need to meet with you today though." I got off work early, we set things up to all meet at Spencer's office that afternoon. We sat down in the conference room and she started out by asking how we were doing, then went on to tell us that we had been chosen by a birthmother who was due in about a week and a half. She took a paper out of her bag, the only information that she had, a data sheet of information about the birthmother and birthfather. She then informed us that the birthmother wanted to meet us the next Friday.

My head was just spinning, after all this waiting, and we had only a few days to get things ready. I went to Babies'r'Us on my way home, bought a carseat and stroller, a few clothes, diapers, wipes. I remember saying so many times "Most people have 9 months to prepare, we have 9 days, maybe, if she doesn't go into labor early." I was running around frantic all week. By the next Friday when we went to meet Brittany (the birthmother) I felt fairly prepared. I even made sure I had the carseat installed in the car and the bags in the trunk just in case she went into labor while we were down meeting her just in case.

We met Brittany and her parents at the LDS Family Services office that she was going through. Her case worker was really great at helping start conversation and keeping it going. It was hard to start a conversation with someone that you didn't know at all, really didn't know anything about and they were planning to give you the greatest gift. We were there for about 3 hours, looked at photo albums, talked about our families, our plans, then took a few pictures then we drove the 4 1/2 hours back home.

Every night I slept with my cell phone right next to the bed just in case they called during the night. My phone finally rang Wednesday morning. Brittany had given birth the night before but she was having second thoughts. Our caseworker told us to hang tight, her caseworker and her bishop were going to go over and talk to her and they would let us know what was happening. That day was one of the longest days of my life. I didn't go to work because I was just waiting for them to call and say "Okay, things are all worked out, come on down." But I knew that wasn't realistic. I knew that I needed to start planning that this wasn't going to happen. Finally that evening our case worker called back. Brittany had decided to parent rather than place. I knew by then that was going to be the outcome but it didn't make it any easier. I felt like I had failed all over again.


I made 2 phone calls, it was all I could do. I called my mom, and I called my neighbor who has taken us under her wing and has been a second family to us. The next day the phones started ringing. Everyone wanted to give us their condolances. They wanted to tell us how sorry they were, and they wanted to tell us that they loved us. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I couldn't keep talking about it. I couldn't even stand to look at the bedroom door to the nursery, let alone walk into the room and take care of things, or go out to the car and take the carseat out.


On a whim we got on a plane and left the state. We went to Texas for a week to visit where Spencer had served his mission. I know I was just avoiding things, but I needed to be able to get away from things to heal. The time with just the two of us was just what I needed. We drove down the beach for an entire day. Getting out to sit on the sand. We watched the sunset. We saw people he knew from his mission. We drove around for over an hour to find the house that Spencer lived in. We went to the San Antonio Temple, walked the river walk. I was able to realize that we had a family, even though it wasn't the family that I had dreamed of, Heavenly Father was mindful of our little family.