Rollercoasters

Yesterday we were planning to take Roman to Lagoon for his birthday. He is such a little dare devil we knew he would just love it. Even though we didn't make it to Lagoon, we have definitely been on a roller coaster lately.

Almost 2 weeks ago we climbed on the roller coaster called "Adoption #2." Well, we were on it before, but the ride finally started rather than sitting in the car waiting for the ride to start. You know that feeling right as the roller coaster starts to climb, the pit of your stomach, anticipating the turns, climbs, drops, and that final HUGE hill that makes it all worth while? The one where you start to wonder if it was in your best judgment to climb on, but it's too late to get off so it's time to "Keep your hands, feet and all objects inside the ride at all times, hang on and enjoy the ride." That describes the last 2 weeks for us.

On Saturday (June 13) we received an e-mail from another amazing woman. She has been trying to decide for months what would be right for her and for her sweet baby. She didn't have much time left. She was scheduled to be induced on June 25.

We responded to her e-mail Saturday morning and over the course of the past few weeks we have had a chance to get to know her a little. She is amazing and sweet. She has a great heart. She wants to give her baby the world. She is a fabulous mother to two adorable children.

Today we climbed on an airplane. We are going to meet her for the first on Wednesday then Thursday we will be there to welcome sweet baby Tessa to the world.

I can't even express the gratitude we feel, not once, but twice now to be chosen by these amazing women. I love them both so much and can't wait to get to know this new birth mother better. I hope our next post will be to introduce the world to the newest member of our family, miss Tessa McKenzie.

There are some things that could cause some MAJOR bumps on this ride so PLEASE keep us in your prayers. We can use them all.

Expectant Mother

One year ago today I became an expectant mother. I didn't see a positive pregnancy test, I didn't have a doctor congratulate me.

I woke up early, there was really no reason, I just couldn't sleep.

It was 6:00 in the morning and I immediately checked my e-mail.

I did a triple check when it said "You have an e-card from Katie"

I was shaking and hurried to open the card.

Of course it felt like forever that the screen said loading, then this sweet music started to play and I saw little umbrella's as parachutes with gifts attached showering down the screen.
Words started to Appear

"Heard you have a bundle of Love on the way!"

My heart skipped a beat.

Another screen appeared that said "Congratulations" and told us that we were to be parents.


I read the card at least 10 times before I couldn't contain my joy any longer.

It was a Saturday and I knew that Spencer would sleep until noon if I didn't wake him.

I grabbed the laptop and ran up to our room.

Again shaking I opened the computer, woke him up, and showed him the card.

I said it before but my life has changed so much this year.

Because of a beautiful Mommy Katie, our lives are forever improved!

We love you Katie!

Found

As I said LDS family Services encourages adoptive couples to find their birthmother. In our case she found us. After that first e-mail we didn't hear back from Katie for another 2 weeks, and when we did she was going through some really hard things, but we started e-mailing. It felt like we were old friends. It was so easy to e-mail with Katie, but so scary at the same time. I told Spencer so many times that no matter what happened I wanted to support her because she was such an amazing person.

About a month later (March 30, 2007) Katie sent us the cutest e-card, I had to check the date on the calender to make sure it wasn't some cruel April Fools joke. She told us that she had been praying and she knew that he was supposed to be part of our family.

She was 28 weeks pregnant at that point, and we continuted to e-mailed regularly. I still had the fear in the back of my mind that it wasn't going to happen. I think she knew how scared I was because where we should have been the ones reassuring her that everything was going to be okay, she was reassuring us.

Katie was coming to Utah a few weeks later to see her niece be blessed, so we were able to meet her. It actually worked out perfectly. We were leaving for California (to See Spencer's family and meet up with his brother that we were going to Hawaii with) then Hawaii just 2 days after she was here, if it had been the next weekend we would have missed each other. We met at PF Chang in Provo for dinner. I was so scared what if we didn't recognize each other, what if she didn't like us? What if she decided she was wrong? Fortunately we recognized her right off, we hd no problems talking, it was like seeing an old friend. The waiter was so funny, he had no idea what he was asking when he asked if we were there for a special occasion, we said "Sort of" he asked "A birthday?" Katie said "Yes, there will be a birthday" We all laughed and he walked off a little confused. We sat and talked and showed each other pictures and laughed, and just had such a fun, easy time. We went outside after we were done eating dinner so that we could visit a little more and who should walk past but Katie's Dad, Step-mom, Brother, and Grandma. So we were able to meet them and Katie's dad took a picture of the three of us together. (Well 4 if you count the bump.)

We decided that we were going to be a little mean when we told our families that we were expecting a baby again. We waited until we were getting on the plane to go to California and just as we were boarding the plane we sent out a mass text message to all of Spencer's family with an ultrasound picture and it said under the bottom "It's a boy." We didn't even get a chance to turn off our cell phones before they started ringing. We got on the plane and had so many missed calls and text messages when we finally got to California.

The 3 months from when we found out that she had chosen us until he was born was so scary. I was constantly worried that we were going to get to the end again and have her decide that she just couldn't do it. (I wouldn't blame her either, he is one adorable little boy.)

June finally came and Katie had things set up for a scheduled induction, she was going to be induced on June 25 (Which was a Monday), but didn't make it, she called 5 days earlier to say her water had broken. She lived a state away, Spencer and I were both at work, we didn't have bags packed, heck I didn't even have a car at work. I had carpooled to work that day, thankfully my friend Ilein had just happened to stop by the office to drop off a baby gift. She was also pregnant, due the same day. She was nice enough to take me home, I was on the phone the entire time. We somehow made it home, packed bags, tickets, hotel, rental car booked, and to the airport in about 2 1/2 hours. We were to the hospital 800 someodd miles away within about 5 1/2 hours from the time we got the call that her water had broken, and I was able to be in the room when Roman was born.

Waiting Continued

After the trip to Texas I wanted to get things going full swing again. We came home, I called the caseworker and told her we wanted our profile reactived and I wanted to get things going. The best thing that came from the failed adoption is it gave us the opportunity to start talking to people about our plans to adopt. It really gave us the chance to open up.

It took over a month for our profile to be reactivated, and I was so discouraged to learn that our profile had lost "seniority." Basically what happens is this, a birthmother will say what she is looking for, the caseworker will go through their "book" of profiles and find the first 10 that match her criteria, give those to her, then if she doesn't find a match in those 10 they will give 10 more. We went all the way to the back of the book again, and on the website we were clear at the bottom.

I wasn't even sure I wanted to adopt still to be completely honest. I knew that my body probably couldn't support a healthy pregnancy, but I wanted to be a mother SO badly, and I didn't know if I could take the heartache of another failed adoption. So I went back to my doctor and started fertility treatments again. We did this for 8 months, nothing. Finally we were back to the point that our last option was Invetro again and decided that we would wait until after Spencer changed jobs in May because his new job would cover fertility treatments, and we were draining our adoption funds trying something that obviously wasn't working.

By January I just couldn't take the waiting with no results any longer and I started calling adoption agencies to see what other agencies there were that were under $15,000. I found 3 and had them all send me their initial paperwork and what we would need to do to activate our profile with them as well. In just over a month I had filled out paperwork for all 3 agencies and was ready to send. Then, out of the blue, I had a birthmother that e-mailed me, she had seen that we were trying to adopt, and she wanted to see our profile. I didn't know what it was, but I decided to hold off on sending out the applications.

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.