The End of a Chapter

Last year I remember sitting in our adoption classes thinking that the only truly terrifying scenario to me was having a child in our home only to have he/she taken because of a birth-mother's change of heart during that 72-hour "pending period". I figured I could handle anything else thrown at us aside from that. We were told that birth-mothers having a change of heart is extremely rare, and specifically once the child is in the home of adoptive parents almost never happens.

That being said, on Saturday at around 3:00pm we found ourselves on the unfortunate end of that statistic. We received word that our birth-mother had a change of heart and had concluded that the adoption plan was simply "too stressful" to continue. She had decided to parent. It was the sad end to an unthinkably emotional past 5 days for Brittany and me. We drove the child back to his social worker and made the emotional exchange with heavy hearts and teary eyes.

As she drove away with that precious child in her car, Brittany and I felt two simultaneous emotions: loss and relief. Obviously losing him was devastating, but I believe the Lord knew that we could handle no more. We were completely spent from the past week's extreme highs and lows and to go through much more would have been unbearable. It is difficult for us to understand how God's plan is for this baby boy to live with a single mother of four who is currently homeless and jobless, but our faith requires us to trust the Lord with all our heart and to learn not on our own understanding. I have been reminded of that verse time and time again over the last week.

We have an undeniable sense of peace that God is in control, and has a perfect plan for our family; and this child was a part of that plan, but ultimately he was not our son. Amidst the pain we are feeling is an excitement brewing in anticipation for God to reveal his plan for our first child. At no point in this difficult situation have we questioned our calling to adopt and I am so thankful to have a wife who is a woman of unshakable faith.

We decided to get away from our house/nursery/baby stuff for a few days and hopped on a flight to Laguna. We enjoyed our first day at the beach and look forward to continued healing as we begin to dream a new dream and envision holding the child that God has chosen for us to love.

Thanks again to all of you who have followed this chapter of our life and we look forward to sharing many tears of joy in the future with each of you! God is good!