Adoption Update: Emotional Roller Coaster

This past week or so has been interesting, to say the least. About a week and a half ago (the same day Mackenzie had her wisdom teeth removed), we heard from Special Delivery, an adoption ministry at Overlake Christian Church. They asked if we were interested in being considered as potential adoptive parents for a child due on December 7. The birth mom had a family selected for her daughter; however, the planned adoptive family withdrew from the adoption plan. Mackenzie and I talked about it, prayed, and decided to be considered as a potential adoptive couple.

The crazy part was we didn't have a profile created or our home study completed. In a matter of a few hours, we rushed to put together a profile to explain our life and family to this birth mom and hire a social worker to write our home study. We also put together a letter to the birth parents explaining who we are and why God has placed a call on our hearts to adopt.

The birth mom's case manager shared our profile and a number of other families' profiles that weekend. We got a call late that Sunday afternoon, saying she chose us and two other families to meet with on Thursday in Yakima, WA.

So on Thursday, we drove to Yakima, braving the snowy conditions, and met with the birth mom, her mom, and a woman from Special Delivery, who facilitated the conversation. Having no idea what to expect, we were thankful that the conversation flowed rather naturally. We talked about how we met, what we liked to do for fun, and our vision for parenting. The conversation lasted for about an hour. We both left feeling like it had went as well as we could have possibly wanted. In fact, the whole week had. Things just kept falling into place.

When we left Yakima on Thursday, the long (sometimes painful) process of waiting began. We continued to pray and temper our excitement that this could possibly be the child God had planned to place in our family. Our friends and family were great throughout the week. They prayed for us, brought meals over, and genuinely shared in our excitement and anticipation.

But unfortunately, I got the call yesterday afternoon letting us know that we were not chosen as the adoptive family. The birth mom's case manager shared that after we left our interview, the birth mom commented: "All the families were great. How am I supposed to decide now?!?" She ended up choosing a family that already has children and was excited for her little girl to have siblings.

We are of course very disappointed, but thankful that we were given this opportunity and were even considered. The case manager asked if she could keep our profile to share with other birth moms, and we of course said yes!

In the last week and a half, we've been praying for God's will to be done and it has...now we're praying that our response would be honoring to him. We know God has a child for us and pray for the day we welcome him or her into our family.

We are so thankful for your prayers, support, love, and encouragement over the last week. It's truly been an emotional roller coaster, but we're thankful God has put so many people in our lives who are willing to ride it with us.